Steaming hot off the press: a Roy Morgan phone poll of 435 voters conducted last night (that’s a couple of hours ago at the time of writing), covering the Perth marginals Brand, Cowan, Hasluck, Stirling and Swan. The result of 50.5-49.5 in favour of the Liberals points to a tiny swing in their favour of 0.8 per cent. To allow direct comparison with Morgan’s national poll of marginals on the weekend, a result for Stirling and Hasluck has been hived off from the other three. It shows that the respondents surveyed in these seats generated the overall swing to the Liberals, with the others moving slightly to Labor. For what it’s worth, the Stirling and Hasluck result was replicated in the similarly small sample survey on the weekend.
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Morgan: Liberal swing in Perth marginals
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584 Comments
At this stage, I’m going to feel content to wait for judgment day.
William, any comment?
“How the West was won”
Hmm, I wonder if the Hasluck result is due to the Front Page of yesterday’s West,which had a story on the CFMEU requesting access to the BGC Brickworks site to “poach workers” ?
So (and correct me if I’m wrong) – that would deliver Swan and Cowan, meaning Labor needed 18 to get over the line, or around 52%. Looks doable.
Yet, one would not gain the same impression, listening to the ABC’s Bush Telegraph.
Tuesday, and over time.
Qualitative chats with informed observers and locals.
#4: Unless you take seriously the Stirling/Hasluck versus Brand/Swan/Cowan breakdown, which points to a Labor swing in the latter three.
Yeah, a slightly larger sample than Westpoll – take it with a Mine of salt
Hmm so why the insider talk about Hasluck being in the bag..
8 Mad Cow
Because people are getting way too far ahead of themselves
MOE on each seat is around 11%, and on sample as a whole is 4.5%. No real major conclusions to be made.
Frank: Yeah, with a MoE of about 4.7%, there isn’t enough salt in the world. Despite seas full of it covering 2/3 of the earth’s surface.
Unless some serious polling gets done here we’ll just have to wait for Saturday.
Just heard a repeat on news, of Barnaby Choice, about the Messiah Rudd.
Same how droll, as this poll.
Off topic, but I’m curious…
The Hun has this story on the Lib legal attempt to nobble the ALP candidates…
http://www.news.com.au/heraldsun/story/0,21985,22794368-661,00.html
It says in part: “The Herald Sun confirmed the Liberal Party claims were the result of website searches and didn’t involve checks with any of the government authorities. ”
The ABC (http://www.abc.net.au/news/stories/2007/11/20/2096105.htm) earlier had this:
“The Liberal Party has released legal advice showing 13 Labor candidates are potentially ineligible to stand for election.”
So who was the lawyer, and what was the legal firm, that issued advice under his/her/its name, that was based on an apparent misreading of some old websites? What is that firm’s advice worth now?
re Front Page of Tuesday’s West re Hasluck, here is Alston’s cartoon on the subject.
http://www.thewest.com.au/getfile.aspx?Type=image&ID=128324&ObjectType=3&ObjectID=89520
It’s this mob
http://www.abc.net.au/tv/welcher/default.htm
If WA marginals such as Stirling allow the Libs to get over the line, in the face of a significant swing everywhere else, the only democratic solution would be for WA to secede from the federation. Let the West Australians have Liberal rule if they wish. We’ll even throw in a free Ben Cousins if you still want him.
Frank@14 No, it’s just Andrew Robb, who used to run the Libs’ election campaigns, getting frustrated about the incompetence of the current management.
Andrew Robb, BTW, is in Goldstein, which is not invulnerable. He’s also the genius who made sure that the term ‘multicultural’ was deleted from the website of what used to be called the Department of Immigration and Multicultural Affairs. Oh, and he devised the Citizensh*t Test (In what year was Phar Lap born?)
I can only take a deep, deep satisfaction from the knowledge that if the sea level rises, people like him will be the first to go.
Mumble Predicts 30 seat Landslide to Labor.
http://www.abc.net.au/newsradio/audio/mp3/20071120-landslide.mp3
It’s just the inexperienced (incompetent) ABC journalists again, as so often in the past, indulging in sloppy journalism. They take a handout from a political party (in this case from Andrew Robb) and treat it as fact without any research. But it cuts both ways.
Write your story. Job done!
Seen it time and time again. Pathetic.
Quoting from the Morgan site:
“The Greens vote of 9.5% is particularly high — using past elections as a guide, this Greens vote will most likely come down on election day. Preferences of Greens voters went 68% ALP, 32% Liberal.”
In these five key WA seats, Liberal primary support is 44%, ALP 42.5%, Greens 9.5%, One Nation 1% and Independent/Others 3%.
Unclear to me how the Green preference distribution was determined but 68/32 seems unlikely to me. Giving the Greens a more logical 80/20 and the ‘others’ 25/75 it seems more like 51/49 to ALP.
Is there something odd about Green voters in WA that 32% of them would preference the Libs?
Oh well, only a few more days to go now to find out what all these polls mean. I still think WA is, at best, no seats lost for the ALP.
The Happy Revolutionary@15 – what a great idea! Maybe Tasmania could be thrown in as well in a Gaza/West Bank type scenario? (although it must be said that except for the Mersey business, our souhern cousins have managed not to cock up too badly this time around).
Doesn’t Morgan have the resources for a decent sample size?
For what it’s worth, I think the ALP will only win one seat in WA – Hasluck
16 Jenny,
I can only take a deep, deep satisfaction from the knowledge that if the sea level rises, people like him will be the first to go.
lol
Perhaps we can start lining them up on the beach now, Ratty, Smirk, Dolly, Toad etc
Looks like its all over – oh well.
Looking at the numbers the Lib marginals have swung to Coalition by 4.1% since 2004 whilst the ALP marginals have swung to ALP by 1.6% since 2004. On that basis, nothing will change – neither Coalition or ALP will gain seats from each other. Which means it comes down to the eastern states – doh!
maybe i’m scarred by the failure of too many dashed false hopes that the australian public might be tempted by something higher than $500 in the back pocket on election eve, but it amazes me to read the calm ease with which you all seem to assume the vicious runt will not be voted back in as the emblem and soul of those he represents.
these wa figures are the miracle. the worst human being to ever hold the highest office in the land will walk away in 6 years time as its greatest ever prime minister.
just think. workchoices 2, 3 and beyond. the end of land rights. a slave class of imported labour. no action on the environment. increasing homelessness. hospitalization of the elderly. criminalization of the insane. the worst overseas aid record in the developed world. institutionalized xenophobia. more kow-towing to the usa. it’s just the beginning.
a sad indictment of this vermin infested hole of a country.
nice scenery but. shame about the people.
Surely the inclusion of Brand (held by ALP with a margin of 4.7%) skews the result heavily towards the ALP.
I had previosly discounted Morgan’s wacky state by state figure last week, but maybe I need to re-visit.
This is a welcome surprise
This is clear evidence that the WA marginals are going to record a zero or slight swing to Libs; this is in line with other polling by Westpoll, Galaxy, etc. Yet despite that, there seems to be an overall swing to Labor of around 4% in the West. It may be that the Libs will do well in the marginals, but lose safer seats, such as Canning, which was blown out too much at the last election.
From a Labor point of view, we’ve got to have this won before the West starts counting. The good news is that a swing to Libs in the West means there’ll be a greater swing to Labor in the other states. In the Morgan marginals poll on Sun, if you exclude the 2 West marginals, the overall swing to Labor in all other states’ marginals would be around 8.5%, in very good agreement with Newspoll’s marginal survey, and symptomatic of a crushing landslide in the Eastern states.
Supposedly, Brand is more marginal than the current margin suggests. Beazley retiring may have something to do with it.
The only seats I’m going to count on from WA are Perth and Fremantle, so hopefully Labor will get 78 from everywhere else.
Just for info
Courier mail online poll results so far:
Who will you vote for on November 24?
Labor
32% (6778 votes)
Liberal
58% (12263 votes)
National
3% (636 votes)
Greens
3% (799 votes)
Democrats
0% (72 votes)
Independent
0% (120 votes)
Other minor party
0% (97 votes)
Undecided
1% (298 votes)
Sum votes:
Total votes: 21063 votes so far
Labor doesn’t need WA thank God. Seems like they are on another planet over there. I am sure the swing to Labor will come, but in about 3 elections time.
WA would only matter in a close election, which judging by the polling in the rest of the country, this will not be.
Still, I agree, we can’t be conclusive about any of this anyway. I think polls have done their work for this election – it’s time to wait patiently for the real poll.
Calm down children. The election will be declared well before WA stops voting, let alone the votes there are counted.
Those with long memories will recall that Whitlam won in ‘72 while still losing two seats in the west, Forrest and Stirling. And that election was much closer than this one will be.
On this occasion Labor will hold its seats and win Hasluck.
Bilko – Looks rooly trooly scientifik!
BTW Anyone else having trouble accessing the ABC
For you Centaur, myself, and any others who are interested. Astrological transit analysis for Howard and Rudd for the period 2 days either side of election day – a 5 day period TH to MO. I have calculated what they are and summarized explanations of them from the book “Planets In Transit” by Robert Hand. Therefore, these are NOT my words, they are Robert Hand’s words
*****
Howard:
“This is a good time to make an impression upon someone, if you need to, but do not use this energy for ruthless or selfish purposes. If you do, you will set into action powerful and hard-to-resist forces that will try to drag you down. Examine matters that have not worked out so well and perhaps cut your losses and prepare for a new start. If you haven’t taken a new tack, don’t waste time with regrets but put all your energies into clearing up the remains and salvaging what you can. This is not a very good day for performing any task that requires great clarity and attention to precise detail. You will not feel like doing it, and if you do, it will not turn out very well. At its worst, this transit will make you feel scattered , undisciplined and nervous. Do not attempt tasks that require great discipline today because you won’t be able to maintain it. You will become restless and start making mistakes.”
Rudd:
“You will be able to work very effectively with others right now, and your goals and objectives will harmonize wth those of the people you associate with. Examine how far you have gotten in realizing the goals that you have set for yourself this year. This is an excellent time to accomplish all kinds of work. Your energy is high and you have faith in your ability to achieve. This influence is extremely favorable for all kinds of physical activity. You are able to work well with others now too, because your ego energies are well balanced. You may unknowingly create for yourself an opportunity to take control or authority over others, to be a leader. You will derive satisfation from those aspects of yourself that prove themselves by being challanged today. These are the parts of your life that you are handling well; they will be a source of strength in the future. This is an excellent transit for all kinds of mental work, especially if you have to plan a future course of action with decisiveness and firmness. You will be in a positive mood and have great confidence in your position, which will enable you to make a positive impression and probably convince people of your point of view.”
Rgee
agreed most online polls have the same smell, all you need is whatever party faithfull available is to keep voting like the old adage vote early and often
Julie, that’s gold.
Almost cheered me up about losing the WA seats. Not quite though.
What are they smoking over there in Wah?
My handy MoE calculator tells me that the MoE on a sample of 435 is 4.7%.
Like Seajay, I am also somewhat surprised by a preference flow of 68-32 from Greens to ALP. If you allow a flow of 75:25 from Greens to ALP/Lib, a flow of 80:20 in favour of the Libs from One Nation, and 50:50 for the ‘other’ vote you get ALP/Lib 2PP of 51.3:48.7.
Preferences may or may not flow in particular ways but like the Advertiser’s Boothby poll this Morgan one doesn’t seem terrific.
muk0le – in moments of despondency look at Possum’s regressions. They are the tonic for whatever ails you!
Robb now says a hung parliament
“Coalition minister Andrew Robb is predicting there could be a hung parliament after Saturday’s election.”
Julie – the planets are clearly in alignment (or whatever!). Well done!
Am looking up my ancient history books this morning to see whether any (non-violent) Roman divination methods might be available to supplement the Morgan analysis.
Hung out to dry
Robb now says a hung parliament
“Coalition minister Andrew Robb is predicting there could be a hung parliament after Saturday’s election.”
http://www.abc.net.au/news/stories/2007/11/21/2096466.htm
Without wishing to be gratuitously insulting, Robb is a tool, par excellence.
Well if we don’t win Stirling and Hasluck there will be a bitter taste in my celebratory drinks … of course if we don’t win at all there will be a many more bitter drinks … so for my health vote for labor in Hasluck and Stirling …
Prediction: Liberal hold Stirling and Hasluck, Labor to lose Cowan but gain ground in Canning.
jasmine, prepare your drinks, I think there’s next to no chance of Labor winning both Stirling and Hasluck.
And I am starting to get a little annoyed by the regurgitation of press statements which passes for news at the ABC these days. Who gives a rat’s bottom what Robb thinks about anything? The retailing of that nonsense about ALP candidates being ineligible was simply nonsensical – backed up by nothing more substantial than something along the lines of ‘if my grandmother had had b*lls he’d be my grandma’. After that, he deserves to be treated with contempt.
Oh well, three more sleeps.
Yes LTEP Glen has been saying that all year. I can think of no factor that would make that a reasonable outcome, and all the results I think, bar one Westpoll have been margin of error. I understand Adam and others two swings; and I understand that the mortgage belt may well be more conservative and reluctant for change.
Stirling I’ve always said should be demographically harder but the liberal member is just a pathetic joke and Peter such an excellent candidate; but Adam will say that is a nothing.
Oh well still think the more likely outcome based on all the WA breakdowns is Labor taking both – you are still suggesting a worse result under Rudd than under Latham, if that is the case then there is something very very very wrong with the Latham analysis – at least as it pertains to WA.
If at first you don’t secede try try again.
jasmine, for what it’s worth I’d completely ignore the Westpoll results taken in the seats. Westpoll, on average, overestimated the Coalition’s 2PP by over 6% in seat-by-seat polling in the 2005 state election.
I think it’ll be close in Cowan and Swan and they could just hang on. However, I think Stirling is an extremely unlikely gain for the ALP. I’m not completely counting out Hasluck… but on the basis of all the polling I don’t think they’re going to make it. My sister’s boyfriend believes Labor will win Hasluck (he’s a Hasluck voter) and my sister will be voting for Liz Prime (Cowan) but I think if Labor can’t woo back votes in their heartland (Girrawheen and surrounds) they’ll be in trouble.
That WA size sample is laughable.
Also hope everyones had their breakfast, Costello is putting on a tough guy act on 3LO. Something he didnt ever manage to do to the mental octogenarian and physical centarian above him.
Yeah, big tough guy.
Julia G is late, but she’s coming on!!!!!
There is no evidence Cowan and Swan wouldn’t be close they are tight marginal seats but the key State wide voting intention shows they are easy retains. There is no explanation in WA for any swing against Labor.
The WA loves work choices is an insane argument, although having gone into and out of Courts WPA’s and then back into a reasonable system with Gallop all during a mining boom that has gone on paying no attention to industrial relations at all might make some WA voters underestimate the evil danger of Worstchoices. But at best that should be a neutral.
Only the interest rate fear campaign biting again would make any sense, and Hasluck and Stirling voters surely aren’t stupid enough to fall for Howard’s transparent lie a second time.
Good analysis on the preference flows.
WA will get the smallest state swing in Aus, but even that’s going to a good size.
In the washup WA doesn’t matter (electorally, in terms of seats, culturally, in any way you would care to name). Get over it.
Julia’s arrived to applause just bitch slapped John Faine when he complained about her being late – she did a Cassidy.
She WILL be PM.
Enjoy.
Faine just said ‘you’ve both (Gillard and Costello) got one thing in common you both want John Howard to lose his seat on Saturday.’ (boom boom)
Gillard just pulled up another of Costello’s LIES.
Costello is quite tetchy – he has to go.
Costello just said Abbots statement on 30B$ reserve was ‘innaccurate’.
Very similar to the Galaxy poll last week. For the optimists:
It’s still a line ball just after the PM fired all his promises in Perth the day before. The preference allocations are the same as 2004 and give only 68% of the Greens to the ALP. A 80% flow gives Labor another 1%.
It’s a phone poll.
If you’re on an AWA you were probably doing unpaid overtime when the poll was conducted.
Back to the entrails! ‘Labor View from Broome’
So jasmine, in other words you’re saying the polls are wrong? Or you’re just cherry-picking polling that looks good for Labor and ignoring anything which suggests they are not going to win Stirling and Hasluck? I mean, we’ll see in the end. I think it’s far more likely Labor will hold Cowan, Swan and Brand than they will win Stirling and Hasluck.
In other news… interesting exerts from an article by Alan Ramsey in the lead-up to the ‘93 election.
“Keating’s campaign has been hit and miss – mostly miss. There’s been a lack of planning and professionalism completely alien to Labor’s winning campaigns of the last 10 years. Keating has been doing it his way.
And his way has looked real seat-of-the-pants stuff that has stuttered along, fuelled mainly by a seemingly bottomless bag of money for various interest groups and an undisciplined personal performance that has rarely looked better than lack-lustre and often downright gauche.”
“Hewson doesn’t like scrutiny.
Scrutiny means political risk. Scrutiny means being forced from the general into the specific. Scrutiny means detail. Scrutiny means, inevitably, mistakes. Thus the whole of Hewson’s campaign, from the manipulative muck of his formal launch to the programmed generalities of his day-to-day rhetoric, has been all about distancing him and his policies from scrutiny.”
“The new dawn is near upon us.
Keating’s campaign is again relegated to the background. The press is having an orgasm. Liberal Party headquarters is back in control. Their man is on a roll again, the GST notwithstanding.
And, despite the polls, I have no doubt Hewson has only to keep his head to win comfortably. Whatever ground it makes up elsewhere, Labor is going to lose the election in Queensland, South Australia and over in Perth. Ten years and a million unemployed are insurmountable.
I don’t believe it will be close at all.”
Very interesting to draw parralels with the ‘07 campaign.
Not sure if someone posted this in another thread, but there’s an interesting 10 minute interview (streaming) with Graham Richardson from NightLine last night here:
http://news.ninemsn.com.au/article.aspx?id=327119
He’s predicting a Labor win with 20 seats, and Howard to lose Bennelong. Richo has apparently picked every election result in the past 30 years, so he’s worth listening to.
Welll three more sleep and we find out. I’ve given up trying to draw conclusions from these small sample marginal polls.
Given this is from the same bunch of clowns who told us two weeks ago the aggregate 2pp was 68/32 – I’m prepared to ignore both polls and take a bead of the larger sample polls.
Have said that can I order a 53/47 2pp aggregate poll with a vodka chaser to settle the nerves.
I got a pre-recorded call from Howard yesterday. I don’t think calling people with a recorded message at 8pm is going to win any votes whatsoever. Living in the Petrie electorate, I think Gambaro might be in real trouble.
LETP – that was Alan Ramsey. Not the most renowned of forecasters.
The 2PP in WA at the last election was 55/45 was it not?
For there to be any pick up of seats for the Liberals in WA they would basically have to improve on this – which means them getting 56/44 or 57/43, even though the national 2PP will be the opposite.
And all of this in spite of there being no Latham, in spite of the interest rate fear campaign having lost its bite, in spite of Workchoices and in spite of an overall national swing in the other direction?
We need to cast the West adrift if they are going to swing in the other direction…
Julie @ 36
I’m prepared to temporarily suspend my complete disbelief in these dark arts to embrace these predictions. Every bit helps.
ND, that’s not necessarily true. It’s possible to have swings away in a state and gain seats. For instance the Libs could just fall over the line in Swan and Labor could make up ground in Canning, Kalgoorlie, Forrest, Moore etc. which would show a swing to Labor in the 2PP and a seat gain by the Libs. Personally I think that’s what’s going to happen.
I agree, CL @ 58. After Ramsay’s woeful efforts at predicting the outcome of last election, I worry that his over-the-top confidence of forthcoming Labor victory is a kiss of death.
LTEP
“Their man is on a roll again, the GST notwithstanding.”
There’s no GST equivalent in this election, a HUGE difference.
Graham Richardson says Labor will win 20 seats including Bennelong.
20 seats is less than most professional commentators are saying, quite a bit less in some cases, but I’ll take it.
In fact, I’d rather win 20 and have Howard lose his seat than win 25 and have Howard retain his.
Defeating a PM in his own seat would be an absoltely earth-shattering event. John Howard, the electoral genius, leading his party not just to devastating defeat but losing his own seat in the process. The Liberal Party will eat its own face over this.
FWIW, the betting markets have Labor strong favourites to retain their own seats and win Hasluck, but the Liberals winning Stirling. Sounds about right.
My old mate is spot on the money as usual, amazing considering the company he keeps
Julie @ 36. Pure gold. You put the sooth back into soothsayer.
Loved this bit for Old Grumps: “Examine matters that have not worked out so well and perhaps cut your losses and prepare for a new start.”
Lord Warden of the Cinque Ports, here he comes!
BTW, Jonathan Cainer in the Daily Mail over here said Howard was a goner a few weeks ago. Was referring to some comet that’s out and about and said something along the lines of – ’some have said this could mean good news for Hillary Clinton (and named some others I don’t remember). Some say that it means the Aus Prime Minister John Howard might lose his election. Probably both.”
Being a hardened cynic, I laughed at the time. But like Jude @ 60 (named after the patron saint of hopeless causes, perhaps?) I’ve become a believer.
Gerr #52
That’s fine – I presume that our revenue also doesn’t matter?
ND #61
Cast us adrift, please – we WANT to go, but can’t get the rest of you to agree! BTW, if you lose us, you lose our revenues propping up the rest of the country. Your economic figures start to stink without us. Without Qld also, they completely stink. Good luck – we’ll be enjoying out boom economy without sending taxes to Canberra, thanks!
Ashley @ 55 – yeah I remember one election Kroger was sitting there sayingt he libs scutineers were recording good swings in whatever seat it was, Richo just sat there and said “yeah, we’re calling that – and we’ve increased our margin to boot”.
The ALP machine was just that much better than the libs back then (’twas a while ago now, can’t recall which election).
I don’t know LTEP, that is a pretty specific scenario and really only one for the pessimists. If we assume some sort of swing away from the government overall in WA and if the marginals all swing to the Government then this would mean that Labor must be in with half a chance in one the WA seats with a bigger margin.
I would suggest that if seats are dropping like flies in the east Labor will most likey gain in WA too. Thats was happened for the Liberals in ‘04
LTEP: the eternal wet blanket!
I hope Kroger is on the telly on election night. He’ll be like Monty Python’s Black Knight, watching the seats fall one after another, plaintively insisting “it’s only a flesh wound”.
It doesn’t mean that at all. In the 1987 election there was a national swing of close to 1% away from Labor and they picked up a net of 4 seats.
Similarly, it’s quite plausible that Labor could record a swing of 1-2% to them in WA and still lose a seat or two, particularly given the inflated margins of some of the other seats from the last election, for instance Canning.
Has anyone ever done a study on the effect on WA voters late in the day and whether they are influenced by incoming news from the Eastern states?
It would be incredibly hard to do as I imagine a lot of people would tell the pollsters to just get nicked (would have to be an exit poll I presume) but I wonder if people see which way things are going back east and some either go that way, or do the opposite to be contrary.
58 – Has Ramsay ever correctly predicted an election outcome?
I love his articles – he’s the only reason I buy the Sydney Morning Herald on Saturdays – but I don’t go to him for dispassionate analysis.
Of course, the biggest difference between 1993 and now is the polls. Ramsay’s prediction then was in defiance of the polls. But polls can be wrong.
1987 isn’t really a good example though, there was a split in the Coalition which was more apparant in the areas of the country where the ALP picked up seats.
What was the state level 2pp vote at the 2004 election.
At the monent ALP hold 1/3 of the seats. To go backwards from there seems like the Libs are getting very good value for their votes.
Jude @ 62: sometimes, having regard to the distribution of chance events, even Alan Ramsey can be right. Or, tp put it another way – a broken clock is right twice a day.
VoterBoy: I think the Cinque Ports might demand a recount if they ended up with Howard.
What is this claim that Green preference flows are assumed be as they
were in 2004?
In 2004 in Stirling the flow was over 80% of Green votes to ALP.
http://results.aec.gov.au/12246/results/HouseDivisionTcpFlow-12246-246.htm
72 Spiros
Facing off against Richardson perhaps, quoting the dead parrot sketch.
‘E’s not pinin’! ‘E’s passed on! This government is no more! He has ceased to be! ‘E’s expired and gone to meet ‘is maker! ‘E’s a stiff! Bereft of life, ‘e rests in peace! If you hadn’t nailed ‘im to the electorate ‘e’d be pushing up the daisies! ‘Is metabolic processes are now ‘istory! ‘E’s off the twig! ‘E’s kicked the bucket, ‘e’s shuffled off ‘is mortal coil, run down the curtain and joined the bleedin’ choir invisibile!! THIS IS AN EX-GOVERNMENT!!
27 Mr Squiggle – a clear case of denigrating a polling company when it goes against you but giving it credence when it is for you. How gullible can you get?
ND @ 76 : Is that due to the infamous Joh for PM campaign? If it wasn’t for some young Nat on his jury, the old man would have spent the rest of his life behind bars. Thank god people saw through the crap about Joh for PM campaign.
It’s funny how the end of this election campaign is turning into a bit of a fizzer. In 2004 it was ‘all happening’ in the last week. In 2007 it seems that everyone is sitting around going, ‘come on, let’s vote already!’.
Is it just me, or is this final week noticeably less interesting than in previous elections?
Needless to say ND, it still shows wierd results are possible. I’m not in the group of people that believe that just because there may be a swing of a percent or two to Labor on a statewide level that means they will pick up seats with margins of less than one or two percent, or that they will win seats on larger margins. It doesn’t necessarily hold true.
I agree Ashley – I think it’s because the campaign started about 10 months ago.
I’ve heard form a few sources that the pre-polls are way higher this time around too.
Michael @ 75, CL @ 78
In hindsight I realised I was reading Ramsay because he was telling me what I wanted to believe, but I haven’t forgiven him for dashing my hopes in 2004, with his echoing refrain of “Believe it!” I did. He was wrong. So I take his assertions with lumps of salt. Some consolation though in getting to read the PM being called a grub, toad and the like, all in the pages of one of our most “respected” broadsheets.
RA, how much higher? High enough to hold off the calling of seats?
mukOle (26) Settle down and relax. The vile little runt is finished. You can look forward to a very good weekend.
Dr Good – I used the Morgan primaries at post 39 above to get a 2PP of 51.3-48.7 LP/Lib. But if you use the Stirling preferences reported at the AEC site you refer to, the 2PP comes out at 52:48 ALP:Lib (i.e., Greens go 80:20, One Nation goes 45:55, others go 50:50)
83 Ashley
It’s not just you. Kevin’s playing it safe and his stop spending pitch last week put a stop to any significant new policy announcements. It’s also been going on for so long that we seem to be recycling issues that have already been aired 100 times before. So we end up endlessly analysing the polls.
LTEP, for the 57,698th time, this “which seats the swing happens in” stuff only matters if the overall vote is very close.
Here are the post war elections where the party who got the minority of the TPP won the election
Year winning party % TPP
1998 Coalition 49.02
1990 Labor 49.90
1969 Coalition 49.80
1961 Coalition 49.50
1954 Coalition 49.30
Notice the pattern? In every instance, winning partygot pver 49% of the national vote.
In 2007, the opinion polls all year have the coalition sitting at 45% of the vote; 46% of the vote at best.
We’re three days from the election and they are still there.
Let’s assume a late swing towards the coalition (though there’s no reason to think it will happen) and they get 47% or even 48% of the vote. It still won’t be enough.
So why are so many people saying that Labor needs 52% of the TPP to win the election? Because the pendulum based on the last election says that if the swing is uniform, then Labor needs that much of the 2PP to win enough seats.
But the swing is never, ever uniform. Never. Some seats swing more than others, sometimes much more. The insurance for the party getting the swing ias that if its overall vote is big enough, it will win anyway.
Will, indeed it was… There were numerous 3 cornered contests, especially in QLD and and it gave the ALP the chance to hammer the Tories for disunity, hence the ALP picked up 4 seats there. The overall swing was against the ALP though.
Spiros, I’m not talking about the overall result. I’m talking about the WA result. People are suggesting it wouldn’t be possible for Labor to get a swing to them in WA overall and lose seats. Of course it’s possible.
On an individual seat basis it might just be a changing demographic. For instance, in Cowan the new development and influx of ‘aspirationals’ in areas such as Darch. I’m not really familiar with Swan so I can’t say… but I’ve heard rumblings for a while now on Brand.
Now, I don’t believe individual seat characterisitics influence much of the vote… but when there’s very little swing I think they do. I’m not sure there will be much swing at all in WA. I think maybe 2% to the ALP.
Just thought I would pass on that the Navy is taking 16 ‘illegal immigrants’ to Christmas Island after intercepting them a little time ago.
Lead item on ABC news at 10 – the closer we get the more paranoid I am
I think I’m going to go crazy in the next 3 days, I just want it over!…..this morning driving to work I listened to Costello and Gillard on abc radio, I actually had to switch off because I felt like my head would explode, and people were giving me funny looks b/c I was yelling in my car at the radio….Costello is the is undignified, so stupid, so annoying , so un-statesmanlike………its not even about liberal vs. labor ideologies for me anymore, not that I even know what the liberals stand for, but it would be ok for me if I could just disagree on their love for free-market economics etc….but its just the completely and absolute disgrace that party is, the are an embarrassment in so many ways with NOTHING to offer at all……..
Spiros.
Good point. I’ve thought for some time this assumption that Labor needs 52% is pure fallacy. Using the same argument you could make an equal case that the Libs need 52% of the 2PP to win, why does it have to be Labor climbing the mountain? This all harks back to the Beazley election which has all and sundry assuming the Libs will always do better in the marginals and therefore need less of the 2PP. It’s complete nonsensicle crap.
No hard figures, but I believe there are approximately three times the number of pre-polls this election compared to last.
88 Darn,
I wish I would be so calm. This poll (albeit from Morgan) holds the door open for the rodent to survive. The scenario I worry about is
NSW & QLD 10 seats
SA, TAS – 5 seats
NT, Vic, Act – 0 seats
WA – -1 seat
Net gain of 14 seats
I don’t think its the most likely outcome but I do think it is possible.
Spiros,
I think Labor needs 52% to win. However as not one poll all year has been less than 53% it is an irrelevancy, Labor will win.
Whilst there is an outside chance scenario for Howard (ie win 1 in WA, Lose 3 SA, Lose 2 Tas, Lose 1 NT, None in Vic and keep it down to 4 or 5 in each of Vic and NSW) its just too difficult for him to do, everything has to “break right” and most of the undecideds come back to him. Thats realistically maybe a 15-20% prospect.
If Howard did pull it off it truly would make him the ultimate dark Sith Lord of Australian Politics and put Menzies well and truly in the shade.
At best a narrow loss is the most realistic “hope” for Howard. It will be a “conditional” win with everything to play for in 2010.
Kat @ 95 breathe in, hold to the count of 5, breathe out, hold 5. repeat till Saturday night.
I agree with ESJ. For Howard to win from here it will rely on one or two of the following:
1) Everything will need to go just right for him (eg. luck, seats not changing on the basis of small numbers of votes)
2) The polls are just wrong.
Albert F, Labor will form government if they win 14 seats. Mark my words.
However, whether they will win 10 seats in Qld/NSW is anyone’s guess.
Can someone tell me,
Have the independents stated that they will support whoever wins the national 2PP?
If they have then even a hung parliament situation is no good for Howard as no one is suggesting they will get more than 50% 2PP, all the talk is about the Tories hanging on with 48-49%
It also means that the required number of seats for Labor drops from 16 to 14 (60 + 14 + 2 = 76 = Majority).
I believe at least one as said they will support the party which recieives the greater number of votes – i.e. the ALP.
So that is the highest number of raw primaries is it? That could actually end up being quite close…
ESJ — a 15-20% chance is being overly generous I think. I would give them less than 5%. The theory that the polls are just a protest vote has no historical basis whatsoever. In every election where the polls have “got it wrong” in the last week, the volatility and trend of the polls was apparent a long time before. In 2007, as you know, the trend is more or less flat. The last election where you can find a similar monotonous landslide indication in the polls is 1996, and we all know how right the polls were that time.
Windsor has hinted at support for the party with the greatest vote, Katter has waffled on about ethanol. He would support the Libs if he could get away with it without annoying too many people. However, this is a needless hypothetical to be examining. It aint gonna be close.
ND, Windsor has said he will support whoever gets the most seats, and if its an equal number of seats, the most votes. If Brunning wins Forrest then Labor will have 1 more seat than the Coalition and will get Windsor’s support automatically. If not, they should get over 50% of the 2PP and still gain it.
This leaves Katter. Katter has said he will support whoever proposes a mandate ethanol target in petrol (I think). In reality both parties will offer this. However, given that Windsor will support the ALP, Katter will either have to do the same or force the country back to an election. I’d assume he’d want to avoid that arising, and the ethanol target will give him an easy out on this issue.
To me, this means as long as Labor wins 14 seats they should be fine.
For those who haven’t yet seen it, Adam Carr has a confident-sounding article entitled “Five reasons why the Coalition will lose” which I found quite calming. It’s at:
http://psephos.adam-carr.net/countries/a/australia/commentary4.shtml
And at least while you’re reading you’re probably not hyper-ventilating.
‘So jasmine, in other words you’re saying the polls are wrong? Or you’re just cherry-picking polling that looks good for Labor and ignoring anything which suggests they are not going to win Stirling and Hasluck? I mean, we’ll see in the end. I think it’s far more likely Labor will hold Cowan, Swan and Brand than they will win Stirling and Hasluck.’
No LTEP I am not saying the polls are wrong but correct me if I am wrong but all the marginal seat polls give a margin of error quite sufficient for Hasluck and Stirling to be won, and on the night. It is of course possible they will be lost and I respect your right to find pain, misery and no hope at all in the very best and most promising circumstances. Masochism I think it is called, the inflicting of pain on oneself for political fulfillment.
Anyhoo we will see on the night. My point about factors is looking for any sensible explanation for a swing against labor if indeed on occurs on the night. Even you in the depths of self imposed misery in the sea of hope haven’t provided even a speculative narative for why Rudd would do worse than Latham.
Right, I read somewhere that Bob Katter’s father was an old Socialist.
Ashley,
Politics is an uncertain business. Put it this way if you had a life threatening illness and the doctors told you had a 5% chance of survival you would be drawing up the will and “getting your affairs in order”, if you had a 15-20% chance you would be hanging on in the hope something turned up/ went right.
I’d say the Liberals are in the later category, but the ultimate outcome still looks pretty clear.
For anyone without access to the SMH, this beuty was published by Annabel Crabb this morning:
Oh voters; if you really care
Elect a man who won’t be there!
Vote for him on Saturday
It’s guaranteed he’ll go away.
Jude,
You know that Adam posted the 10 reasons Latham will win in 2004 dont you?
ESJ
I suspect he wasn’t the only Labor supporter tipping a big win in 04, and the margin then was a lot smaller, they only needed a national swing of 2% or so.
In any case, the polls have a look about them this time that they didn’t have in 04…
jasmine I don’t really look at the margins of error because then you can bend results to say what you want them to say. None of the polling companies that have polled WA have picked up numbers to suggest Stirling and Hasluck will be won. To suggest each of those is in the MoE is wishful thinking.
As to the reasons why Rudd could do worse than Latham? Who knows. We do know that Rudd is doing better than Beazley was (thanks to OzTrack), which itself is counter-intuitive. Personally I prefer Latham to Rudd, but I know I’m in the minority there.
Albert F I agree with LTEP. If Labor wins 14 seats they will form a minority government and Howard will be gone. If that’s your worst case scenario, get ready to start celebrating.
I’d like to see Rudd emulate Clinton-Gore with a coast-to-coast east-west flight across the nation, finishing in Perth and rallying votes for Peter Tinley in Stirling.
Peter Brent makes a comment on this poll in his site today…
http://www.mumble.com.au/
Why would polls go from being pretty much bang on in 1996, 1998, 2001 and 2004 to being grossly wrong today?
N.B. while polls showed Labor in front in 1998 this was correct on a TPP basis and in 2004 Latham’s lead in the polls was well and truly gone by this time.
Edward 99 and others
For Labor to lose with 51.9% would be outside of all historical experience, and by a long way. Even 50.9% would be outside all historical experience.
Now, yes, in 1998, Howard won with 49.02% of the TPP vote, the lowest winning 2PP ever. But:
1. He is not going to get anything like that on this occasion.
2. In 1998, we had One Nation on the scene, and they got 8.43% of the primary vote. Most of the primaries were in very safe coalition seats and Labor got a lot of ON preferences. Not enough to win those seats, but enough to boost its 2PP beyond 50%. This was a freak occurence, specific to the existence of One Nation, and won’t be happening this time.
3. In 1998, Labor got a mere 40.1% of the primary vote. This time, it will get 45% plus. This makes a huge difference.
All this coming up with scenarios where Labor gets just 14 seats is just a nonsense with the 2PP that Labor is going to get. Of course, you can say that it “could” happen. But “could” encompasses everything from events which are almost (but not quite) certain not to happen to events that are almost (but not quite) certain to happen.
I “could” win the next 20 Tattslottos; aliens “could” invade from outer space; the coalition “could” win this election.
No ESJ @ 114, I’m not familiar with it. You mean Adam should stand in the corner with Ramsay for recklessly misleading the desperate?
As for Latham, even Jerry Seinfeld’s putting the boot in:
http://www.news.com.au/dailytelegraph/story/0,22049,22794010-5001021,00.html
Lathams lead was certainly gone. All the major pollsters had him below 40% on primaries, which was about where he ended up.
ESL (112) Your logic is right but your premise is wrong IMHO. The Libs don’t have a 15 – 20% chance of winning, whatever the betting markets might be saying. Based on the present polls it’s probably less than 5%.
As you put it, time to start drawing up the will.
My 124 – that should be ESJ
Samuel K, there is no reason. We’ll see on election night how right they are. I certainly have no reason to believe any of the respectable pollsters are wrong.
However, pollsters with bad track records on individual seat polling I don’t think are necessarily right. I’m looking at Westpoll here.
Re 38,
Betamax Says:
No idea Betamax, why not ask Ben Cousins?
Thanks for the kind words on post #36. I don’t work professionaly, it is a hobby with me and normally I only work for family. I consider this, though, motivated self interest
On the contrary LTEP all bar one of the state wide polls are suggesting exactly that Hasluck and Stirling will be gains based on application of the uniform swing. Being depressed and pessimistic is one thing, ignoring margins of error where they are huge and you don’t have a series and you only have a few data points would seem not to be depressed and pessimistic, it would appear quite foolish.
I think what 2004 shows is that swings required can be very misleading.
Swinging voters don’t sit there and think, gee I voted Labor last time or Liberal last time, I really shouldn’t change that unless I have a very good reason… They vote based on what they see before them in the current election.
That’s why the margins in 2004 falsely gave Labor people hope – they were refelctive of a much safer alternative PM in Kim Beazley and an economy that wasn’t that flash in 2001.
This year some are looking at swings required and saying it’s all too hard – the swings required are too big. But they are based on a Latham starting point. So the swings on Saturday will be comprised on two components:
(i) Thank God he’s not Latham
(ii) We’re sick of Howard and his lies and it’s time for a change
It amazes me how much analysis a meaningless poll like this can generate amongst supposedely statistically sophisticated people. What we have here is a 50/50 result (2 more people going for Labour would have made it exactly 50:50) in marginal seats, with a 4.7 margin of error. It tells us nothing!
Mumble has a link to this article which imo puts to bed a few furphys kicking around the place.
http://www.apo.org.au/webboard/comment_results.chtml?filename_num=181224
Samuel K hits the nail on the head. The concept of ’swing’ as such is misleading in a fluid electorate. Fluidity comes from both the disengagement or lack of partisan roots of so called ’swingers’ and the high numbers of new electors (and dead/emigrated electors) between electorates. It’s more sensible to talk of changes in voting outcomes, as a purely arithmetical concept.
Does this mean the Coalition are going to win after all?!
Co-Co-Coalition
Go-Go-Coalition
Co-Co-Coalition
Go-Go-Coalition!
38 Betamax, 41 CL de Footscray, 60 Jude and 67 VBOTW,
thanks all for your kind words
…… If it helps at all, I have never known in my personal experience, Rob Hand to be wrong. Everything which is there is word for word from the book. I haven’t made a word of it up, not one. I just plugged the figures into the computer software to get the numbers out which I in turn then followed up with the book. I especially liked this one about Rudd – ” You may unknowingly create for yourself an opportunity to take control or authority over others, to be a leader. You will derive satisfation from those aspects of yourself that prove themselves by being challanged today.”
Well put Spiros@121. But those not inclined to acknowledge reality until 7pm on Saturday still won’t accept your logic (although afterwards they will say they knew from the second week it was over).
Hey Ave it, pity the Sri Lankans didn’t get up hey? They gave it a good shot though, and Sangakkara was robbed.
Anyway, my consolation will be in my team winning on Saturday. What have you got on the horizon?
Vaile talking in the past tense:
“Business didn’t back WorkChoices enough: Vaile”
http://abc.net.au/news/stories/2007/11/21/2096694.htm?section=justin
jasmine that’s your opinion. We’ll see if you’re right on Saturday. I’ll be extremely surprised if Labor win both Stirling and Hasluck, less surprised if they just win Hasluck. I won’t be shocked if Labor holds Cowan and Swan, but also won’t be surprised if they lose one or both.
Quite frankly, there’s enough evidence out there to support any of the above contentions. I’m not sure I trust the reliability of state-wide aggregate polling and definately don’t believe the swing is uniform in WA at least. Otherwise we’d have seen something more significant in Galaxy’s polling.
Darn,
Well I guess you can tweak the scenario to bring it back to 13 seats. Anyway data driven logic tells me the ALP will win comfortabely with their number of seats won in the 80’s.
When I go to the footy I have two scenarios floating round in my head. The rational one that is generally pretty acurate and the emotive one that thinks – “we’re gonna get pumped”. I’m one of those supporters than only exhales when we’re 5 goals up with a few minutes to play.
Ave it 07 @ 133, go back to sleep.
136 – I didnt know you supported Coalition!
Well done!
Albert F – the present political circumstances are reminiscent of Geelong’s position at this year’s granny. We’re now about a third of the way through the last quarter and we’re 16 goals up. Can we make it to 20 plus, or will Port kick a couple to console them? Either way, we win. Please exhale. All is well.
Albert F,
When I was younger I supported the South Fremantle Bulldogs (WAFL side). We went to every single game and one season only won 2 games. The rest of them, no matter how far in front we were they’d stuff up in the final quarter and end up losing by a point.
Funnily enough the only 2 wins they had, 1 time I decided not to go and the other time I fell asleep and woke up when it was over.
Albert F — But has your football team played the same opposition a couple of hundred times already this year, and won every single game by 3 or more goals? That’s what we’re looking at here, if you believe all the polls we’ve had.
Pancho: I just saw that and was going to post about it. One can already see the knives, and no one wants to take the blame.
BTW, I can’t recall the business sector campaigning during the election proper, they were before the election but they got found out with their hairdresser ad that they employed criminals not union bosses.
Perhaps the business sector doesn’t want to upset the ALP, since the ALP did a lot of consultation with the business sector in the last year.
ESJ
I dont like your chances in 2010 either. Other than possibly turnbull there’s no one who stands out as a electable leader. Workchoices is gonna ghost the part for at least another 3 terms (and ensure the end of costello). The resources boom is not going to end any time soon and any economic downturn will probably make people more fearful of opting for a potential dose of tory IR. The environment and new paradigms of government will emerge in relation to which the Libs will be seen as irrelevant. The sycophants in the media will slowly be weeded out and Labor will have the machinery of govt at its disposal. THe libs are gonna be in opposition for a long time I would say..
Julie @ 134
Perhaps the incoming Rudd Government (sounds good, no?) will establish a new position for you – Oracle.
WA Marginals Poll- my believe it or not views
IF I BELIEVE THIS POLL:
It is accepted by both parties internally that the retirement of Graham Edwards and Kim Beasley will cost votes. It is also a fact that the ALP have been campaigning in Cowan significantly and not so much in Brand.
WA is not swinging hugely in the marginals and this is not uncommon. It apears that in reality both parties seem to consider Hasluck is lost by the Libs but a 3% swing will do that by enough but wont be a BIG swing by any means. It also seems that Swan wont swing much at all but the swing will still be in the ALP favour.
Stirling is being fought very hard and could still go either way, the margin is very small at 2% and ALP may have half of that already covered which makes it very close for polling day.
Brand= ALP retain with 3.5% swing to Lib
Cowan= Heavily contested- to close to call but lib leaning. Lets say 1.5% swing to Libs.
Stirling= to close to call 1% swing and same scenario as Cowan
Swan= ALP Retain- very minor swing to ALP of maybe 1% or more
Hasluck= ALP win- 3% swing to ALP
Collectively this represents the collective swing of this Morgan Poll applied to what we are hearing in the ground- not unrealistic at all. This would mean ALP gain one and Lib gain one or none.
IF I DONT BELIEVE THIS POLL
Since when have we given any credit to Morgan Polls on this site???
Five seats polled with 10% margins of error.
If the theory is that marginals are all unique- how can you combine the 5 seats and apply it across the range?
Even combined the MOE is about 4.5% for a poll close to 50/50 which tells us Libs could win all 5 or ALP could- BIG FAT HELP!
Anyone watch mr and mrs. rodent on kerri-anne’s show this morning? I saw it at the gym but it was really video only. The VH1 channel overpowered anything else in volume.
It seemed from what I saw though that it might as well have been an interview with Janette and nothing else. It looked like she hogged most of the airtime. Was that the way it played out if you heard the sound along with the picture?
Don’t forget Rudd at midday at the NPC. Tonight on the 7:30 report with Kerry.
The difference being this year is;
ALL the polls of all pollsters have been saying the same thing all year – Labor clearly ahead.
People polled expect Labor to win 60/40 [last time they didn't]
The betting markets are heavily in favour of Labor, last time they were not.
This year there is a systemic issue – workchoices
This year we know Howard is going and Costello coming
Rudd has shown himself to be a safe pair of hands and has enjoyed a very high approval rating all year and preferred PM for most of the year.
The LNP have continually shot themselves in the foot this campaign.
Last time Newspoll got it wrong nearing the election, AC Nielsen did not and actually the LNP position has always been slightly worse than the Nielsen polls.
If polling day produces 53/47 there is no way Labor will lose. The predictions of Jackman and Possums is 54 & 55 based on their respective models, looking at history.
Sean,
Maybe in 2010. I mean a conditional mandate because it will be a small to smallish number of seats with a relatively low swing required for Rudd to lose.
Basically if Labor governs well they would be right for at least one more term if not they could get booted. in the current climate governing well translates to a conservative, minimalist approach not unlike the State governments.
Secondly if the Liberals hold together they could still be competitive in 2010 if they implode you could have a real Ruddslide in 2010.
Yes Kina,
And Possum was talking about Goldstein,Higgins, Kooyong etc falling, that has been conveniently dropped from the narrative hasnt it?
Vaile is laying the groundwork for an account of the defeat – the unions bankrolled the ALP, we didn’t get enough support from business, etc etc. Even putting on a baseball cap backwards and attempting to make use of a skateboard failed to achieve traction for Vaile (I wonder why?).
They are in diaboilical trouble and they know it, and so do we. Brian Costar’s piece linked from Mumble says it all, and shouldbe compulsory reading for all Poll Bludgers.
Personally, I’m looking forward very much to the night of the long knives which will begin on Saturday at about 1930 Eastern and continue apace for some years.
Does anyone know when the rat and family have to get out of Kirribilli? I presume once he’s officially no longer PM – i.e., at the point of declaration of the polls/return of the writs – a couple of weeks? Or at the point where it’s clear he cannot form government – again, about 1930 Eastern on Saturday?
If Turnbull gets re-elected he will have to spend a fair bit of his own money to rejuvenate the Libs – their state organisations are disastrous and they are already a rabble at the highest levels. As has been noted endlessly, the cabinet and their party rooms are unable to assemble enough intestinal fortitude to attack the rat’s hegemony, even though it’s been obvious for at least a year, and probably longer, that he’d lose them the election. yet another example of the rat’s tactical games dominating the strategic necessities.
did i hear someone say Tampa????
http://www.theaustralian.news.com.au/story/0,25197,22796072-601,00.html
Also it would be interesting to know what story Morgan thought would sell more polling for them. Lets take it as a given (like newspoll and galaxy and ACN would) that Swan Cowan Hasluck and Stirling should be polled but what would sound better?
a) the one that didnt include Brand and showed a reasonable swing to ALP
b) the one that added Canning instead and showed a bigger swing to ALP
c) the one that added Kalgorlie instead and showed a bigger swing to Libs
d) the one where they have picked just the right seats that show it as close as possible with the most interesting outcome i.e. the one they used.
My bet is that they actually polled other seats- definately Kalgorlie, but this result was the most interesting.
ESJ, an article in today’s Age said that Rudd was campaigning in Macarthur, held by the Libs by 11%+. Leaders only campaign in seats where they’ve got a chance. We’ll set what happens in Higgins, etc on election night; I expect big swings to Labor, though maybe just short of enough.
154 – no, you didn’t. This, if seized upon, simply shows that the govt’s policies are no longer effective. It also means they’d have to get Andrews front and centre to talk about it – they do NOT want to do that, they want him to stay in the crypt. If they exploit this they’ll just reinforce the desperado image that Robb so succesfully manufactured yesterday.
143 – LETP
I feel ya pain.
Although I tend to worry about pessamisic scenarios. I do know that entertaining such ideas in no way makes them more likely to happen.
In other words, regards of when your a pessamist, or a Ruddslider the real result is coming and my worries don’t budge it one way or the other.
Here endth the Zen moment
Cl. I agree. But do they have any awareness of just how desperate they have become?
138 Lose the election please – sorry LTEP I’m not intending to pick on you but once again I’m not sure where you really stand. This answer has a bit for everyone in it. As I say you are entitled to your opinion but what is it?
It’s interesting how a lot of the media focus is now on the ability of WA to deliver a narrow Coalition victory.
I have thought all year that, speaking in gross generalities, the swinging voters of of WA have been thinking:
“I just don’t get it – why are they so keen on changing federal government over East?? The economy here is booming, we love our AWAs and things have never been better.”
While over East they are thinking:
“I just don’t get it – why are those in wild west so darn happy with this govt. after all of its lies and its taking the electorate for granted?? Interest rates have risen when Howard said they wouldn’t, Costello is a dingbat and WorkChoices is… etc”
If well publicised enough, this could further polarise the two sides of the country. The good thing for Labor is that a few more people (and marginal seats) live on the East side.
Lord D, alternatively it might mean Rudd knows he needs to pick up more seats in NSW to win the election.
ESJ, to be fair to Possum, he was just using modelling which, when applied, suggested that those seats would fall. Of course, it’s not believable, but when you do mathematical modelling you can’t make abitrary adjustments to it based on subjective concepts of what should happen.
Of course you could introduce variables that weight seats depending on whether Labor has ever won them.
Should get a Reuters poll trend today.
Sam K – the media focus is on the west because it’s the only place where a contest seems possible. Media need conflict stories – easy to write, easy to keep rolling. Easy to retail. They can’t run ‘conflict explodes in the Government’ because apart from the odd eruption, they haven’t started brawling openly (yet). But as you have noted, most of the folks that vote live over this way, and what happens in WA is almost certainly irrlevent. Although i happen to think the ALP will hold their own and pick up one.
Like all the other marginal seat polls with small samples, the MoE is too big to be really meaningful.
Hahaha, a lot more than a few!
CL
Max Walsh wrote a good article on the Libs lack of organisation, structure and professionalism earlier in the year. They’ve always been working off a very shallow gene pool. The failure of costello, downer et al to tap the little bast.rd on the shoulder was an indulgence that Labor would never have countenanced.
It goes hand in hand with the lazy, born to rule culture of the libs. Costello wanted to be offered the job on a platter – just as he was handed the economy by Keating. He has spent his whole career aping Keating and its that comparison thats ultimately going to ensure him standing as the ultimate aust political patsy. Keating must be delighted
“And Possum was talking about Goldstein,Higgins, Kooyong etc falling”
No one has ever said Kooyong would fall. In fact, I predict that Petro Georgiou will get a swing to him. He is a Liberal that the doctor’s wives can vote for, and will.
The battle between the Georgiou’s and the Hawk’s in the post-election Liberal Party will be fascinating to watch. These two are as far apart politically as it is possible for people in the same political party to be. Both will claim that the future lies with their path.
IN fact, the trend’s just landed.
ALP 10 points clear of the coalition on the 2PP, a fall of 0.3 percentage points from last trend.
On the primary vote, ALP 46.3 (down 0.4 p/points) to the coalition’s 40 (up 0.7 p/points)
ALP have a new buzz ding ad out about Costello taking over the leadership without having to face the people. It is very effective. I saw it just about 10 minutes ago on Sky, hope it gets more play today before the ad blackout kicks in …..
Spiros I agree. depending on what sort of carnage befalls the front bench, Petro and George B, might suddenly see an opportunity. they just need to keep those pesky hard core hawks from the young libs out.
Good morning all. ESJ can you tell me your thoughts on the outcome of the parties come Saturday. I may not agree to your politics but I respect you enough to ask.
By that I mean what will the tally be?
ESJ,
I know it is fun to construct “what if” scenarios and build up and knock over your straw man arguments, but the reality is that a 7-9% swing will decimate the Libs numbers.
Hanging your hat on an allegedly brilliant marginals campaign by the Libs as the base for some how holding onto enough seats to win is Liberal dreamery.
As for Goldstein, Higgins, Kooyong, they will all come in to play if the swing is above 8%. This is because if the brilliant marginal strategy in the marginals reduces the swing there, it will pop up somewhere else. How else do you get an average?
Gary Bruce, based on the objective evidence (the polls and, to a lesser extent, the betting markets) Labor should win this election reasonably comfortably. That’s my opinion.
However, my gut tells me it’s not over for the Coalition and they could very well scrape back in. I’m sure all the polling will make sense after the election, but to me they send very conflicting messages and demonstrate that there could be some type of flaw in sampling at either the national or seat level.
The trouble for the Libs is that anything labelled “Tampa” is recognised as code for mean and tricky.
Re the refugee boat
Tampa only worked cos we had a standoff, a drama which lasted several days, with accompanying visuals. Without that it wouldn’t have registered on the collective psyche. Unless Howard can dispatch some SES troops with a camera crew and forcibly shove these people back on a boat and push them out to sea, the libs should just go back to their routine stereotyping and harrassment of targeted racial minorities within our borders…
174 Lose the election please – fair enough.
“there could be some type of flaw in sampling at either the national or seat level.”
All four polling companies have a flaw in their methodologies? When their methodologies have worked well in the past elections?
Look at this description of the 1969 election on Wikipedia:
“The ALP went into the election with a small caucus and could have a good hope of gaining seats. Although the narrow election loss was still good news for Labor, as it provided not only more seats but also a strong springboard for the next election, the Liberal Party did remarkably well to stay elected, which was done by a clever campaing depicting Labor as a party dominated and controlled by union bosses.”
My call. Costello will fall in Higgins
!!
Spiros: Ken Harvey is a doctor, so maybe the doctor’s wives will vote for him. But in all seriousness, the mood of in Kooyong is that it won’t fall but there will still be a swing against the government. Under Petro’s watch the seat has been moving closer and closer to being marginal, including last election.
For an experienced politician, John Howard has been pretty amateurish this year.
Last night on the 7.30 report was the first time I’ve seen him try and be smiley in response to tough questioning, rather than resort to his usual grumpiness. It’s a little late to be playing catch up to Rudd on this front.
But gee, his smiles were really forced weren’t they? They were about as convincing as the smile on a surfacing synchronised swimmer after she’s just been submerged upside down for 3 minutes.
Julia Gillard turned up 15 minutes late to a public debate with Peter Costello broadcast by ABC radio at Melbourne’s Federation Square. Her reason was bad traffic – and it was indeed gridlocked out west, across the Westgate.
That aside, the two of them yelled at each other for the remaining 15 minutes. Neither came out of it looking very good. It won’t have much of an impact on the outcome.
Looking again at the 7.30 Report with Howard last night it is crystal clear he had been told – and absolutely believes – that it is all over. Howard’s demeanour, more than any poll, told me that Labor is home, and probably by a significant margin.
Yes Spiros, it’s possible all 4 companies are operating on similar and flawed sampling assumptions.
184 Lose the election please – which have worked in past elections. Very close to the actual result. Histroy tells us they are close to the mark.
For all those interested in the bookies views on WA. Portlandbet, (currently 81-67-2, by the way) has the following 6 seats as the most likely to change hands. Price in brackets is for the incumbent.Hasluck ($2.85), Stirling ($1.75), Canning ($1.43), Hasluck, Forrest, Swan (all $1.38). No Cowan. No Brand.
Sean – indeed. Keating had to get the top job himself, and he did. It was a perfect lesson in how to do it. What he had that Costello totally lacks is guts and something approaching political astuteness. Of course, Keating laid it all out a while ago with his ‘all tip’ comment. He pointed out then that they all end up araldited to the chair. You have to put them to the knife, he said, or you have to let the people it. Clearly Costello is no close student of Keating, and has never heard of Machiavelli let alone von Clausewitz.
I think the Lib organisation has always been second rate, although they usually have more money to buy things the ALP gets for free (people, mostly!). Plus the ALP has the unions as a training ground which the Libs, of course, don’t – one of the reasons they hate unions so vehemently. Anyway, this time around it looks like they didn’t have the money advantage.
Anyway, there’ll be plenty of time for reflection after Saturday. I’m hoping for a few repeats of Billy Snedden’s famous Canberra Airport intevrview with Richard Carlton after he got rolled by Fraser. Billy was quite tired and emotional and spoke a few home truths. What fun looms!
That 730 election was great. Definite change in Howard’s demeanor from almost all year, as you say Ashley, and I got the impression that this was damage minimisation. Someone has obviously told him to be grumpy under no circumstances. But he also seems a little more affable when in studio as opposed to on a link. I thought he came across as well as he has all year for what it is worth, but it is all far too late.
I thought Kerry was great as well, clearly enjoying himself immensely and sending real curlers Howard’s way. Lanced him on the economy in a way that he hasn’t ever, to my memory. And the signoff was great as well. A little mutual admiration underneath the obvious jibe.
LTEP @ 179 – that was almost 40 years ago. I imagine a union scare may have bitten more back then. The problem is now that it’s a scare that doesn’t resonate – who honestly believes that an idiot wearing suspenders (i.e. Macdonald) will grab control of the country? People don’t know who Macdonald is, or who Courtice is, so why would they associate them with Rudd. It’s just silly. I must say I am also in the Labor pessimist boat, but only because I have witnessed defeat so often, not because I’m afraid of some masterful campaign by the Libs focusing on unions.
‘election’ should be ‘interview’. headphones now turned down…
184- Flawed methodology
I have noticed what one of those flaws in sampling may be.
I have been out door knocking a fair bit in new NESB areas of Stirling. Thousands of first time voters from OS. There is certainly no way that these people could paticipate in phone polling due to language barriers.
They will be voting ALP almost to a man by the way and you wont see it coming in the polls.
Flash
I think Howard’s just lost all his confidence. Watching him over the course of the campaign is like watching a balloon slowly deflate. Remember his feisty performance with kerry in the first week of the campaign?
I reckon three things would be especially getting to him (apart from the polls and the possibilty of losing his seat)….His loss of face in the party, the emergent questioning of his economic management credentials, and the trashing of his legacy…
He’s taken one too many blows and he’s really struggling to hold it together. If I didn’t loath him so much I’d feel sorry for him.
AG01
My best guess would be 80 seats
with
NIL WA
SA 3 seats
Vic 1 seat
Tas 2 seats
NT 1 seat
NSW 6 Seats
QLD 5 seats
+3 surprises which could be anywhere – for eg Sturt in SA, Macarthur in NSW etc etc
PS I dont think Rudd is campaigning in Macarthur or places like that because he has got it in the bag, I think he is doing that because he wants some fat on the margin for 2010.
Mind you George Bush kicked back for a victory lap in 2000 and nearly lost whilst Gore campaigned to the death.
Yes Big Blind Dave, there’s certainly a chance Labor could record a vote above what’s being polled, in which case the sampling methodology would need to be looked at again.
I’m not saying anything is likely to diverge from the polling. My opinion is it’s most likely going to end up close to the polled results but there may be surprises in the seat-by-seat swings. That’s a big ‘may’. It may all be very ‘boring’.
Yes Bobby Horry, I just found it amazing that for the Libs to win they’ve gone back to tactics used almost 40 years ago. Is there anything new in the Liberals campaigning?
LTEP: I saw that too, it shows the Libs are the party of the past as they only know one policy and to ‘bag the unions’. Since it was way before I was born, I think the union bosses attack was trying to imply to the fact that the unions were still being run by the reds and voting for the ALP was voting for communism.
You can also note that the ALP got 18 seats, 2 more than we need now. Also from what I read the DLP preferences went to the Libs pretty tightly too, but these days The Greens votes got pretty tightly to the ALP.
The quoted TPP there is only an estimate as before the 1983 this wasn’t done. However you will note that the ALP TPP was 50.2%, and had a TPP swing of 7.1%. A swing of 7.1% in this election would put Labor on 54.4% which would be a landslide.
Good points well made Sean. It really must be brutal for Howard to suffer all those indignities you listed when as recently as a year or so ago – remember the hoopla over his 10 year anniversary – he was completely ascendant and people were talking openly of the possibility he could eclipse Menzies’ time in office. It is just extraordinary to consider the trajectory since then especially when, as everyone keeps noting, the economy is in pretty good shape, notwithstanding interest rates. In a way, I still can’t quite process what has happened.
LTEP 184. They got it right last time, and the time before that, and the time before that, and the time before that ….
Brian Costar is predicting 96 seats. The link is at Mumble’s site. His reasoning is impeccable. The polls haven’t moved all year, and the polls get it right. And the coalition’s campaign has been a shambles.
If this election really “could” be on a knife edge, why has Kevin Rudd spent the last week campaigning in seats where Labor needs 10% plus? Do you think, maybe, he’s got enough marginals sewn up, and now he’s going in for the kill to get a 40+ majority?
No probs LTEP. I agree with you mate, it is amazing.
LTEP – Fremantle is also excellent labor territory, sad about the shockers really:
We are the mighty bulldogs
Always fighting on
With victory and flag our goal
With guts and determination
We put the rest to shame
Because our fighting spirit wins the game.
We’re the bulldogs (yes we are)
And we’re the greatest (yes we are)
The mighty red ‘v’ which stands for victory
The rough tough bulldogs (yes we are)
South Fremantle (yes we are)
The southerners for ever more
GG
Thats not what I am saying at all. I just dont think you will see a 8% swing.
Records are made to be broken of course but Id say:
1.Howard has held it reasonably together in the campaign (or at least the Libs have avoided a meltdown)
2. Australians are inherently conservative and adverse to change (hence the LIberal scare campaign) and if anything saves Howard this might
3. Rudd has lifted Labor into a contestable position but the weakness of Labor’s structures, candidates and past history linger in the public mind as a reason to be anxious about Labor.
Labor will win but it wont be a great margin. Having said that the bulk of “commentator” opinion has settled into this position which is a worry – it could mean a sneak Howard win or a blow-out for Labor. But 8% is enormous and no doubt you guys love the idea but not many people out in voter land are prepared to conclusively write off Howard.
ESJ as conservative as you are so are your estimations. At least your real enough to concede defeat. Thanks
Go Hawkie!
http://www.theage.com.au/news/opinion/bhawkeb-pm-continues-to-misrepresent-truth-he-must-go/2007/11/20/1195321779086.html?page=fullpage#contentSwap1
Can we have some reality here about the importance of WA
At worst Labor would lose 2 seats
The mere fact Morgan is polling JUST in WA shows Gary Morgan is irrelevant
Clearly the election will be decided in NSW & Q’LD
Morgan’s poll is another red herring
“not many people out in voter land are prepared to conclusively write off Howard.”
75% of the $5 million that centrebet is holding for Labor says that quite a few have.
I think the Labor ads have been good because they have stimulated prevailing perceptions in the community. I don’t believe these anti union ads do that. This “they’re coming back” perception may be held by the ‘rusted ons’ but, hey, they weren’t going to vote Labor anyway.
ESJ 193
Your Victorian scenario is absolutely worst case for the ALP.
LaTrobe is in the bag, and a very strong chance in Corangamite, Deakin and Macmillan and a reasonable chance in McEwen.
Spiros @121
Succinct, elegant and cogent analysis. Mucas Gracias, amigo.
Final days of adverts on tv have been a waste of money because the media remains filled with the FOI WorkChoices X Files. Even Skynews still had the X-Files leading their new bulletins this morning (New Ltd Chief Exec., Hartigan, is rabid about FOI being far worse under Howard than it was even under Joh B-J).
Graham Richardson (Ninemsn interview link given in an earlier post) offers a reliable perspective based on access to internal polling. His take on Robb’s ineligibility nonsense and Team Howard’s other smears is that what we’re watching now are people who really, really hate to lose just behaving like sore losers. It seems that for Richo this week is all part of the fun of watching Team Howard getting flushed.
Spiros, it could mean anything. It could mean they’ve given up on some states where they’re doing badly and realist they need to win seats on higher margins in NSW.
It could mean anything, we won’t know ’til election night.
i’m happy to go with Richo’s prediction. He ain’t called the numbers man for nothin’!
FWIW, I think we’ll see a national 6-7% TPP swing on Saturday. 7-8% is possible but I wouldn’t put money on it.
Wait for the final polls and we will know definitively what the result will be. In 2004 the final polls produced the following primary voting figures,
ACN: LNP 49 LAB 37
MOR: LNP 45.5 LAB 38.5
NP: LNP 45 LAB 39
GAL: LNP 46 LAB 39
If we take the avg of these we get a result that is WITHIN 1% of the actual primary vote for each party.
AVG of Last polls: LNP 46.375 LAB 38.375
Actual Result: LNP 46.7 LAB 37.6
Are we going to get another poll before Friday night?
Brilliant Hawke article tdt
Ashley, we’ll get another round of them, all on Friday.
Watching Howard on the 7.30 Report just confirmed to me that at heart he’s still the little kid who conned his way through a 50’s radio quiz show. He’s got away with the bullshit so often since then that he simply can’t help himself, he really believes that he can obsticate(?) his way out of any argument, employing his usual tactics of interrupting the interviewer, not answering the question and outright lies. Except it’s not working anymore.
Regarding the new tampa. There is no way that the coalition are going to play this card, unless they are totally stupid. To do so would simply further erode the heartland vote that they have been so desperately trying to salvage for the past five weeks. It’s more likely that we’ll get told what a wonderful brave job our navy personel have done. Slightly different from last time.
I hate the term “doctors wives”. It’s just so condescending and so incredibly wrong.
Grumpy Grandpa’s line telling Australia that they essentially are not allowed to change “just for the sake of change” seems to have gone down like the proverbial.
Despite the typically generous coverage given to it by ABC radio today (it’s being reported at the front of news bulletins, told as a bona fide news story, even though it’s just a few words of hollow spin) the response from ABC listeners at least seems to be pretty negative. Trioliberal had a segment on what Grandpa had said, throughout which she kept repeating his line about not risking change for the sake of change.
All she got for her usual pro-government spin was 4 or 5 callers in a row angrily telling her that they resented being told how to vote, and they wanted a change. The nice thing was that some of them honestly sounded like middle-of-the-road swingers who were honestly excited to see the back of Gramps.
Until now, I’ve been a little bit skeptical about all this talk of the “mood for change”. But today, on Sydney radio at least, it was firmly in evidence.
ESJ,
What you seem to be saying is that you don’t accept the numbers as presented in the published polls for most of the year. (55-45 seems to be the convergence).
You would prefer to rely on personal knowledge, historical cliches and a haughty contempt for anything that does not fit your view of the world. This might make you feel comfortable, smug and superior, but the reality is that mainstream Australia is going to do over the Libs with malice.
dembo I agree. I was shocked the first time I heard it being used. It was like popping back to the 1950s.
This might be jumping the gun to post election analysis, and very simplistic, but are we seeing the return of the ‘natural’ ruling party?
In 98 Labor lost with a majority of the 2PP.
In 01 Labor only just lost, but in the shadows of 9/11 this could be seen as inevitable given incumbency and the security lead the tories enjoy in the polls.
In 04 Latham was leading – enough said.
This suggests to me Howard has been on the nose for a long time, and the electorate has just been waiting for a viable alternative. Any thoughts?
202 tdt – Good article from Hawke
Ashley, I think Galaxy will release their final poll Thur night, Morgan will have his final f2f and ph polls Fri arvo, and Newspoll and ACN Fri night.
Labor has campaigned better than in 2004, and doubtless have done well enough.
HOWEVER, it irks me that they have fallen well short of refuting the baseless Liberal propaganda that the government is uniquely responsible for the current state of the economy.
This is merely a great example of the infamous Goebbels proposition that a big lie, repeated sufficiently often, will be believed.
The reality is that the current state of the economyrests on the foundations of the Keating reforms and liberal doses of international good fortune, the likes of which previous ALP goverments never enjoyed. Whitlam copped the international shocks of the oil crisis and stagflation, whilst Hawke/keating had to deal with disastrous terms of trasde and another global recession.
Moreover, there has been glaring deficiencies in the Howard/Costrello economic management.
They have spent far too inadequately on education, training and research.
They have presided over crumbling infrastructure.
Their utter folly in Iraq has raised the price of oil, one of the current inflationary pressures.
Above all, they have done next to nothing on climate change and have wasted elevn years we did not have to waste.
All these things crucially underpin medium to long term sustainable growth, and all have been neglected by this woeful government.
In addition, they have mis-educated the public and hollowed out the tax system in ways in which a Rudd government will find very hard to undo.
Even leaving aside their terrible record on refugees, aboriginies, integrity in government et al, there is plenty just on economic mismanagement for future historians to nominate this as the worst and most disastrous government since Federation.
Yet they are perceived as “Better on the economy”.
It makes me despair.
Latham and Beazley were polled ahead (sometime) and were within “striking distance” when closed to the Election Day. Punters / betting markets however never back them: Latham’s odds were always trailing Howard’s throughout the election campaign and blown-out to $4.6 closed to Election Day.
Now comes Election.2007. Since the past 10 months, Labor always led Howard in betting market.
By now, with 3 days to the election, they say: Coalition $4.8 / Labor $1.25.
I trusted the punters back then and I trust them this time also.
Doctors wives exist. I have met plenty. How much influence they have on an election is debatable
GG,
Well if I am guilty of “haughty contempt” then so is Richo, Dr Adam Carr and a host of other Labor supporters on this site who have tipped Labor to be on 80 seats. I had initially tipped 85 and revised the prediction downward because there hadnt been a meltdown.
You might also look at people like Andrew Landeryou who despite what people may say has excellent Labor right sources in Victoria who tipped no seats in Victoria and an overall loss.
Also as LTEP has said a Labor win is probable but not certain. I think most people back their prejudices and also look to the polls in picking who will win.
What the polls cant pick is that last week firming of voting attitudes and as Latham said the people who now deliberately lie to polls ( I know some people who always say they are a swinging voter who is thinking of changing sides when they are polled). Thats why you cant categorically write off Howard.
I think from memory my view turned in early October to Labor would win so there! The war is over (or about to be over) Greensborough, wash off the facepaint, put down the weapons and enjoy the Second reincarnation of the Whitlam/Goss type Government! Its going to be fun but shortlived fun!
That is a very well written article by Bob Hawke… why can’t I imagine Rudd ever being so eloquent?
My Grandmother is a Doctors Wife. Raving Tory as well.
Is Rudd’s NPC speech to be televised or broadcast? Does anyone know what time it’s on please?
It’s nice to see the Coalition has given up on winning the election. Now they think the best they can do is win 74 seats:
http://www.abc.net.au/news/stories/2007/11/21/2096466.htm?section=justin
Herald feed from here: http://www.smh.com.au/federal-election-2007/
Starts in 20 minutes.
You can listen to it on NewsRadio.
Or watch it via this link:
http://www.news.com.au/live/popup/
223 Peterg
Relax. Team Labor have in a very disciplined manner stuck to their campaign strategy. Debating on the economy is a no win for Labor, regardless of the truth of the matter. What they have succeeded in doing is neutralising the issue. While many of us would have liked to see different approaches it looks like they’ll win. If so, who are we to question the method?
Cheers guys
Just watching Sky and it will be interesting if Julia’s lateness to the ABC Melb debate makes the nightly news (good vison with her defending herself from host with Costello not smirking but clearly enjoying himself beside her) If it does not make the news spots because of Rudds speech, it will mean luck really is running the ALP’s way the election.
I suspect we’ll know ALP has 80 (and government) by 830pm – and another five will trickle in later on closer results.
so, I’m sticking with 85- 62- 3.
Don’t supposed anyone has been polled in bennelong recently?
It seems like a sure-fire front page story for Friday morning… I was expecting the DT might be doing a Galaxy poll of Bennelong to release the day before the election. A 52-48 result (the equal worst result for Labor so far this year in Bennelong) would be huge news the day before the election wouldn’t it?
I heard Kerry-Anne and Karl on the Today Show this morning saying they didn’t think the PM could possibly lose his seat.
Can’t believe that the top story on The World Today (ABC Local Radio 702 Sydney) is Julia’s lateness to a debate with Costello (”Lateness has become a theme of this campaign”). She was stuck in traffic snarls due to heavy rain.
The issues that count!
The grabs make it sound like a pretty snarky encounter. Meow!
Well, I also know many Doctors, and the majority of them have husbands.
Im more interested in how the Stepford wives of Nth Sydney, Wentworth and Higgins vote.
Or is that an unfair characterisation of our haute bourgeoisie these day?
I think the lesbian Doctor’s wives vote will go to Labor.
I’m still getting used to the idea that the result is likely to be clear by 9pm. Coming from the UK, where the polls didn’t close until 10pm, and all counting was done at a single site in each constituency, it was unusual to have the first constituency declared before midnight, let along the result! There are certainly advantages to the Australian system, but there is a certain ‘hard-core’ feeling when you’re still up at 3am watching the returns…
doctors’
By the way, I’m a doctor’s husband in Higgins – am I an important demographic?
“…we’re watching now are people who really, really hate to lose just behaving like sore losers.”
That’s it. But the concern is that the Libs might think they have nothing to lose now, so will try ANYTHING to steal a win.
Already yesterday we saw them try to pull a stupid stunt by claiming that 13 Labor candidates are ineligible. I suspect that this stunt had been on reserve for Friday, when it would have been harder to have it refuted in time for the election, but they moved it forward to try to knock the WorkChoices secret documents off the front pages.
But I wonder what other cheap, dirty tricks they have on reserve. I wouldn’t be at all surprised if something else comes along in the next couple of days. The thought of losing power for these guys must be very hard, but with nothing left to lose, things can start getting dangerous. Howard is desperate. They are all desperate. And we know that there are no limits to the extent to which Howard will go to retain power.
adiran @ 215 says:
“Watching Howard on the 7.30 Report just confirmed to me that at heart he’s still the little kid who conned his way through a 50’s radio quiz show. He’s got away with the bullshit so often since then that he simply can’t help himself, he really believes that he can obsticate(?) his way out of any argument, employing his usual tactics of interrupting the interviewer, not answering the question and outright lies. Except it’s not working anymore.”
I wondering if anyone else got the feeling that Howard’s “we won’t build nuclear reactors” answer was just another case of Little Johnny being loose with the truth? Cue a re-elected Howard 6 weeks post election announcing a Ron Walker led consortium to build reactors across the country : “I never said reactors wouldn’t be built, I said that a Lib Govt. was committed to changing legislation to allow private enterprise to build them.”
No Dangerous. Husbands have minds of their own.
244
According to the MSM you don’t actually exist. Oops. Puff. Disappears in a puff of statistical smoke.
Here is link to vison of Julia arriving late http://www.news.com.au/story/0,23599,22796165-5012863,00.html
LTEP 247
Ha! Let me introduce you to my wife…
NB
Howard’s never been as popular as he and his lackeys would have you believe and a review of all his election wins shows that. The fact that he thought he could get workchoices past the electorate is testimony to his hubris, which was really at boiling point a year ago. He was starting to think he was Mr Australia for a while there..
Its like that TS eliot quote that at the end of all our travels we arrive at the beginning and know ourselves. Howard is being reacquainted with his old self, before he got lucky…the idiot boy who just can’t take a trick..It must be very unpleasant.
ESJ-Have to dissapoint you about Landeryou and his ‘excellent labor right sources’ or whatever you called them. You might think that, he might tell you that he has, you can try and discredit people who know, but its all crap. He is well and truly on the nose within the party particularly after his exploits with Solly Lew, the melbourne uni student union, and with the nonsense he made up about state MP Peter Loney (to name but a few things).
You are more desperate to be proved correct than I thought if you are using Landeryou to support your arguments. His con is to give the impression he is still in the know. It still working on the likes of you.
ESJ,
Thank you, I just wanted you to say Labor will win. My next project is for you to say Rudd is a great leader and Labor has superior economic credentials.
As for “chilling” out. Someone else posted this yesterday.
http://au.youtube.com/watch?v=BKmXSYi49IU
Enjoy!
Press Club Stream http://www.abc.net.au/streaming/networktv.asx
Valie today:
http://www.abc.net.au/news/stories/2007/11/21/2096694.htm
He says the unions have easily outspent the business community with their advertising campaign against WorkChoices.
“We would have liked to have seen them match the union movement,” he said.
“But I don’t think they were ever going to spend the amount of money that the union movement was prepared to put into this.
“But I still think their advertising campaign as an independent third party has been very, very welcome and it has brought some balance.”
Independent third party….I wonder if that’s doublespeak, or his IQ shining through?
I know we’re Wentworthed-out, but the GG (which hid the Robb Dirty Dozen story on p8 of the print version) gave huge front page prominence to Newhouse’s campaign manager’s opposition to Zionism on her mistaken assumption that Zionism espoused theocracy. Non-story, even in Wentworth.
http://www.theaustralian.news.com.au/story/0,25197,22795651-601,00.html
702 crossing NOW to NPC for Rudd’s speech (till 1.30)
onimod @ 255 – has Vaille not considered the fact that many businesses don’t support Serfchoices?
For the record so long as none of you silly pessimists end up being right, all this talk of ‘close’ is fantastic for labor, even though an sensible review of the polls screams ‘LANDSLIDE’ this silly narative about close will be great, the trickle back of votes to Howard just wont happen the way it might if everyone thought it was going to be landslide. Any single voter in a marginal or indeed in a second tier seat should know that it will be VERY close and if they don’t vote labor the next three years of Howard got with a pet senate that rolls over like a dog without any spirit will be their fault.
They have lost the lip sync on the NPC telecast. Its unwatchable. Sabotage?
Now they’ve corrected it.
Why didn’t Julia’s minders, when they realised they were running late, just pull the car over over and do the “debate” on the mobile. It’s been done before.
God I love Australia!
The 2nd story on ABC news is about election betting!
ABC coverage of the election campaign is abysmal!
For the real tragics among us:
http://www.aec.gov.au/About_AEC/Media_releases/11_21a.htm
Even more at:
http://www.aec.gov.au/About_AEC/Media_releases/11_21.htm
I couldn’t believe it yesterday when The World Today was interviewing as one of its election experts Michael Sullivan from Sportingbet!
ABC has a mandate to be fair and balanced and the board and management have been appointed to make sure that is so.
Later story on World Today is suggesting Dobell and Lindsay are ALP gains.
It couldn’t happen in Australia… could it?
Meanwhile, can someone tell us how Rudd’s speech is going.
Rudd doing well! He’s actually a good public speaker, although the phrase “Working families” is getting another workout LOL
Regular fare from the press club. Nothing new for the tragics, it will be the Q & A which will be the test of him and also shape how tonight’s 7.30 report will be framed.
Patrick, solid but uninspiring.
PB @ 268
Determined and feisty.
@ 266 Howard Hater Says:
Probably Sullivan has as good if not better credentials than the dill from Newspoll they interviewed later who stuck to the party line.
You mean the board stacked with far-right wing ideologues? Yeah.
Yesterday the ABC persisted with a headline which suggested the “13 ALP candidates ineligible” story actually had some basis in reality for hours after the (usually lax) commercial media had started calling it as the furphy it is. They have also continually misrepresented stories about government “improvements” in the polls to the extent that only the Australian can compete with them.
I wonder whether Kerry will hammer him on 7.30 report tonight. He really nailed Howard last night… probably thought to himself, this is the last chance I’m gonna get.
LTEP – you should read Rudd in the Monthly from late last year. Don’t worry, the man can write.
The commercial TV stations have done a better job than Aunty this time.
253 GG
Well we will see how “great” a leader Rudd is when he is PM?
As for superior economic credentials, politicians dont run the economy, the economy is something that happens in spite of the best efforts of politicians from both sides.
After the torrent of abuse about Abbott’s arriving late to debate Roxon,
where is the outrage at Gillard’s stuff up.???
Of course you are not hypocrits.
I think that the ABC has been kicked so hard that they have lost sight of what truth and balance are. No doubt they will re-discover how to bite when the ALP is in government, knowing that they are safe.
Wimps.
Seems largely a keeping Howard on the backfoot, rather than an offensive presentation. Entirely understandable as a tactic from here, but we’re getting little that is exciting.
Lots of attacks on the Libs. Better when he gets on to the future. Some good lines when addressing workchoices. These should be the news grabs.
So why do we have to put up with Howard telling us how good an economic manager he is?
Why do we have to put up with Glen repeating Howard’s lines over and over when anyone with any sense realises we live in a market economy.
God I am sick to death of “working families”!
What about the other 50% of society who seemingly doesn’t fit the “working family” definition? And those of us working and paying full tax whilst those struggling families (who chose to have children, of course) get rebates and breaks left right and centre.
Single working people are in some ways the most marginalised, overlooked group in this country. A fair chunk of the billions and billions both sides have been spending like extra pocket money this campaign comes from single people in full time employment – and sweet f.a. of it is getting thrown our way.
I am sick of paying for other people’s lifestyle choices!!
That’s because both the ALP and the Coalition have starved the old girl to point of near extinction.
RX for Aunties health: On Saturday take The Greens HTV and mark both the lower house and senate ballots appropriately.
Actually I’m surprised people gave Abbott a hard time for turning up late to that debate with Roxon. I would have thought it was far more desirable to not hear him talk at all.
I think people gave Abbott a hard time for the absolute stupidity of being late on such a stage when so far behind Jimbo. Gillard being late is not smart, but the stakes for her, on a Faine interview, are much lower. This will not derail the Labor campaign, and frontrunners have more slack.
Mangled his closing, which would have been a good soundbite.
ESJ,
You are a real glass “half empty” type aren’t you.
Tory Crimes @ 252,
His nickname “Slanderyou” is well deserved. I’ve seen stuff he’s written based on “insider information” where I know for a fact that his “inside sources” had absolutely no involvement with the any of the parties concerned for 3+ years, and definitely had no inside knowledge of the events attributed to them.
Slanderyou has about as much credibility as the Robb ineligibility scare campaign.
anyone listen to the world today? just listened to chris uhlman interview bob brown. chris uhlman is a complete toss IMO.
LOL GG,
My associates describe me as having a happy warrior disposition actually.
ShowsOn
I dont know I dont speak for the Liberal and Labor party. Basically the only influence govnerment can have on the economy is a negative one. I think politicians like to pretend they have an impact but it just isnt so.
Yeah surely we are talking priorities and on the one hand we have the key televised national televised debate that no-one except us freaks cared about, on the other hand you have a local radio debate that only us freaks living in that geographic area care about … both silly … different degrees of silly.
Committing to press conferences after each cabinet meeting.
Jim @ 279, well, fairly obviously Jim, there’s an aura of arrogance about arranging to be in one city for a press conference about an hour before you’re supposed to be in another to address a live and tv audience, effectively thumbing your nose at them. Unforeseeable road conditions are just that – unforeseeable.
“I have a plan for Australia’s future. Mr Howard has a plan for retirement.” Sums up Kevin’s speech.
forgot to add the claims Slanderyou made in this case were so off the mark it was laughable.
Derail the campaign? What the hell are you people talking about. In the final days of a campaign there are so many people shouting and screaming for attention that issues like Gillard being 15 mins late to a debate will struggle to get any decent air – much like we saw with the Liberals rubbish on eligibility yesterday.
I think governments CAN have a positive impact, but that is different to saying they “control” or “manage” the economy.
Hawke / Keating got rid of the leavers, there’s nothing left to control.
What were the claims Bakunin that Landeryou made?
GG I understand youve been a participant in his site?
Committing to press conferences after each cabinet meeting.
Rudd did? Fantastic if so, the politicians have been able to stage manage things for far too long in this country.
300. Yep, he committed to it based on a question from Jim Middleton.
I just love the way Gillard is able to eye-ball everyone she talks to and debates and in parliament and during confrontation. Just so cool, calm and right at you.
I still remember Howard in Parliament having to look away because he couldn’t take it and Gillard commenting on it.
You can see it in this picture. Julia is turned towards Costello looking right at him, Costello is faced in another direction. One tough girl is Julia.
http://www.news.com.au/story/0,23599,22796165-5012863,00.html
Well true ShowsOn in the sense that governments can “influence” behaviour by how they apply taxation but really thats a joke too – it just creates a lobbyists picnic.
Progressive taxation for example actually works to create work for the big 4 accounting firms, rich people dont pay 46.5c in the dollar tax, middle class people do
I think it was the fact that he had also insulted Bernie Banton, and then swore at Nicola after being late as well. Julia’s lateness will get her some scrutiny, but she hasn’t had a string of offences in a 24 hour period like Tony did, to really let the media have a field day.
Excellent. Rudd has run with a few “open government”/accountability type policies but there has been precious little detail as to what he will actually do (if anything).
Experience question, took another swipe at Treasurer Howard.
He also committed to getting rid of Conclusive Certificates.
306, that was a top response. It is obviously prepared to counter any such question. That question or anything like it, is now worth nothing.
Compare with Wayne Swan. I don’t think I’ve ever seen him look straight on at my TV screen. You only ever see him side-on. In fact, I wouldn’t be surprised if the front of his face didn’t exist, like he’s a hologram or something.
The week before an election is a bad time for the side who wins, its usually the time they make the promises they end up regretting.
My point was governments can invest in clean power and water infrastructure, and build ports on a scale that the private sector alone wouldn’t do. Those are the basic things we need to let the private sector grow the economy. That would be real economic management.
That’s why the Liberals made a mistake increasing the gap between the business tax rate, and the top income tax rate. They should be the same.
Clinton Porteous: another Howard Hugger journo!
ESJ @ 310, that sounds like a Chinese proverb.
I know. I would have liked to hear more about restoring the Westminster conventions regarding ministerial accountability and things like that, though.
uhlman putting the hard word on bob brown about baseload electricity in 5 years? bob gave him the answer he (toolman) obviously wasn’t interested in solar, geo thermal, and increased efficiency. just a thought i doubt they’d get nuclear or clean coal online with in 5 years.
http://www.news.com.au/story/0,23599,22796626-29277,00.html
thank christ.
Sure ShowsOn 311,
Makes sense!
Does anyone know what the smallest majority a federal Government has had in their first term?
Is it Whitlam’s 9 seat majority?
438 people over five seats? What’s the MOE there?
As for Stirling, my gut feeling on the street here is that maybe I should think about moving after 12 years… Some of the people I’ve spoken to lately have really disappointed me. One guy says there’s no way he would vote ALP because he doesn’t like Rudd’s chin. A woman I know quite well told me she was worried about a resurgence of Union power, and ran off a list of strikes she remembered; minutes later I heard that exact same list on a Liberal radio ad. A neighbour said he wouldn’t support Rudd because he’s half Chinese. When I pointed out that Rudd *speaks* mandarin, my neighbour said: he’s got slanty eyes too. None of them had heard anything about the Regional Rorts program, and the AWB scandal was a distant, vague memory. I didn’t bother asking them about their views on Hicks, Habib and Haneef.
I live in easy walking distance to shops, cafes, restaurants and public transport. I used to love it here, but it seems suddenly I’m surrounded by the politically illiterate. I still have high hopes for Peter Tinley, who is a genuine local bloke, as well as an accomplished (and decorated) leader. If Keenan scrapes back in by the skin of those ubiquitous teeth, I will be really disappointed, having to live in an Opposition electorate. But I’ll take solace in the bigger picture, and vodka.
The problem with government ShowsOn is that they are generally reluctant to invest in anything which does not have a 1-3 year pay off.
For example in Sydney we could solve many problems with an expansion of our rail system but that could take 10 years to implement – hence it wont be done regardless of party.
Blacklight: does that mean Shanas has to shut up as well?
Rudd “whoever wins on Saturday will win by a nose”
That statement is basically wrong ESJ.
For example if the government of the day was to build a new ore loading facility to increase capacity of the minerals leaving the country, wouldn’t that be a positive initiative by that government that has a positive impact for the economy.? It removes supply contraints, creates jobs, increases the balance of trade in our favour, increases tax income, increases profits for the mining companies.
“This election will be closer than a lot of people in this room think.”
316, at the same link I’m pleased to note that amongst the most viewed stories on the website is “Web search smear falls apart” (ie Robb).
Bonge. Are you the Favourite? Civil liberties versus national security.
Kev. Too close to call. Ditched the question “We’ve been supportive” “we don’t know what happened to Haneef, but there should be an enquiry”
Bakunin-AL is truly a waste of space and anyone who gives creedence to his rantings must enjoy being bullsh#tted to imo. just posting about him gives me the creeps so i will desist until someone else puts him forward as a trusted source of information as that other chap did on this thread.
Well sondeo, there is a role for public infrastructure, but I think a sucession of state Labor governments has shown that can just as easily be done by the private sector.
321
unfortunately, no
They were related to his campaign against Evan Thornley, prior to the Vic state elections. The claims were made about one of Thornley’s supposed associates. In this case Landeryou passed off fairy tales as incontrovertible truths. That’s all I’m prepared to say.
I sent an email to them months ago saying that Swan came over much better when he was looking at the camera.
TC – I c u are SL
mentions ‘kids overboard’. wow.
BREAKING NEWS:
Labor moves ahead in Corangamite
ALP 1.80
LIBS 1.90
FLYNN:
NATS 1.57
ALP 2.20
Context?
Brilliant that he mentioned the homeless!
“the disgraceful saga called kids overboard…culture of secrecy…supress workchoices…changing FOI laws…Senate commitee system should have a robust review process”
PETRIE:
LIBS 1.82
ALP 1.90
I appreciate your updates!
Swan and Cowan have been Lib gains for a long time.
So, it’s 18 seats Labor need to win, barring any other losses (and those losses could come).
Looking back to my primary source for election coverage in 04, Dave Murray’s Completely Biased blog lives on in archives – here’s what he had to say on election eve (still hopeful of a Labor win, as was I…):
http://completelybiased.blogspot.com/2004/10/election-2004-day-40-final-roundup.html
And here’s the wrap-up on the morning after:
http://completelybiased.blogspot.com/2004/10/three-ds.html
“I cried. I felt physically ill. Seriously. About three hours in. I feel like a moron saying that, but I did. It was a total feeling of helplessness, finding out that the majority of Australian people are either completely stupid or hold money/themselves as their number one concern. To find out that the majority of people I see in this country – people I see and talk to every day – are perfectly fine with a dishonest government. It felt like a sledgehammer to the face. Do I even know what defines an Australian anymore?”
This was pretty much how I felt too. We had the wine ready, we had arranged a little party. It didn’t last long. We couldn’t put up with Nick Minchin’s gloating.
Which is why this time, though I hope for a Labor win, I’ve got my money on a Liberals victory.
Rudd says it’ll be very close.
Now I *know* he’s spinning
So far today, betting markets are quiet, with slight movement towards Labor.
BetFair has best offers for both parties.
__________Wed.Nov.21 <- Tue.Nov.20
===============================
Lasseters: 1.21/4.5 <- 1.21/4.5
CentreBet: 1.23/4.2 <- 1.21/4.5
PortlandBet: 1.23/4.1 <- 1.23/4.1
SportingBet: 1.22/4.15 <- 1.22/4.15
BetFair: 1.25/4.8 <- 1.26/4.8
SportsBet: 1.22/4.15 <- 1.22/4.15
SportsAcumen: 1.23/4.2 <- 1.24/4.1
IASBet: 1.23/4.25 <- 1.24/4.2
BetStar: 1.23/4.15 <- 1.24/4.1
GlobalSportsBet: 1.22/4.2 <- 1.26/4
RacingOdds: 1.23/4.05 <- 1.23/4.05
BetChoice: 1.22/4.35 <- 1.23/4.25
CanBet: 1.23/4.25 <- 1.24/4.2
VCBet: 1.18/4.5 <- 1.18/4.5
===============================
Average: 1.224/4.275 <- 1.229/4.257
The really question with the whole Wentworth anti-Zion story is who put out the story – answer: Andrew Robb.
Andrew Robb is the Machivella Liberal ring-in from Sydney who landed Goldstein in 2004. Goldstein is supposedly a safe Liberal seat with a large Jewish population. There was a hiccup last month when polling showed that even it was loseable for the Libs.
Methinks this beat-up by Robb is actually aimed at shoring up his support in Goldstein.
So your poor predictive powers is the reason why you think the Coalition is going to win again? Well I can’t argue with that…
A nice big plug for Therese. How can you not like this bloke?
340 Let’s wait and see about swan and Cowan. There are equally good chances the net gain for the Libs in WA will be 1 or none. Has anyone noticed how contradictory and appearently poor the marginal seats polling is? Or am I misreading them?
is the press club inquisition going well? i’m not near a TV.
After the 1913 election, Jo Cook’s newly elected Liberal Government had a majority of 1 in the House.
Very well. Rudd’s handling all the questions with ease, and even showing some charm!
Bringing the cabinet to indigenous communities. Brilliant!
KT: “So your poor predictive powers is the reason why you think the Coalition is going to win again? Well I can’t argue with that…”
I just don’t want to be heartbroken again. At the least I’ll win some money…
I’ve tried my best to picture a Rudd victory speech – I don’t see it happening. There was widespread hope last time. It turned into the worst Labor result in decades (and I, for one, don’t blame Latho – no-one would have survived the relentless interest rate scare of 04, and had he won he would have been a fine PM, one of the greats).
ESJ @ 328 , so if the government ( state or federal ) approves infrastructure by the “private” sector, it doesn’t has a positive outcome for the economy.?
Sorry but your statement was that governments have mostly a negative impact on the economy and that is incorrect, their decisions have a major impact on the economy, even if the only decision made is an approval of an infrastructure project by the private sector.
If governments have a mainly negative impact on the economy, what the heck is Howard on about when he said he is a great economic mananger. ? By your statement he has mostly a negative impact on it. Then again most would agree with that.
Andrew, I’m going to lose a fair bit of money if Labor loses on the weekend and so will be doubly unhappy.
And I’ll lose money if Howard wins Bennelong too.
I’ve put all my eggs in one basket, but only because I am supremely confident this time (unlike previous elections).
Very good answers. Keeps doing a funny snuffle though.
Andrew, I knew Labor had lost in 2004 within an hour and turned it off. However, this time it’s different. There’s no Latham, Rudd’s been very good, and the polls haven’t been at all volatile. A 54-46 result, which the polls currently project, will be a crushing win, delivering at least mid-80’s seats. The betting market is also now heavily in Labor’s favour. Labor favoured in 80 seats, with expected seat count of 81.44, and national win prob of 0.772. Everything’s on Labor’s side now.
‘Swan and Cowan have been Lib gains for a long time.’
OH PLEASE!!!
They may be gained, just as we may gain Hasluck and Stirling. But to unequivocally back a swing against labor in WA is brave, and in relation to Swan and Cowan lacking much the of support, even assuming you’d jump of a large margin of error single poll and preach it as truth. As some inexplicably do.
Lord D. The result revealed itself painfully quick. Ouch! still hurts thinking about it.
Hopefully it’s the size of Bill Lawry’s
So, maybe it’s time to spread the dirt on Michael Keenan’s family -or is that already widely-known?
Andrew: Last year, anyone who was following the story could tell the result was certain in the days before the poll. This time, it’s probably not “certain”, but at least the data points the other way.
thanks for the updates.
I was wonder, since so many of you talk about the betting market as if it were a poll in itself
what was the market on the friday before 2004 election?
Andrew, if you haven’t seen it before check out the following graph which shows the striking similarities between 1996 and 2007 (except the ALP and LNP positions are reversed). I’m sorry to say, you’re going to be losing some money on the weekend if you have bet on the Libs:
http://www.ozpolitics.info/election2007/pollchart-1996v2007-newspoll-primary.png
ESJ you sound both opinionated enough, and wrong enough, to be an economic policy “adviser”. There aren’t enough hours in the day to point out the errors in everything you say (that) is wrong, but I’ll try these two for now:
ESJ @ 291 :Basically the only influence government can have on the economy is a negative one. I think politicians like to pretend they have an impact but it just isnt so.
Well, maybe partly true of interest rates but what an absurd generalisation. Try telling that to the people of China. Your statement might be true if Liberals are running the economy. I also take it by this you admit the Howard government has not created the prosperity we currently enjoy? Is that what you meant?
ESJ @ 328 Well sondeo, there is a role for public infrastructure, but I think a sucession of state Labor governments has shown that can just as easily be done by the private sector.
More drivel. Have you ever analysed any infrastructure project? Even Adam Smith said that there were some things best done by private enterprise, and some (public goods) best done by the State. Technical advances over time mean that some public functions, if they can be competively delivered, may be transferred to private. But if they are monopolies its a bad idea. So a few high volume toll roads may be possible, but as Queensland showed with the Gateway bridge, it is often cheaper to do it in government. Many areas of infrastructure cannot efficiently be delivered by private means. Take the 8 billion pounds the British government lost privatising railtrack for a classically illustrative disaster. Or consider the $2 billion Kennets privatised rail cost in Victoria. And don’t get me started on port capacity.
IMO your statement is pure ideology, and betrays a superficial knowledge of economics. I wonder if you have ever done detailed quantitative analysis of any industry in your life? You remind me of a lot of policy types I met in Canberra who had what I would call a “soundbite” level of knowledge. Scratch below the surface, and most of these people can’t even explain the theoretical origins of the theories they sprout, never mind quote a relevant example of where they have worked in practice.
Had a joke about pulling things out of your ear.
Swinging seniors?
http://www.smh.com.au/news/National/Greens-seniors-forming-loose-coalition/2007/11/21/1195321835476.html
Big Blind Dave — I think it closed at around 1.30 for a Liberal win. (ie. an easy win for the Libs was predicted).
William et al. I know you have predicted good things for Mr X but this might hurt him badly.
NICK Xenophon’s running mate at the last state election, Ann Bressington, has launched an extraordinary attack on her political mentor.
Ms Bressington today cast doubt over Mr Xenophon’s ability to represent South Australia in Federal Parliament – even implying he made illegal requests of the State Treasurer Kevin Foley.
http://www.news.com.au/adelaidenow/story/0,22606,22796625-5006301,00.html
Last q answer will be the news grab. “We haven’t just plucked these things out of our…[laughter] ear. I was going to say ear…oh dear.’
HELP:
I know the ABC are streaming their election TV coverage live online, and I figure Sky News will be live on the news lmt sites but does anyone know if channel 9 and 7 are doing the same on ninemsn and yahoo7?
I’m pretty sure im gonna sit on the AEC tallyroom website on saturday come 6pm, with an esky full of expensive beer, plus stream the live TV coverage.
It would be pretty awesome to be able to stream all 4 major coverage outlets and monitor the live tally room results all at once. Kind of like the bad guy in Speed.
I doubt the broadband will hold up, however. Bloody Howard!
Socrates,
Governments hold the ring in the economy through courts and the like thats about it.
Look at the Dalrymple Bay coal loader in Queensland owned by Babcock and Brown.
Yes I agree JWH has very little to do with the modern economy! Basically his contribution has been to keep out of the way of the wealth creators !
Great performance by Rudd. On message, funny in parts, focussed attacks on Howard/Costello, finishes on positives.
What a contrast – relaxed Rudd, then Sky News switches to Costello sounding desperate and hysterical as his chance of becoming P.M. evaporates into thin air.
No, he failed to invest in those few areas where government intervention can help increase the capacity of the economy.
That’s why our economy is now constrained by increasing inflation.
The Exclusive Brethren are now alleging that the Greens endorse bestiality. This is the group that Howard is so keen to work with?
hahahahhaha how phoned in is this Costello speech!?
He’s repeating stuff from March.
Boy oh boy. This Costello speech is drivel. He’s on edge as well. Moving from shouting to depressive monotone to lame jokes.
He’s been going on about gearboxes and engineers for about 3 minutes now. I have NO idea what he is on about.
Socrates @363
Wrote my honours thesis on the role of the state in chinese growth. Got a first!
I’d like to think members of the business community can see through this garbage.
Did they give Cossie a Dorothy Dixer to make him smirk and look like he was intelligent?
http://www.ozforums.com.au/uploads/thumbs/107_bill.jpg
ShowsOn
Yes investing would keep down inflation, “investing” ie taking money away from consumption would be an excellent recipe for a recession in the economy.
You see scratch under the surface and all of you have a little Gosplan in you dont you?
“The Exclusive Brethren are now alleging that the Greens endorse bestiality”
I think they may have misinterpreted the remark ‘The rodent is f*cked”
Hhahahahahh Vaille says people wanted governments out of their lives, so Howard and Costello increased welfare payments by $90 billion.
ESJ
Dalrymple Bay proves my point. A private operator failed to invest until a capacity constraint emerged. They make more money but the industry loses exports and the overall economic outcome for us is a loss. Private is NOT always efficient.
Lots of OECD studies have shown that the most efficient economies do not have the smallest public sector. Both a too large and too small public sector may be detrimental to growth. The whole idea that you can reduce such questions requiring complex analysis in the case of each industry to a single ideological answer, whether it is Reagonics or Communism, is false.
It must be highly stressful running a 10 month election campaign. Makes you wonder how they survive it in the USA.
Vaile is making a great speech as to why we should vote for Rudd…
Vaile getting a rising inflection going. Wow, all sorts of pressure traits are on show today.
We are in a boom! A boom is the time to invest. Increasing inflation means there is too much consumption in the economy, most of it coming straight from credit.
If the government funds ports and clean energy sources then we can export more, and produce more without screwing the environment.
Instead all the government has done is take in a heap of bracket creep, then return half of it each election year. Meanwhile inflation has been going up and up, that’s voodoo economics.
hahahahahaha…The ALP are ‘a bunch of burglers slipping in through the side window to steal the family jewels.’ Priceless.
The End is Nigh
Are you serious? Only the ABC and maybe Ch9 are worth watching the rest are AWFUL, so you only need two tvs.
Also Rudd was very good today at the NPC. Awaiting the O’Brien onslaught tonite. If you think Kerry went Howard, he’s going to be twice as brutal with Rudd.
“Burglars sneaking in the side door – to steal the family jewels” Vaille has lost the plot.
387 Based on introducing horseflu and fire ants during Howard’s watch no doubt.
You can hear the part No show debate here
http://www.abc.net.au/melbourne/mornings/jfmediaondemand.htm
Er, yes, BV @ 381? Who is this? Heffernan?
Wow, Vaille is going for a really sophisticated argument now:
“Vote for the Coalition, else Labor will win.”
386 Kina- I think your point is excellent and often overlooked. To be able to keep going and hold it together when any disaster could happen from any front to derail your whole career must be unbelievably stressful. One sentence can likk you. No matter how much we might hate Howard et al, I cannot fault their ability to handle pressure.
Aha! Funny post from ozforums.com.au
Funniest campaign ever!
Has Vaile mentioned where he was while the AWB was sending money to prop up Saddam, yet?
396 – wo! slow down, egghead, I’m not following.
I think Rudd would have done well to mention the tax reforms as a goal in his first year at the NPC. Work Choices repeal and implementation of the New Tax scales for 2008/2009 financial year would have re-enforced that ‘economic conservatism’ or sensibility as i like to call it. Would also cancel out the Coalition’s Labor has no idea argument.
ESJ382
Re Gosplan remark: The idea that anyone who opposes pure free market capitalism is a socialist is absurd. It is the classic NeoCon tactic for those who can’t think up their own ideas: say the world is black and white and if you don’t like my version of white then its black for you. Tripe. There are many different colors of idiot, as the rainbow of Howard’s Cabinet demonstrates.
Ever heard of supply constraints? Howard hasn’t. Start your economic education with Locke and Smith then proceed forward from there. Call again in 3-4 years.
What do you all think about the strange “undecideds” force that keeps getting thrown around? Personally, I think it’s a load of hogwash.
The implication that is being played upon is that the Government (and Opposition for that matter) has a clean slate in the minds of voters who decide their vote in the last few days, or on the day of the election. Whilst it may be true that these people have yet to make up their minds, you need to ask how they will do so. Will it be on the basis of some last-minute press release, or radio or television sound-bite? Not likely.
Undecided voters will weigh up everything that’s been pushed to the back of their minds in the last few months, drawn forth again for the purpose of making a decision. That decision will be made on much the same grounds as the decisions made by the most informed of voters, albeit with a little less detail. These people will try to picture Kevin Rudd, and everything they’ve heard about him, and do the same for John Howard, then decide which image they like better. This is not what some popular commentators would have us believe.
The error lies in the distinction between “undecided” and “uninformed”. I could know an awful lot about the different candidates, but make a point of not making a conclusion before the day of the ballot. Then, I will consider all the evidence and make a decision, and the result will be something along the lines of the polling figures in the six weeks of the election campaign. “Undecided” does not mean “random” or “unpredictable”, or even “different from previous results”. It simply means “yet to make a commitment.” I expect most of the undecided voters’ decisions to be made the same way as those made weeks, or months, ago.
Did anyone notice some journo’s didn’t clap when Rudd finished?
They are so screwed.
Albanese has probably finished analysing the footage by now and has the list in his pocket.
JFC of Grayndler – yes, even we got the big colour reversed Liberal pamphlet.
People don’t need to be waiting with baseball bats for this Government – they are being laughed out of office.
WE’RE WAITING WITH WHOOPIE CUSHIONS!!!
Big Blind Dave @ 361,
‘I was wonder, since so many of you talk about the betting market as if it were a poll in itself. what was the market on the friday before 2004 election?”
Betting Markets have been proven correct EVERY SINGLE election! (federal election result overall. I haven’t watched individual seat betting)
On the night before election day 2004, Latham / Howard odds were $4.6 / $1.16 at SportingBet.
http://www.smh.com.au/news/opinion/forget-polling-voters-just-ask-the-punters/2007/02/08/1170524230954.html?page=fullpage#contentSwap1
“…Betting markets never predicted Latham would win the 2004 election. At the equivalent stage of 2004, at the end of the first parliamentary sitting week in February when Newspoll showed Labor with a six-point lead, Sportingbet was offering $2.90 for a Labor victory on a $1 bet and $1.38 for the Coalition. This implied only a 33 per cent chance of Labor victory. In May 2004, Labor’s odds briefly touched $2 (taking account of the bookies’ profit margin, this implied a 47.5 per cent probability of victory). “This was as short as Labor got,” says Sportingbet’s manager of sports bookmaking, Stuart Springer.
“Then came Latham’s famous “troops home by Christmas” dictum and the money flooded back to the Coalition. By election day, Sportingbet was offering $4.60 for Labor and $1.16 for the Coalition.”
404 – In Grayndler? I haven’t got mine yet…in Erko though. Maybe it’s a bridge too far here.
HAHAHAHAHAHH
Howard just said he thinks a major problem is businesses who can’t get enough staff.
I have a solution to this problem – businesses should offer to PAY PEOPLE MORE MONEY.
That is the EASIEST way to increase the supply of jobs.
This idea that there aren’t enough people to work in retail jobs is a joke.
Grobb is still banging his drum about the ineligibility claims. I guess they will have special material at all electorates on polling day.
I smell a welfare bludger wedge in Howard’s speech.
Yes Will, banners warning people there could be a by-election should they vote Labor. I wouldn’t be surprised in the slightest and there’s not much that can be done to stop it.
Also he is demanding a recount in Tasmania.
The press had to inform in that the election is on Saturday.
Socrates,
Are you an academic? You really have no idea then.
Someone like Frank Lowy has impact in the economy or Rupert Murdoch people who take risks and create wealth. Government basically tries to redistribute wealth (badly) and holds the ring for the economy, yes it has a role for maintaining and investing in infrastructure – but lets not overstate that.
Its a fallacy propagated by Howard that Governments do more than that. This line about failing to stop inflation is baloney too – we always get inflation when there is a resources boom (and oil is $100 barrel) weve actually done very well to keep inflation so low.
A lot of government investment is really wasted money, I reallly hope with Labor its not code for Medicare Gold type “investment” ie excuses for massive CES style bureacracies to come back to fund left wing dreams.
Nice light article on Crikey:
http://www.crikey.com.au/Election-2007/20071121-The-highs-and-lows-of-Election-07.html
Particularly like the Ruddock line. Speaking of which, where the hell is he?
Its to late for any wedges now to work either way. No movement beyond .5% I would think is possible in a couple of days.
I don’t think the Attorney-General ever has much of a role in the campaign. The role of A-G, traditionally, has meant to be a less political one. Yes, I know.
I haven’t seen a sign of Ruddock in Berowra. The last I heard, he was apparently visiting a mosque in Parramatta two weeks ago. Nobody is campaigning in the suburbs of Thornleigh, Pennant Hills, Normanhurst and Hornsby. If you didn’t watch TV, read newspapers or listen to radio, you wouldn’t know an election is on.
Count Ruddockular only comes out at night
Has anyone mentioned this earlier?
Today’s Courier Mail says Labor is confident about winning Ryan, and also they’re making encouraging noises about Dawson.
Any evidence to back this up?
413 ESJ,
Bollocks – we already have a bloated CES style bureaucracy created to deliver middle class pork. In fact, we have the fattest public service ever.
The ALP will be no worse than the current mob at creating public service jobs – and may be better at allocating them to things that actually do benefit the eceonomy.
Howard still banging on about only the economy and IR only. Just firewalling.
HA HA BV: you’ve used that line before on the other board LOL
Phil looks very ill, I think the blood was drained out of him years ago when he sold his soul to the right wing nuts of the Liberal Party.
Isn’t it interesting how a Morgan poll showing a “close result” in WA gets attention in papers on the net but under normal circumstances they don’t rate a mention?
There’s been no Rudd stuff-up in this last critical week. In fact, he’s had a good week. Tonight’s TV and tomorrows papers will be positive to neutral. Its the Govt that’s been on the defensive on workchoices. Rudd’s Bernie Banton answer today will get a play – which feeds into workchoices. And WC is THE reason why Howard is stuffed. All the other stories are just puff, with no electoral impact. There will be no change from the 54/55 TPP between now and 6pm Saturday.
HH, not my line – some very clever person here coined it to my knowledge. So funny.
Do you remember back in (2001 I presume) when Ruddockular’s daughter went on television saying she disowned him and wouldn’t speak with him because of his treatment of refugees? How can he sleep at night? Well, sleep at day?
ESJ says:
The turnkeys on D Division at Pentridge would say that wouldn’t they?
Good article on the death of the Democrats:
http://www.crikey.com.au/Election-2007/20071121-Alas-poor-Australian-Democrats-we-knew-them-well.html
BV: I don’t know how Ruddock has the nerve to keep wearing that amnesty international badge – insulting!
If Labor ever won Berowra, I’d run naked through Ruddock Park.
What was the question about Bernie, and for that matter Rudd’s response?
Classic Keating animation by Peter Nicholsan
http://www.news.com.au/cartoons/
Will – question was along the lines of ‘give us a defence of unions’. Talked about their social impact and mentioned the Bernie case in his answer.
Here is the Courious Snail article on Ryan etc
CALL it overconfidence, or call it being realistic. However you paint it, Labor considers itself the favourite this weekend in a string of not-so-marginal Coalition-held electorates – including the blue-ribbon Liberal seat of Ryan in Brisbane’s west and the Mackay-based Dawson, in Nationals heartland.
Leaked Labor research suggests controversy over the Coalition’s proposed $2.3 million bypass of the traffic-plagued Ipswich Motorway has it set it up to take Ryan, a seat which has only been held by the ALP for eight months since its creation in 1949.
In Dawson, the onslaught of high-profile Labor figures to have campaigned there betrays the party’s confidence of beating incumbent De-Anne Kelly – a similarly impossible thought for the Opposition just months ago.
The leaked research report into Ryan, prepared for Labor’s national secretary Tim Gartrell, shows voters there are furious over the Coalition’s decision to build a four-bridge bypass across the Brisbane River and through the long-time Liberal stronghold. The bypass would run through Priors Pocket and Moggill.
Aware of the likely backlash, sitting MP Michael Johnson – who enjoys a 10.4 per cent margin – had pleaded for only two bridge crossings. His pleas were ignored by Cabinet.
The two-page report, based on a several focus groups and seat surveys, shows only 14 per cent of Ryan voters support the bypass, while 68 per cent are opposed.
Labor’s two-party-preferred vote in Ryan has now risen to 52 per cent – representing a 12-point swing.
“In open-ended responses (the Goodna bypass) is cited as the main local issue of importance,” the report said. “In reasons given for vote-switching, it rates along with opposition to WorkChoices and Kevin Rudd’s leadership qualities as strong reasons.”
Despite pumping almost $4 billion into fixing the Ipswich Motorway, the Coalition is in danger of losing a swag of seats along its route, including Moreton and Blair.
Labor is opposed to the bypass and supports a widening of the existing motorway.
Mr Johnson said he had always treated his seat as marginal since defeating Labor incumbent Leonie Short in the November 2001 election. Ms Short had won the March 2001 by-election sparked by John Moore’s retirement after he was punted from Cabinet.
Meanwhile in Dawson, Labor’s primary industries spokesman Kerry O’Brien yesterday launched his agricultural policy – a visit which followed Opposition Leader Kevin Rudd’s appearance there last Thursday. More senior Labor figures are expected to drop by before polling day.
Mrs Kelly, a popular incumbent for the past decade who holds a 10 per cent margin, faces disgruntled sugar growers still angry about being left out of the free trade deal with the USA, a redistribution, and thousands of new voters drawn to the seat by the mining boom who are affiliated with strong unions.
http://www.news.com.au/couriermail/story/0,23739,22794540-952,00.html
Didnt realise Peter Tinley was such a rotund fellow…
http://www.howshouldivote.com.au/CandidateProfile.aspx?id=1711
“I say to the people who think you can change the government without changing the country: you couldn’t be more wrong.” That one will play well John. What an idiot.
Anyone have any thoughts about undecided voters? (Refer to my post at 403)
427 ShowsOn – I know you didnt use the line but Hamlet never said “Alas poor Yorick, I knew him well.” The line was “Alas poor Yorick, I knew him Horatio.”
Thanks Pancho. Speaking of Bernie, he is gravely ill and in hospital at the moment. I do hope he makes it through to at least Sunday.
shows on. it will be sad to see them go.
ESJ,
As you can see from Bukinin and TC, opinions about Andrew Landeryou are quite polarised.
I find his blog a cross between The New Yorker , Mad Magazine and the old style pamphleteers. The delicious thing is you never quite know which style is playing on any particular day.
He is quite passionate about the causes he supports and scathing of lefties, political correctness and the Greens. I agree his proximity to the truth, at times, is sometimes mediocre (but no worse than the Australian).
He has also broken some good stories and usually has had excellent insights into the Right wing machinations of the ALP.
His personal style is “robust” and has clearly upset many people with his loving caring and sharing attitude. If you judge a man by the qualities of the enemies he makes, then he is very successful.
There are a number of anti-Landeryou sites in operation that spend an inordinate amount of time providing character references, grooming advice and blowing raspberries. For someone so unimportant, he keeps an army of antagonists very, very busy.
My advice is to visit his site, familiarise yourself with his style, pick the bits you like and leave the rest behind.
No doubt others will disagree with this assessment.
ESJ
Back to work now, but for the record, I am an engineer, don’t work in government, and have never been an academic, not do I plan to become one. So in return, have you ever been a policy advisor? or ever analysed any infrastructure project in detail (demand, costs etc)? Waiting to see which stereotype was accurate…
Daniel B. about the ‘undecided voters’… hmmm… i cant really say at the moment.
(boom! tish!)
#404, yes JFC I noticed. I think during his speech some of the journos had glazed eyes but they should have perked up during question time. Think Rudd performed better then.
Daniel B @ 435 – I thin the consensus is they generally end up breaking the same way as the wider voting public.
I’m no expert on these things though.
Don’t be fooled by the polls folks, this election is close, very close…only three days away in fact!
@ 310 Edward StJohn Says:
Do you mean the “non-core” or the “never ever” ones?
For tragics poring over the entrails of polls out west – a close look at the betting markets suggest that punters are currently giving little regard to the chances of the ALP losing either Cowan or Swan and are nearly as upportive of the chances of the ALP winning Hasluck while Sirling is out of range.
The seat by seat betting will be an interesting test of the reliability of the betting markets
# 361 Big Blind Dave Says: November 21st, 2007 at 1:37 pm
http://completelybiased.blogspot.com/2004/10/election-2004-day-40-final-roundup.html
I think the great majority have made a decision. They only have to follow through with it. The polls are only about intentions.
The fun part for those of us here that are interested in such things will be matching the stats of the pollsters to the actual election result.
Possums analysis will be essential reading. !
374 “The Exclusive Brethren are now alleging that the Greens endorse bestiality”
I must point that out to my widowed grand-mother, since it seems to give the lie to her belief that the Greens want to murder her poor old moggie.
By definition the non-core ones because they are the ones they either cant or wont keep Albert Ross.
Yes Socrates lots of “engineers” on this site I am a social engineer.
Porlandbet has started a book on how many seats Labor will win.
“Currently 83, 84 and 85 seats are all joint favourites at $8″
https://www.portlandbet.com/index.php?cPath=3156&event_id=ALL&market_type_id=-#go_
Liberal pamphlet out here in Marrickville/Dulwich Hill part of Grayndler.
Pancho, if you didn’t see the needle in the haystack, I’ve added a soundtrack to your comment –
http://au.youtube.com/watch?v=0yfGLa9YcIY
Fortunately I am a chemist, not an engineer, and please remember “chemists have solutions”. Oh, I am also a part-time comedian.
Hi all… I have a question that’s off the topic.
Are you allowed to vote both above the line and below the line in the upper house? I’ve heard conflicting info on this and the AEC is less than forthcoming.
Suppose you attempt to vote BTL, and as an insurance policy, label a box ‘1′ for the ticket of your choice ATL. I’ve heard that if you stuff up the BTL vote, then your ATL vote is still vaild, but otherwise, your BTL takes preceedance.
However, today I heard from another source that doing so makes your vote invalid.
Which is correct? Does anybody know?
Does anyone know Possum’s real identity? He (or she) has become something of an online celebrity during the campaign.
Re: 453
If you’re not part of the solution, you’re part of the precipitate.
Boom, Boom ChrisC !
Big Blind Dave @ 361 & others interested in betting/predictive research on past elections
http://econrsss.anu.edu.au/~aleigh/pdf/Forecasting%20elections%20(AJPS).pdf
http://econrsss.anu.edu.au/~aleigh/pdf/ElectionForecasting2005%20(ER%20version).pdf
http://econrsss.anu.edu.au/~aleigh/
He is a QLDer in the seat of Lilley. So he must be Wayne Swan.
Really flourishing the cap and gown today, arn’t we Eddy? As you are one of Australia’s leading contempory Historians, you appear singularly unaware that such pomp and posing really pisses off the sort of Aussies who are primed to throw your similarly detatched hero overboard this Saturday. It’s important for you to develop a broader understaning of these mores if you are to grapple successfully with the social realities of 21st Century Australia.
Does anyone know re electors who cast ballots overseas, what seats they are allocated to?
The votes that is
How may I learn Enemy Combatant?
ESJ,
I laugh at your economics lesson. Maybe you should drag out those texts and read up again on your Swan-Solow and SRAS models (not to mention the definition of public goods) before you start making proclamations such as “government investment is really wasted money”.
William. Just a quick note to thank you for this website, the intelligent contributions from (most) of the people here have provided some valauble and interesting insight into the political workings of this country, much more informative than what is published in the (spin doctored) mainstream media. Through your website and the other linked pseph sites, especially Palmers Ozpolitics, my understanding of the political process, the dynamics, the parties, the ideologies etc.. is worth more than anything learnt through college and uni (Although I will admit humanities were not my subjects of choice) but the science of politics here has certainly piqued my interest.
Could someone in the know please enlighten me on what will happen in the event that Labor win the HOR but the Liberals still control the Senate. I have seen a few posts and reports of a possible double dissolution and by-election. What are the likely repercussions for a Rudd Govt if the Coalition continues to control the senate until July 1st. Is there a mechanism whereby a double disssolution can be called and on what basis, what would be involved and under what circumstances would this happen?
Thanks
Hear, Hear!
At least we got him to agree that the Howard and Costello mantra of “economic management” is a complete sham.
Using <$1.30 as a cutoff Centrebet shows LNP = 69, LAB = 78, IND = 2
Some slight breathing room still.
Chris C: There are a few cases of a Senate’s vote being valid or not.
1) Valid ATL with no BTL – Valid ATL
Valid ATL and BTL – Valid BTL
2) Valid BTL with no ATL – Valid BTL
3) Invalid ATL with no BTL – Invalid
4) Invalid BTL with no ATL – Invalid
5) Invalid ATL with valid BTL – Valid BTL
6) Invalid BTL with valid ATL – Valid ATL
7) Invalid ATL and BTL – Invalid
The rule is, a valid BTL will override the ATL, and a valid vote either way overrides the invalid vote. Note, I think that if the BTL is considered valid, but has errors within the margin accepted, but there is a valid ATL then I think the ATL is considered ‘more valid’.
ShowsOn, I think your on to something: left wing, good with numbers, Queenslander from lilley.
#462, when i lived in the UK, you simply register as an overseas elector and vote in the electorate from which you were last registered. You then have to request a postal vote at every election. (Or you can vote in person at Australia House, for example, which is quite fun. I even got a free anzac biscuit in 2004).
NB: It is a seat they were last in, or they can select a seat they had most association with. I.e. when I was overseas, I could of nominated Kooyong or Herbert. I lived in Kooyong before going overseas, but I could have nominated Herbert because I lived there for 20 odd years.
I heard Bob Brown interviewed on Radio National and he was interrupted when he said geothermal energy was potential baseload with the comment “but that’s ten years away.” That’s absolute nonsense. Green Rock are planning to build a 400mw power station in six years. We could have a substantial portion of our electricity provided by genuinely clean geothermal well within ten years.
I note Geodynamics (GDY) and Petratherm (PTR) have been rising lately. Green Rock (GRK) curiously stays around 12-12.5c and yet they are likely to be the first cab off the rank. I reckon it’s a bargain at that price. Time will tell.
By the way, as a reminder, we have enough geothermal energy already discovered to power all of our electricity needs for at least 800 years.
On the undecideds, many of these are not in fact undecideds but merely say they are. Not everyone likes to say how they are voting. It particularly applies when you may be voting Labor for the first time and not your usual Liberal. You simply want to keep that decision private, even from a polling company. The “undecideds” will almost certainly break down to the genera”decideds” pattern.
The Liberals are desperately clutching at straws in the hope they won’t drown.
They might as well plan for who will take over the leadership next week and start jockeying for shadow portfolios.
My betting is there will be a swag of by-elections in the coming months with the likes of Alexander Downer, Tony Abbott and so on going off into the sunset.
Maybe with a bit of luck we will get some genuinely liberal Liberals replacing them.
470 Talk about good with numbers, they doubled their savings.
http://abc.net.au/news/stories/2007/11/21/2096974.htm
Doug@446 “The seat by seat betting will be an interesting test of the reliability of the betting markets”
I trust overall result as a collective outcome from individual seats.
But it should be pointed out that seat-by-seat bettings are not always correct/accurate.
In 2001, CentreBet offered bet on 33 individual marginal seats. Guess what?! Punters’ accuracy was 27/33
http://www.onlineopinion.com.au/view.asp?article=2645
razzmataz:
Consult the Constitution, s57
“If the House of representatives passes any proposed law, and the Senate rejects or fails to pass it, or passes it with amendments to which the House of Representatives will not agree, and if after an interval of three months the House of Representatives, in the same or the next session, again passes the proposed law with or without any amendments which have been made, suggested, or agreed to by the Senate, and the Senate rejects or fails to pass it, or passes it with amendments to which the House of Representatives will not agree, the Governor-General may dissolve the Senate and the House of Representatives simultaneously. But such dissolution shall not take place within six months before the date of the expiry of the House of Representatives by effluxion of time.
If after such dissolution the House of Representatives again passes the proposed law, with or without any amendments which have been made, suggested, or agreed to by the Senate, and the Senate rejects or fails to pass it, or passes it with amendments to which the House of Representatives will not agree, the Governor-General may convene a joint sitting of the members of the Senate and of the House of Representatives.
The members present at the joint sitting may deliberate and shall vote together upon the proposed law as last proposed by the House of Representatives, and upon amendments, if any, which have been made therein by one House and not agreed to by the other, and any such amendments which are affirmed by an absolute majority of the total number of the members of the Senate and House of Representatives shall be taken to have been carried, and if the proposed law, with the amendments, if any, so carried is affirmed by an absolute majority of the total number of the members of the Senate and House of Representatives, it shall be taken to have been duly passed by both Houses of the Parliament, and shall be presented to the Governor-General for the Queen’s assent. “
So which are you then ESJ, a risk taker, a creator of wealth, an economist or an academic? From all you have written on these blogs I believe I would be on very safe grounds suggesting you are none of the above.
473 I was reading the Tasmanian Budget papers earlier this year and found Tasmania is capable of producing electricity from ‘hot rocks’ too. Who’d have thought it was up there with the Queensland, South Australia border in this regard?
I believe Labor produced the letters of resignation for 11 people to prove the lie of Robb’s assertion.
Is it not a criminal offence to make continuing claims when you have no evidence to support them. I remember someone yesterday posting the relative part of the Act here. I wonder if in fact the original claims were in fact criminal given they were simply based on google searching govt web-sites.
Maybe they should ask Robb if he is willing to do 6 months prison for each false claim given that Labor has produced the evidence.
I have already said it before Let it End,
I am a renaissance man
razzmataz, there is very little chance of Kevin Rudd winning the election and the Coalition controlling the Senate. Almost always, the vote swings in both Houses.
If it did happen by chance then Kevin Rudd will call another election in a year to eighteen months and claim his mandate is being blocked. He would win both Houses relatively easily.
Oh, and the last DD was in 1987, the trigger being legislation for the Australia Card. The Labor Government did not achieve the numbers it desires and I don’t believe they pursued a joint sitting.
Am I right that the last joint sitting was in 1974?
Kina, I didn’t think that provision was applicable at all to Robb’s statements.
And if Costello and Howard want to keep criticising that States they might want to ask how they get their budget surpluses if the States were doing so badly.
“Am I right that the last joint sitting was in 1974?”
The first, last and only.
Yes 482 – 1974
If you at the footage of Whitlams front bench its uncanny how many sons now sit behind Rudd
478 I hadn’t read that Steve. I wonder if any of the four current major hot rock companies are exploring the possibility. Hot rock energy is being explored all over the place, in the USA, Europe and so on. Japan is an obvious place. It’s about as clean as you can get.
ESJ, I must say you’re somewhere between a pretty good sport and a bloody idiot for your continual presence on this page.
“how many sons now sit behind Rudd”
Crean, Bowen, McClelland, and who else?
LTE – ok then.
But it does raise the issue of underhand play.
Any desperate party could simply check to see who has previously worked for government and, then make the claim that they could be inelligible to win [which would be true if requirements were not adhered to]. If you are a day out from an election and get an allegation that 54 Liberal party candidates ‘may’ be inelligible – it really would be an abuse.
Sportingbet has opened books on 2PP count for ALP (53/54% favourite) and “most marginal seats” (you can get $9 on Bennelong)
ESJ The Liberal Party is in urgent need of a renaissance right now.
Actually, regarding hot rocks, no one has been able to give me a compelling scientific reason how the engineering factors have improved hot rocks technology in recent years. The concept has been around for a long time as far as I am aware. I’d be fascinated to know the big breakthrough ? (Since the 1970’s according to a geologist I know) I’m not saying I’m a sceptic, but I’d like my scientific curiosity to be satisfied.
Richard Jones @ 487:
I got some shares in Geodynamics, investement in the future. They are doing well so far both project wise and share-price-wise.
476
Lose the election please
Thank you! Reading through the double talk language of this section of the constitution, can it be summarised that in the unlikely event a double dissolution occured prior to July 1st and the Governor General called a joint sitting of the Senate and HOR the total vote majority required to pass a bill is more than 50% of 226 votes (150 HOR votes + 76 Senate votes) In other words if the ALP held a majority of say 20 votes in the HOR, a proposed law would be carried even if the Coalition held a small majority in the Senate, therefore this process would eventually pass new laws, but after further delays, and as the HOR has been dissolved no other laws could be passed until the joint sitting vote has been concluded. Is this a correct assumption?
495
No, you need to hold another election first. The combined sitting is after the DD election.
The Coalition would almost defintiely lose control of the Senate at the Double Dissolution election (assuming Rudd wins the HOR).
Kina, yes I have shares on both Geodynamics and Green Rock and am happy to hld on to them for the long term. You simply can’t go wrong in the long term.
Matthew, check out the information on GRK, GDY and PTR to see what they are up to. Also see who they have put on board lately. They have some top expertise. They are working with overseas experts including Icelanders. They are also exploring overseas. It’s the next frontier.
I do hope so Richard, as it stands to make South Australia an awful lot of money.
As a diversion – the latest drilling report of Geodynamics via ASX
http://www.asx.com.au/asx/statistics/announcementSearch.do?method=searchByCode&releasedDuringCode=W&issuerCode=GDY
Their project web-site
http://www.geodynamics.com.au/IRM/content/home.html
Howard’s statements that you can’t change the government without changing the country just show how utterly clueless he and his party remain in this campaign.
They still seem to believe that Rudd is running on some kind of streak of good luck that never ends.
They simply cannot fathom that a majority of people don’t like WorkChoices, want to ratify Kyoto and do something about global warming, and don’t like constant cuts to education and health. As pointed out in Adam Carr’s excellent analysis regarding unions and WorkChoices, the Libs have therefore been running a campaign based on false assumptions and resonating with no-one.
People are unhappy about those things. And they WANT to change them, Ratty. Your complete failure to comprehend this spells your doom.
Matthew Green Rock already have a MOU with BHP to supply geothermal energy and are situated right near a high power lines. They will be using waste water from BHP and recycling it. South Australia may well end up as the source of 50% of Australia’s electricity in the not too distant future.
The early bird gets the worm!
LTEP (318)
Don’t know if anyone else got around to answering your question, but Menzies scraped in by 1 seat in 1961. Also Gough Whitlam had a majority of something like 4 seats (may have been 1 or 2 more) after the double dissolution in 1974.
Pancho Left 488 -
You people would miss me if I left the blog – you just cant bear to admit it.
@503
“You people would miss me if I left the blog – you just cant bear to admit it.”
Right…..Are you sure you’re not Howard?
487 Sorry to mislead you Richard Jones just remember it wasn’t the budget papers, it was the Tasmanian Premier being quizzed at budget estimates committee.
Regarding hot-rock geothermal. I’m an engineer, although I don’t work in the energy industry (although I used to work in mining infrastructure before changing fields), but it’s my understanding that as a source of power, ten years would be a conservative estimate for a pilot plant, but probably about right for a commercialised project (this could come down with suitable investment). Both Geodynamics and another company, Petratherm, have set up projects that have successfully demostrated proof of concept.
There’s a good article at mine-web here: http://www.mineweb.net/mineweb/view/mineweb/en/page38?oid=20361&sn=Detail
The technology is limited somewhat by water use and remote locations. These problems are not insurmountable, but would require a large does of political will to get going. I would envision this kind of technology getting off the ground commerically before carbon-capture and storage (so called “clean coal”) would.
That said, technological advances are more difficult to pick than elections…
ESJ – True, I’d give you a whoopee cusion rather than baseball sendoff.
Geez, the ALP has really stepped up its online ads. Go to news.com.au and see for yourself. Both major ad banners are carrying ALP ads:
http://www.news.com.au/story/0,23599,22796322-29277,00.html
The Liberal party is in for a renaissance allright – when the exodus begins (especially in NSW) we will see a Parliamentary flood of nasty little creatures in the mold of the incoming member for Mitchell, Alex Hawke.
These nutjobs are gonna take the Libs even further to the right while Labor nails down the political middle ground – any further concentration of Lib power amongst the extremists in its NSW branch will almost ensure that they are out of office federally for many years.
Don’t believe me? Check out the 4 Corners that aired on 17 July last year. It tells a very interesting behind-the-scenes story of how far to the right, the NSW division of the Liberal party is headed.
http://www.abc.net.au/4corners/content/2006/s1686673.htm
481
Richard Jones
Thanks for that. Makes perefect sense, so basically a DD is extremely unlikely. As half the Senate is up for nomination at each election held, it makes sense if the governing party were still blocked they would call an early election. As a matter of interest, are their any new proposed (controversial) laws to be heard before the Senate prior to 1st July when the Govt is then expected to have the majority in both houses. I heard Kerry O’Brien talking of a law to enact Nuclear Power in Australia (in the senate?). I guess the big end of town would be following this with keen interest.
Thanks again for your post.
South Australia has been doing very well on renewable energy targets, particularly with wind energy. In fact 20% of our energy needs will come from renewable sources by 2009. All credit to Kevin Rudd’s media magnate, Mike Rann.
Optimist – that is a shame. I despise the NSW Labor and Liberal parties in almost equal measure. It would be nice if someone held someone to account in that circus on Mac St.
#447 Doug, Portlandbet has Brand and Swan looking very safe for the ALP as you say. Hasluck(at $1.38) is a very likely gain, Stirling basically at 50/50 . The next most marginal seat is surprisingly Canning(ALP $2.60). ie. most likely scenario is ALP gain of 1 or 2.
@435
Funny how Howard (after having stolen Keatings policies and economic legacy) is now stealing Keatings 1996 rhetoric. And Keating was right, Australia did change, it became a slimey America Lite rat race.
What goes round…..
If you kept to generalisations and humour and dispensed with the more ignorant economic suppositions you often put forward I’d agree with you.
Re 462,
NB Says:
NB, when we lived overseas (96-04), I was not yet a citizen but my Australian husband of course was. He voted in the electorate in which he was last registered before he left Australia to live in the states. I don’t imagine that policy would have changed much, if at all.
lying rat race.
Thanks Steve. It makes sense that it wasn’t actually in the budget although the State government may want to provide so start up assistance.
Thanks also Kina. Those guys are determined to make it work.
ChrisC, that’s why I chose GRK for the major part of my investment. I talked to the CEO and he’s adamant that it will be a shorter time frame than that.
They have the advantage over the others as they have a good source of recycled water near by and a power line.
It costs a million dollars a kilometre for powerlines I read somewhere to carry the load they would want to supply.
In my view it’s definitely a goer. It needs investment and support from the incoming government will definitely help investor confidence.
Ta Julie
I think the result would be reversed if they used the Queensland Parliament as a yardstick. I think the Queensland parliament has the second highest female representation of any parliament in the world.
http://www.news.com.au/couriermail/story/0,23739,22796322-5003402,00.html
razzmatazz: Not every general election has a half Senate election, it depends on the timing of the HoR election.
The election for the Senate can occur at the same time as a HoR if the half of the senate is set to expire within 12 months from the dissolution of the HoR. Senators take their seat on July 1 following their election. If Howard called the election in June, even for an election in July, we would have had to have 2 separate elections, the HoR and the half Senate election. Once July 1 came around this year, the election of the HoR and half Senate could occur on the same day. This is why the new senators will have to wait 7 months before taking their seats.
razzmatazz, I would think that Kevin Rudd would not need a messy showdown in the first six months. He may however want to show just how out of date the Coalition is by introducing legislation he knows they will want to reject!
He will have a lot of house cleaning to do in the first six months.
There will be a shake-up in the bureaucracy to remove Howard-supporting time servers and to put in his own people.
I wouldn’t imagine he would get down to real business until the second half of the year after the clean-up.
The budget will be interesting though.
Richard Jones and others-Vic Petroleum and Lakes Oil and others are forming a new company called Green Earth Energy Ltd that will explore for Hot Rocks/Geothermal energy in Victoria. The Latrobe Valley region features quite prominently but @ 30c a share for a start up seems a bit steep to me?
I am starting to get the feeling that the conservative media is like the lid on a fast-boiling saucepan: it’s doing it’s best to hold in the patent public mood to boot out the government but it is increasingly being blown off but the steam of public opinion.
And so we should turn up the heat?
Blogs are little gas burners adding to the flames.
I’m a fan.
More nonsense from Vaile, mixing his metaphors; something about the Prime Minister’s crown jewels:
http://www.smh.com.au/news/National/Labor-a-bunch-of-burglars-says-Vaile/2007/11/21/1195321843976.html
Thanks Darn, but my question was in relation to first term majorities. Rudd might break the post-WWII record this Saturday.
Tory Crimes, 30c a share would not be expensive necessarily. They may look incredibly cheap in two or three years. Depends what they are doing, where they are doing it, what expertise they have on board, whether they have undertaken any preliminary work and so on. What basis do they have for believing that they will find geothermal energy in the Latrobe Valley. Those are the kind of questions I would ask.
Optimist @ 509 – Yes, this is the future if the polls prove correct – the question is, how many others like A Hawke are secure in safe seats? It will also be on in the national organisation. The spectacle of NSW-style branch stacking and pick-axing the LNP to the extreme religious right will be something to keep blogs like this going after the big day on Sat. Perhaps Crichton-Browne could even make a comeback in WA. In the meantime, the Rudd govt will be able to station its army permanently in the central electoral parade ground.
Richard Jones, yes it seems only logical and responsible that the first 6 months will be focused on housekeeping (it has been 11 years since the last spring clean). This alone could be an interesting time and no doubt there will be many surprises to be found (in the attic, under the bed) … could be a busy time this Christmas for the paper shredders. Let us hope that accountability is brought back in from day 1 and the suppression of FOI laws is overturned. Nothing like a clean broom in any organisation.
There’s also the unlikely scenario that Rudd could call a double dissolution before 1 July 2008 in which case some senators-elect from the 24 November 2007 election may never actually take their seats. It’d be an extreme crunch though.
I think that Hughes will go to the Labor party. It is currently at 8.5% to the Liberal party. The sitting member came in with Howard in 1996. Picked up the local papers this afternoon and they each had a wide spread on the 3 local electorates – Werriwa, Fowler and Hughes (papers based out of Liverpool, NSW). The sitting member has pledged 1 million to build new sporting facilities this week – can you spell P*O*R*K ?
…… you know that they are in trouble when they pledge something to the electorate. Labor candidates response – “Government is to be congratulated for finally giving something to the residents of Hughes after ignoring them for 11 years” and questioned whether or notthe promise would come to fruition if the coalition was returned. Vale (sitting member) has also refused to sign a Teachers Federation pledge for increased funding for schools and instead called upon the State Government to “lift its game” regarding education. (The “blame the states” game) And Jim from Wattle Grove has a letter to the editor scathing of Ms. Vale. 6 paragraphs long, it ends with a suggestion that she “look at retirement with your big pension so that we may have a dynamic hard working MP who is supportive of the people living in the electorate and will honestly act in the best interest of our community”
#
332
Edward StJohn Says:
November 21st, 2007 at 1:20 pm
TC – I c u are SL
What I am ESJ is someone smart enough to know that this raconteur, tell it like it is, lovable rogue persona masks a very sick and twisted individual who has caused a lot of hurt to people who really didnt deserve it.
We might squeeze in Possum’s interest rate poll boost by Saturday, every bit helps.
[528
Jude Says:
November 21st, 2007 at 3:44 pm
More nonsense from Vaile, mixing his metaphors; something about the Prime Minister’s crown jewels:
http://www.smh.com.au/news/National/Labor-a-bunch-of-burglars-says-Vaile/2007/11/21/1195321843976.html
Vaile is very confused and confusing. Is he talking about AWB or Reginal Rorts when he is talking about burglars?
Howard’s 5 point plan for his first 12 months:
1) Keep economy strong.
2) Keep Australia secure.
3) Implement election promises.
4) Resume efforts to implement the $10b Murray-Darling water plan.
5) Start talks about having the Aboriginies recognised in the constitution.
Compare Rudd’s 5 point plan:
1) Ratify Kyoto.
2) Start reforms on the public health systems.
3) Begin rollout of high speed broadband.
4) Hit the ground running on his $2.5b plan to upgrade trades training centres in high schools.
5) Begin negotiations to withdraw troops from Iraq.
Rudd outlines 5 specific policies he is going to tackle straight up, Howard’s plan is so broad that we still don’t know about the future under him.
Sorry LTEP Jumped in without reading the question properly.
Richard Jones-Yes I ve got a prospectus and you could be right but some of the others you mentioned appear to be more advanced thats why i thought 30c was just a bit too expensive having said that i think its a good thing to get into if you can wait.
razzmatazz, I hope so too. We all have to hold the government accountable and make sure they do what they said they would do. The FOI laws suppression needs to be lifted immediately and no doubt the Rudd team will have some pleasure in releasing those suppressed documents if they can piece them together after they have been through the shredders!
It’ll be a bit like after the end of the East German regime when they left a huge pile of shredded documents but they have now found a new rapid way to piece them together.
One can only magine the mess after eleven and a half years. It’s a bit like having really bad alcoholic tenants in your house and having to clean up after them when you have finally been able to get them to leave. It’ll need a heavy dose of tea tree oil to cleanse it!
If Rudd wins I can see an interesting tactic coming for the following years with FOI. Whenever things get a bit tricky for the ALP you may find another piece of damning information on the Howard government coming out as a diversion.
Will, Rudd number 2 is very broad.
On Howard’s number 5… I thought the time for talk was over?
“Asbestos campaigner Bernie Banton has at most a week to live and will probably only last days, his doctor says.”
http://www.theage.com.au/news/national/banton-will-probably-only-last-days/2007/11/21/1195321844222.html
I hope that he stays around long enough to see Kevin win and the Coalition tossed out.
Speaking of those who aren’t well, has anyone out in PB land any updates on Matt Price from the Australian?
Andrew: “I’ve got my money on a Liberals victory.”
No mate, as explained earlier, you’ve got $200 up a bookie’s nose on Sat’dee nite.
Presumably points 1-3 of Howard’s plan are so obvious they don’t deserve to be mentioned?
As if any politician would ever have:
1) Deliberately trash the economy.
2) Fatally weaken defences and invite invasion.
3) Break all promises.
Well (3) maybe, but they would never articulate it.
“A Labor win in the marginal seat of Wentworth should be respected and not subjected to a legal challenge over Labor candidate George Newhouse’s eligibility, according to the Liberal MP who was controversially succeeded in Wentworth by Malcolm Turnbull.
Peter King, who lost a bitter preselection battle to Mr Turnbull in 2004, said there was a strong mood for renewal across Australia, and that Mr Turnbull should respect the voters’ choice this weekend.”
http://www.theage.com.au/news/federal-election-2007-news/dont-challenge-newhouse-says-lib-exmp/2007/11/21/1195321833096.html
Tory Crimes, one hundred million shares at 3c is the same as ten million at 30c. How many shares are the issuing?
Rates Analyst
No. (3) has been articulated “Non-Core”
Excellent input from King! highlights the sore loser & grubby cheat syndrome from the Libs on the very day they try the latest slur (anti-Zionist staff, who actually only criticized theocracies in general – dont we all?)
Newhouse to win.
Rainman is overrated anyway. I could sort if see the “talent” angle until he started investing in voodoo nonsense!
Razzmatazz that was after the election – not before. Though it is perhaps an indictment on his previous behaviour that he needs to say this time that he really will keep his promises.
LTEP: It ties in with his policy of, inject $2.5b to the state hospital systems and given them 18 months to cut waiting times or he will hold a referendum to take over the control of them. Sorry if I made it sound like a broad policy, it’s not really.
Did someone mention pork and Vaille in the same breath? Heard some Tory on ABC radio midmorning trying to butress Herbert with a new sponsorship for the North Queensland Cowboys Rugby League.
Rates Analyst @ 546 : I’m with you on that. It seems like the old man hadn’t given it much thought and came up with some broad ideas that sounds like he has a plan.
LATEST HEADLINES :
We are getting dumber : Rudd (HeraldSun)
OZ dumber under Howard : Rudd (Daily Telegraph)
Howard’s education failure : Rudd (Adelaide Advertiser)
The first 2 headlines BIASELY but cleverly paint Rudd calling Aussies dumb
The 3rd headline tells the TRUTH of what Rudd said
I have failed in vain on this blog to get ANY interest in bloggers boycotting these
anti Labor newspapers in favor of evenhanded ones like Sydney Morning Herald/Age
555 [I have failed in vain ...]
Huh?
I strongly believe that the real plan was (is) Nuclear and Health. They plan to allow Nukes and take over the Health system. They just haven’t really articulated it clearly. Mainly becuase it would be an invitiation to even further annihilation electorally.
I doubt they would take WC further – though I think they originally planned to.
Rudd ain’t gonna call a DD – why would he risk losing so soon (however slight the chance) when Labor has been in opposition misery for 11.5 long long long years.
557 [I strongly believe that the real plan was (is) Nuclear and Health. They plan to allow Nukes and take over the Health system. They just haven’t really articulated it clearly. Mainly becuase it would be an invitiation to even further annihilation electorally.]
That’s why their campaign has been so ineffective. The Tories have not been game to say what they are really up to and just look unelectable as compared to wiped out totally.
Howard’s REAL 5 point plan for his first 12 months:
1) Keep economy strong – Workchoices Mark 2
2) Keep Australia secure – Invade IRAN
3) Implement election promises – ONLY CORE promises
4) Resume efforts to implement the $10b Murray-Darling water plan – FIND envelope with original plan…
5) Start talks about having the Aboriginies recognised in the constitution – I talk you listen: YOUR LAND IS MINING LAND – RELOCATE OR LOSE WELFARE
553,
Yes, but it was Donna Vale, sitting Lib for Hughes in SW Sydney. No worries, though, as they all know how to promise money out there, no matter which part of the coalition they are from
……
The headlines are maybe not so bad because they attract attention – it will depend on the first paragraph of the text as people have a quick glance to see what it is about.
I don’t go to those newspapers at all except if someone posts a link that seems interesting. After the election I will have no reason at all to visit them.
555,
I live in Sydney and I won’t touch the SMH in the paper edition. I read only the online version and that way, I can filter out what I like without giving them any of my money.
SMH is too conservative. Not that the DT is NOT but since they are endorsing Rudd, albeit reluctantly, but doing it none the less, I am willing to give them the time of day.
I hear you on The Age though. I don’t live in Melbourne but The Age is my homepage when I start up my computer. I ALWAYS read that first and always will, no matter where I live in Australian. The Herald Sun can get stuffed
Richard-Vic Pet are issuing $8 million to its shareholders out of a total of $15 mil.dont have a calculator handy.
Those sections of the Oz media that need to will encounter their own irrelevance on Saturday night.
Should be a good evening all round. I look forward to the post-mortems. Honetly, I still recall the glory that was the 93 post-election wrap ups. Mmmmm, I bathed contentedly in those for weeks.
Julie the DT has not endorsed Rudd, that was the Sunday version, which is another matter entirely. We won’t know which way the DT jumps until Friday or more probably Saturday.
E StJ is what is commonly known as a smart-arse. He presumably has some particular field of expertise, but his contributions here show no evidence of it, so what it is, is anyone’s guess. I see someone above says he is a historian, and that would certainly fit, although he would be a poor one, because he plainly has great difficulty being objective. I suspect his mathematical ability is relatively low, since whenever he attempts to make any economic or statistical point he makes a goose of himself. Other than that he comes across as a dilettante with a smattering of knowledge on a few subjects, a passable vocabulary, and an argumentative streak. Whenever he is challenged he will use one of several tactics.
1. Change the subject.
2. Create a straw man, by quoting a small part of his antagonist’s argument, embellishing it with untruths and generalisations, and then demolishing his own ridiculous confabulation. As an example, see his plagiarism invention some time ago. (This is also known as the McGuinness, Devine, Henderson, Albrechtsen method)
3. Resort to ridicule or abuse, with no counter argument at all.
He has great difficulty discerning when he is being ‘had’, and bites like a hungry barracouta. He also has a monstrous ego.
Renaissance man! Pull the middle one!
cheers,
Alan H
thanks for the discussion on geothermal. i am going to invest my winnings from my maxine bet in some of that underground green…. to help kev do the right thing by the kids of the future.
i am going down to the opera house in sydney on saturday night after midnight after all is run and done…to watch her turn the lights out in kirribilli house for the last time. i think it will be the place to be for a quiet moment of reflection after all these years of pain.
566,
Fair enough Adrian, but it matters not to me. They are as far as I am concerned the same paper. I don’t think of the weekend paper as different from the main paper. That might be a distinction that the paper makes, but in my mind, it isn’t there. It is enough for me to know that there are moderating voices on the editorial panel. I have noticed a considerably less vocal voice for the government though in the daily paper as well.
Does the advertising blackout also apply to on-line ads?
No
The GG:”I’m Ready To Lead – Rudd.
http://www.theaustralian.news.com.au/story/0,25197,22796666-601,00.html
Is there an ACN poll out this week?
Julie, the Daily and Sunday Teles are different papers; different editors, journalists, time frame, interest spectrum. Ditto at the Herald and Age. Some of the ’senior’ commentators appear in both, but that’s about it.
cheers,
Alan H
Yeah, I know that Alan. The other PB poster told me as well, that makes 2 of you now
. What I said was that to *me*, it *doesn’t matter*. I think of them as one in the same. It is all about perceptions I suppose.
573 – Is the pope a Catholic?
576 – adrian
Do you know when?
Since the day he was born, probably.
Wasn’t Rasinger born Jewish?
Alas, poor Bernie, I knew him Horatio.
Banton’s oncologist, Prof Stephen Clark, said: “I’m confident that he’s clinical diagnosis has been, and remains, malignant, peritoneal mesothelioma.”
“He’s”?
Nice work, AAP staff writer. Back to grade school with you.
Sorry tdt, I would assume Friday or Saturday, but that is just an assumption.
Alan H @ 567,
I suspect that ESJ may be in the legal profession. Your list of character failures seem typical of those in that line of work.
Eddy at 451: “Yes Socrates lots of “engineers” on this site I am a social engineer.”
EC at 461: “It’s important for you to develop a broader understanding of these mores if you are to grapple successfully with the social realities of 21st Century Australia.”
“464
Edward StJohn Says:
November 21st, 2007 at 2:46 pm
How may I learn Enemy Combatant?”
Eddy, your humilty is most touching, however you represent quite a challenge in these last heady days of Empire El Rodente. Should you show civility over the next few days to commenters here who have not had your educational advantages, then I shall gladly shortlist you for consideration as a suitable cadidate for instruction.
Judicious use of commas in your missives would be an excellent start.
If the ACT Senate vote goes ALP + Greens, which is apparently a good chance, the Senate numbers change straight away as Territory senators don’t wait until 1 July to take up their positions. So immediately it would be one less Lib and one more on the ALP/Greens grouping. So it would be more difficult for the coaltion to block legislation.
Beyond that, Rudd would want to wait until the new Senators take up office in July before considering a double dissolution.
Bear in mind too that with a double dissolution all Senate positions are up for grabs ie 12 for each State, which means minor parties only have to get half the quota the need in a 1/2 senate election. Go the Greens in that case! Makes the major parties wary of forcing a double dissolution.