This entry will shortly be expanded with a considered analysis of the result, the general thrust of which will be that the surprisingly large swing to the Nationals indeed sounds warning bells for the Rudd government, however keen Labor partisans might be to mark it down to local factors. Below is a localised breakdown of the two-party preferred result, grouped into the three municipalities covered by the electorate.
| NAT | ALP | Swing to NAT | ||||
| # | % | # | % | 2008 | 2007 | |
| Latrobe City | 12,470 | 56.4 | 9,634 | 43.6 | 10.3 | -2.7 |
| Traralgon | 7,025 | 61.3 | 4,442 | 38.7 | 11.0 | -3.4 |
| Morwell | 2,073 | 45.9 | 2,444 | 54.1 | 8.4 | -2.7 |
| Churchill | 836 | 44.0 | 1,063 | 56.0 | 8.5 | -0.6 |
| Rural | 2,536 | 60.1 | 1,685 | 39.9 | 8.1 | -1.7 |
| Wellington Shire | 12,554 | 67.7 | 5,987 | 32.3 | 5.3 | -2.6 |
| Sale | 3,588 | 65.0 | 1,929 | 35.0 | 3.6 | -3.8 |
| Maffra | 1,545 | 67.6 | 741 | 32.4 | 8.0 | -3.7 |
| Rural | 7,411 | 69.1 | 3,317 | 30.9 | 5.4 | -1.7 |
| East Gippsland Shire | 12,796 | 66.6 | 6,429 | 33.4 | 4.4 | -0.8 |
| Bairnsdale | 4,230 | 66.0 | 2,175 | 34.0 | 2.3 | 0.6 |
| Lakes Entrance | 2,399 | 69.2 | 1,068 | 30.8 | 9.6 | -1.3 |
| Paynesville | 1,125 | 67.6 | 539 | 32.4 | 5.8 | -1 |
| Orbost | 1,042 | 69.1 | 467 | 30.9 | 2.3 | -2.4 |
| Rural | 4,000 | 64.7 | 2,180 | 35.3 | 3.6 | -1.4 |
| TOTAL | 71,630 | 63.2 | 41,920 | 36.8 | 6.6 | -1.8 |
Episode one: Perspective. Labor has suffered a sobering 9.3 per cent slump on the primary vote and a two-party swing comparable to that of the September 1973 Parramatta by-election, which rebuffed the Whitlam government and brought Philip Ruddock to parliament. What’s more, Antony Green notes that Labor entered that campaign burdened by the Whitlam government’s proposed second airport at Galston. The Hawke government faced six by-elections in its truncated first term, picking up a 0.5 per cent swing in Richmond and suffering swings ranging from 1.2 per cent to 5.0 per cent in the other five. There are also state precedents such as Labor’s wins in Burwood and Benalla in the wake of the Kennett government’s defeat which suggest governments should be able to convert honeymoon opinion poll leads into votes at by-elections. As the above table demonstrates, most of the damage to Labor was done in the Latrobe Valley – hypotheses to follow shortly.
Episode two: Nationals versus Liberal. The by-election was the first time the Liberals contested the seat since 1987, so yardsticks for the Coalition parties’ relative performance are hard to come by. The best one available is the state upper house election in 2006, the only recent race involving the three parties competing separately without significant sitting member factors in play. In the equivalent booths, the Nationals and Liberals were evenly matched, with 25.4 per cent and 25.3 per cent respectively. The by-election by contrast has seen the Nationals almost double the Liberal vote, 40.4 per cent to 20.7 per cent. The combined Coalition vote is up a remarkable 12.2 per cent, giving merger opponents in the Victorian Nationals still more to work with. Labor scored 33.7 per cent for the 2006 state upper house, against 27.0 per cent at the by-election.
Episode three: West versus east. The corollary of Labor doing especially badly in the western part of the electorate is that they did less badly in the east, outside of localised outbreaks at Lakes Entrance (Chester’s home town) and Maffra. This is easy to explain: East Gippsland has a high concentration of older voters (21.0 per cent over 65 compared with a national 13.3 per cent), a sure predictor of low electoral volatility. By contrast, Latrobe’s age profile is almost perfectly consistent with the national average. It might nonetheless have been expected that discontent over the failure of the budget to increase the base level of the pension would have generated a backlash here, which may indeed have occurred to some degree.
Episode four: Climate change. In opposition, climate change worked for Labor as a symbol of Rudd’s modernity and Howard’s obsolescence. In government, it is becoming increasingly evident that Labor faces a stern political challenge in matching deeds to words against the backdrop of an eerily familiar oil shock. Nowhere is this more evident than in the Latrobe Valley, whose brown coal power stations provide Victoria with 85 per cent of its electricity. The 10 per cent swing here is a reminder that voters in low-income areas do not take kindly to bearing the sharp end of visionary government reform programs, as the Pauline Hanson phenomenon demonstrated last decade. Interestingly, the Liberals hit Labor hard on the issue in their television advertising, but the Nationals don’t seem to have mentioned it. It is likely the Liberals succeeded in driving Latrobe Valley voters away from Labor with this attack on Darren McCubbin, who had mused that local droughts might have been linked to coal-fired power, but that Darren Chester was as much the beneficiary as Rohan Fitzgerald.
Episode five: State factors. Talk of a sharp anti-Labor swing in the Latrobe Valley should sound a familiar note for election watchers. This is because the area proved the sting in the tail of Labor’s state election night triumph in November 2006, which was marred by the surprise loss of Morwell to the Nationals and Narracan (mostly in the neighbouring federal seat of McMillan, which significantly failed to swing at last November’s election) to the Liberals after respective swings of 7.0 per cent and 9.5 per cent. Local discontent over water issues was seen to be to blame: defeated Narracan MP Ian Maxfield complained that “the Liberal and National parties ran an incredibly effective scare campaign by claiming that we were sending sewage to Gippsland and taking fresh water into Melbourne”. Sure enough, the Liberals returned to the theme during the by-election campaign with television ads that prominently featured an image of John Brumby.
Episode six: Labor versus Labor. Another reason given for Labor’s poor state election performance in Morwell was dissent in the local party, leading many prominent members to quit in protest against an MP said by one to have surrounded himself with a “Left clique”. There was further talk of disunity ahead of the by-election, with 2007 Gippsland candidate Jane Rowe seen to have been elbowed aside in favour of Darren McCubbin. Given that neither appeared a match-winner in their own right, Labor would have done better to have stuck with Rowe who could at least have built upon her existing work in last year’s election campaign.
Episode seven: Night of the living Nationals. The big winners are unquestionably the state Nationals and especially their leader Peter Ryan, who holds the seat of Gippsland South and until recently employed Darren Chester as his chief-of-staff. So far on Ryan’s watch, the Nationals have held their own at the 2002 state election (while the Liberals lost 22 seats and 8.3 per cent of the primary vote), and defied predictions to retain party status in 2006 after winning two extra seats in the lower house (cancelling out losses caused by electoral reform in the upper house). Ryan was the only party leader at state or federal level who was anywhere to be seen in the parties’ television ads (UPDATE: Okay, not quite – there was one Kevin Rudd read-to-camera), where he presented a local face unencumbered by association with unpopular actions of current or recently deposed governments. The Liberals by contrast had Peter Costello campaigning in the electorate, which might not have been such a good idea.
Episode eight: Night of the dying Coalition merger. There was talk going into the by-election of the Nationals and Liberals running a joint candidate to push the Victorian parties down the same merger road being followed in Queensland. The result has surely vindicated the state party’s decision to follow its own course. There are now a number of reasons to suppose that what’s good for the Queensland goose might be less good for the Victorian gander. Firstly, the by-election result gives force to the idea that competing Nationals and Liberal candidates can maximise the total Coalition vote where there is compulsory preferential voting and thus little preference leakage – which is crucially the case at Victorian state level, but not in Queensland. Secondly, the near-parity of strength among the two Coalition parties in Queensland has rendered them unmarketable at state elections due to confusion as to who their candidate for premier is. As this doesn’t apply in Victoria, the Nationals can serve the broader Coalition cause by absorbing protest votes in rural and regional areas.
Episode nine: Local factors. Those of us watching at a safe distance were bemused by the focus on the parish pump issue of Traralgon’s post offices, but that town indeed swung savagely against Labor even by Latrobe Valley standards.
UPDATE: Reading back, I note that apart from one “oil shock” reference, I have spent little time here discussing the decisive issue of petrol prices – mostly because I can only offer statements of the obvious. It should also be noted that Peter McGauran might not have taken much of a personal vote into retirement, with complaints heard he was spending too much time in Melbourne. Meanwhile, Andrew Landeryou hears the Coalition ran an unsustainably expensive campaign, as suggested by the remarkable number of Nationals and Liberal television ads floating around.
229 Comments
Interestingly the results look fairly close to the supposed internal polling leaked earlier this year.
I’m not surprised by this result. Given the demographic of this seat, you’d expect them to do a chicken little number. I wonder if there’s something in the water?
It’s clearly a good result for the Nationals. Not only did they win handsomely, they out-polled the Liberals in nearly every booth, which is really the benchmark.
I was involved with NP campaigns there in the late 80s after Traralgon was moved out of Gippsland into McMillan and it was a hard slog. The primary vote slipped to under 10% in Traralgon and barely reached 5% in Morwell.
The Latrobe Valley is a success story for the Nats and they should ask themselves why to learn a few lessons. They are seen as local and independent.
Peter Ryan should seriously rethink the coalition in opposition.
Given the Rudd government has been in only 7 months so a mile too soon for anybody to judge it you can only put down any Rudd driven swing against Labor to the MSM. And maybe the intense campaign by the murdoch press in coordination with the Liberal party has been to try and avert a loss in Gippsland and others to come.
The murdoch boys will no doubt try and keep up their act until the next election.
You do have to feel pity though for Milne. He was pretty much a looser before the election and has become an even more shrill looser after. At least before the election he could imagine warm feelings of approval from Howard and the like for his sleazey pieces, but now? Getting jollies from Brenda and co would be like shaking hands with a sun dried squid – no satisfaction in that I bet.
So now the only fight has to be one driven by hatred of Rudd, that man who breezed through Burke-gate, Scores and not knowing the detail of tax scales – and caused Howard to freak out.
What will become of Milne if Rudd wins the next election?! He will have no use and be irrelevant even to the MSM.
The dangers of not being a genuine skilled journalist.
This result will of course be a warning to Rudd and co and may well keep his troops in line, that they cant assume they will win the next election.
Kina, Milne best mate is the member for Higgins. These pieces he writes arent to boost Nelson, even Milne knows he is hopeless. He wants to stroke the ego of Costello to get him in the top job.
He used to be on the drip so would occasionaly have a good story given to him by liberal party mates, now the libs are out of government he writes semi-fanciful rants. According to him labor and rudds high approval figures really mean everyone wants costello and will switch allegiance when he gets the leadership.
Any anti-government swing is the fault of the media? Whacky stuff.
LTEP, you weren’t really with Nelson and John Black in expecting a pro government swing were you?
A very good result for the Nats, due partly to a very strong and very well-known local candidate. Darren Chester has much more talent than Peter McGauran, and the electorate knew it. His profile as a former local TV reporter would have helped him too. They’re a bit isolated in Gippsland, and have a good appetite for local issues and news.
If Labor couldn’t find a Labor Party member to contest this seat, they were behind the eight-ball for a start.
The result illustrates the same thing that the last Victorian election did, that the Nats will do better by being a separate party, not bound by the Coalition, and catering specifically to rural electorates. Peter Ryan is a Gippsland local, and deserves a bit of credit for this result.
If you look at the polls in states like NSW and Qld, and this Gippsland result, it shows that Australians are reacting the way they always have – they don’t like one side of politics to have all the power. I don’t think the rudd Government has much to worry about from this result, but it will give the Libs and Nats more confidence that poor Labor governments, and candidates, can be beaten.
If I remember rightly this general area turned on state Labor last election. How one conservative electorate turning its back on a Labor government in a by-election when most opinion polls look good for Labor overall, is any real cause for concern beats me. The only message for me is that that area of this state is is anti – Labor and doesn’t need much reason to vote against them in large numbers, full stop.
I agree with Gary. I wouldn’t read anything into this result for Kevin Rudd, more for John Brumby. Labor has lost its way in the Latrobe Valley, which should be its heartland. Local issues are to blame for that.
The electorate voted for an independent National Party. The repercussions of this result will be to kill any suggestion that John Anderson’s report might recommend a merger between the Nats and the Libs.
Why the Nats engaged Anderson to write that report escapes me, considering he was a large reason for the party’s decline.
The message here is the Nats should stand alone.
steve, no. I never for a second thought Labor would win the seat, but my predictive skills as far as the electorate go are not great.
My major issue was with the suggestion that any problems the Government may have are just due to the media. A really silly argument.
“The message here is the Nats should stand alone.”
Someone phone Springboard and tell him that, he thinks he has produced a coup for Queensland in running the opposing line.
LTEP, it seems to be a good result for the Nats, a continuing poor result for Labor by never having been close to winning this electorate ever. Another poor result already on display is Glen Milne’s article in the Sunday Mail which has more to do with another agenda than the Gippsland byelection.
Kevin Rudd only has 2 years left as Prime Minister. I am looking forward to a Coalition Government in 2 years time.
14 Honest John – Comedy relief again. LOL
Hey John, wasn’t the swing going to be 21%? They failed. Rudd should be in forever.
The Age has the “honeymoon officially over” headline. How many times has the honeymoon been officially over now?
Taverner Poll for NSW.
http://www.smh.com.au/news/national/mps-set-to-dump-iemma/2008/06/28/1214472834835.html
OTOH I don’t think you can say this was just media – 7% means a few people changed their minds about something. The fact that there was a swing in Kororoit as well indicates a shift. But conversely, I don’t think it means Rudd is gone either!! Remember the Ryan by-election and others before the 2004 election?
I would love to know how much of this was local issues (in a poor rural electorate) and how much other things. It would not shock me if Iguana gate cost Labor votes, as I think it smacked of arrogance and abuse of power (not by Rudd) so early in this governments term. Rudd and Swan just need to stick to their message and not overreact to this, and I think they will be fine next time its the real thing.
Talk about hyperbole by the oisoned dwarf in this article(no, not the column above).
http://www.news.com.au/adelaidenow/story/0,22606,23939413-5006301,00.html
Let me see, the government has been in 7 months, pretty much done what they promised so far. Nothing really done for anyone to change their mind about.
So as I already said IF people swung against the government because of Rudd/Labor performance it would have to be on the basis of the negative image the MSM have been trying hard to portrait.
Not whacky stuff unless you think people magically get their information on government activity and performance beamed straight into their heads without recourse to media. So keep the personal insults to yourself.
I seem to recall LTEP spent most of the pre-election period moaning and groaning that Labor were going to lose despite the evidence.
Taverner poll thread up.
20.70% swing to the Liberal Party in Gippsland, that means if the Liberal Party didn’t run a candidate, the National Party 2PP vote would have been nearly 20% higher.
Honest John could do with a tutorial on how preferences work.
I don’t know too much about the local issues except as I have read in this blog. But on a national level is it possible that a lot of people did not want to cause “grievious harm” to the NP because of their few numbers in Parliament. Remember a lot of this area is NP heartland. Some people may have wanted to see an Opposition that was effective and therefore wanted to put new blood into the NP benches. Perversely the poor performance of the Opposition could have been actually a motivator to vote for them in this instance. Even though these days I am a Labor voter, I would certainly take this into account at such a by election.
Connected with this if the NP member was a good candidate and the Labor man was suspect many people would make their assessment based on this. There is no government at stake so party leadership would not be an issue, and hence no question of who was going to be the PM. By elections are definately different.
If your livelihood depended on the power station then you would consider not voting for the Labor candidate even if you were normally a Labor voter. It shows the difficult path that Labor has to tread re Climate Change. But it still has to be done.
The Libs did not field a candidate last election and so their 20% was simply a split of the Conservative vote. Also FF did not field a candidate whereas I think at the 2007 election they did. Their votes would have gone either to Lib or NP.
There is no basis I can see for any judgment on the Fed Gov’t re voting intention. The demographic of this electorate is individualistic and one would have to go against national opinion poll on opinion poll giving 2PP to Labor of close to 60% to make a call here. Also their candidate was below par and Labor did not put much into the campaign. Forget Milne – he’s off with fairies trying to create his own parallel universe where Costello is PM.
Still, Labor cannot afford to take anything for granted with the electorate. They need to keep a level head and continue on doing what they said they would.
.
This is the first time Conservatives have got a swing to them since Swan and Cowan, im surprised i thought it would be closer, i guess Rudd is muffing up a bit as far as i can tell from all the way in Berlin.
Still the Nats were always favourites to win, in Rudds landslide in 2007 the seat barely swung to Labor so that 5% base support is rock solid.
Hey Glen, old buddy, did you find a carrier pidgeon to get your message out
Gippsland = non-event
Labor never had a chance of winning it, especially in the current economic climate. People are pi$$ed off with petrol prices, interest rates, economic downturn, fears about carbon taxes and hot air about global warming. The Latrobe must be especially sensitive to the CO2 debate. On top of that Labor mounts an apparently ordinary candidate, it really is Machiavellian, Kev wants Emo Man to stay in charge forever. Once oil prices decline, and they will, we will see some return to sanity.
Oh yeah, I forgot, and the other factor is the geriatrics who didnt get their pensions doubled the way the Tories were going to do it. PIGS Ar#E
Why did Brenda get the result so wrong? Did he really believe that Labor would win? Of course not.
Will he be questioned about his “dishonest spin”? Can we believe anything he says? Or does he make things up as he goes along?.
The sad thing is it will happen all over again in Mayo and Higgins. Is this the Liberal strategy – rolling by elections with accompanying “cheap shot” retail politics.
Frank C @ 20, I notice in the article that Milne has demoted Emo Man from Doctor Nelson to plain old Mister at least twice in the article. Does that tell us something?
When danger rears its ugly head,
When some scary comes from under the bed,
When the world faces disaster
Under cannons, rays, and blasters,
When something crazy goes awary,
And threatens all, from man to fly,
Emo Man will just sit there and cry,
And threaten to kill himself.
“The former journalist (Darren Chester) says his first move will be to lobby his Coalition colleagues to support a $30 a week rise in the aged pension.”
Oh so now its not a real policy. Just Chester policy. Stolen from The Greens.
So Chester wants to spend an extra $2.9 billion a year on pensioners (thats just aged pensioners) and Truss wants to lower petrol excise by $7.2 billion.
Thats the budget surplus cut in half. At least under Howard the pork was real.
Could $10 billion in “spin” be an election winner? Sure looks like it.
8
Antonio Says:
A very good result for the Nats, due partly to a very strong and very well-known local candidate. Darren Chester has much more talent than Peter McGauran, and the electorate knew it.
I am wondering how much of the swing was due to the Nats candidate not being McGauran, who frankly was a pompous dud.
I agree with the view that this result holds little significance for either side federally. It will neither destroy Rudd, nor save Nelson.
And Milne’s take on it is just hysterical partisan hyperbole…
PRIME Minister Kevin Rudd received a shock rebuff in the Gippsland by-election last night,…
A “shock rebuff”? Get your hand off it, Milne.
ruawake No 34
If the ALP had of gone in with a policy like that they would have been accused of economic vandalism and threatening the ‘Future Fund’.
It was a bad result for the ALP. That is actually clear. The main reason I would suggest had to do with their candidate. Big swing in his own shire (Wellington) and an even bigger swing in La Trobe shire where the other mayor was up for pre-selection until the party bosses came in.
The Government also need to a clear message on climate change policy. Even an unpopular policy can be defended, where as no policy means the other side can invent nightmares which they then attack you with.
In hindsight Labor should have stuck with the previous candidate for Gippsland.
She wouldn’t have won, but at least the swing against Labor wouldn’t have been as great! There’s a lot to be said for letting the local branches select the candidate, Robertson is another case in point!
The great shame about this result is it vindicates Nelson’s & the MSM’s negative headline grabbing tactics on issues like petrol (unfixable in the short term).
Its amazing the time the government has had to dedicate to defending themselves on this – time which is desperately needed to properly manage the country.
The MSM & Nelson should be condemmed for their lack of regard for their own country.
My point about no more fear by the other ex-ministers who want to go seems to be coming true. Downer is pulling the plug.
http://www.watoday.com.au/national/downer-about-to-say-hes-going-20080629-2ymu.html
ruawake@34
I didn’t think Truss’ position was what you are stating it as. I thought he said ‘he’d like to cut the excise by 20c’ but realises this is not economically responsible. What you’re stating is a misrepresentation of what he’s said.
Of course it doesn’t avoid the fact that any cut to the excise is a stupid idea.
“The MSM & Nelson should be condemmed for their lack of regard for their own country.”
Yes Triffid, they have been very big on talking down the Australian economy this year compared with past years.
Now should Labor pass on Mayo?
http://blogs.abc.net.au/antonygreen/
LTEP
Truss did say what you quoted, but he was perfectly happy for the 20c a litre to be percived as his policy.
Same result.
Will we get some excited old Nats choosing to retire now that Gippsland has given them a chance for renewal?
Antony, I think Labor will run in Mayo. Even if we have a conservative or two retire each month Labor will still have the same number of seats at the last election and it will give them good experience at sorting out their preselection processes for the next election.
A by-election from hell for the ALP. All the negative factors which operate in a by-election were to the fore. No doubt petrol was the big issue. It’s soured voters around the world. British Labour finished fifth, behind the National Front, in a by-election last week. In the US, the Democrats are winning special elections in Republican strongholds like Mississippi.
Yet Morgan and co have the intended vote for Rudd Labor at anything from 54 to 61 per cent.
47 Phil Robins – are you suggesting all of the opinion polls have got it wrong on the basis that the Nats have a great win in what is essentially a strong National Party seat, where people need very little excuse to vote against Labor? It shows to me how much the coalition were on the nose last election.
From the News.com webiste, written by “staff writers”:
“Pointing out”… how nice of Ute Man to “point out” that the alco-pops tax normalisation was “a revenue grab”. We all knew that, didn’t we?
As for the 5c a litre reduction scam… this is so silly I can’t believe supposedly serious and responsible newspaper outlets are pushing it as a mature policy.
This is a classic case of heads being buried in sand. If X-million litres a day is sold at $1.60 with tax, then, if the price is dropped overnight to $1.55, how long will it take the oil companies to realise that by putting the price up by 5c they can still sell X-million litres a day, only making more profit? I would say about as long as it takes to get out the ladder, climb up the steps and change the sign outside the servo.
The price of oil is going up and down so rapidly and frequently, with flow-ons taking seemingly random lengths of time to funnel through to the retail pump price, it’d be a doddle to disguise a price gouge of 5c in all the confusion. No-one could be able to prove anything. Hell, it’s hard enough now when price maintenance goes in under the ACCC’s very noses. Much more difficult to sustain a price hike case when everything’s in a state of flux. Yet Nelson persists with this absolute junk policy. So easy to say what he’d do when he’s two years away from even a remote chance of having to put this policy into action (and that’s if he’s still leader by then).
But it can’t be denied people are angry. They don’t realise why they should make all the sacrifices on prices and the government does nothing about it. The answer is because the government does very little about explaining the reasons. Instead they rely on the Glenn Milnes (and his “elite economist” scare story) or Shanahan, who only raves on about “the politics” (while simultaneously condemning the 5c policy… ain’t it strange?). I can only surmise that the reason this kind of egregious humbuggery is going on is that the conservative side of politics doesn’t care what they do in the short term to wreck the economy and make Australia ungovernable in any serious way. As long as their precious Liberals are re-elected, nothing is of any concern to them.
Blow the Budget? Why not? We can always put taxes up later. Ignore Climate Change? Capital idea, the Big End Of Town will always do well, no matter what happens. Restore an outright tax anomaly on liquor? Sure, the tradies will need a drink when all their work dries up as the economy tanks (because we emptied the national coffers to pay for cheap conjurers’ tricks and tried to make believe all we needed was the old days back again where petrol was $1.00 a litre… except pretty soon there won’t be enough petrol to go around. What’ll we do them?).
Rudd sits, to some, looking smug. He believes in process. He believes that, eventually, when he wears them down, he’ll get a fair go from reasonably minded journalists who’ve made themselves laughing stocks by their constant referrals (for over 18 months now) that “the honeymoon’s over”.
Rudd is wrong. The journos want blood. They really do desperately want the honeymoon to be over. They’ll write almost any smear, outrage or shameless lie to make their wish self-fulfilling. Milne’s Advertiser column (linked in a post above) was an exercise in virtually untrammeled vitriol, one of the nastiest diatribes, full of spite and infantile triumphalism, that I’ve even seen this nasty little dry-drunk excrete from his journalistic sphincter.
Rudd, to my mind, needs to explain to the slow thinkers of Gippsland and the rest of this country that, whether they like it or not, what appears so simple on the front page of the Daily Telegraph, what words are so easy to utter by Brendan Nelson who has no reponsibility for anything (and can hardly keep his own back benchers in order, much less a whole nation), are not real. We can’t really just wish away Golbal Warming, or peak oil by writing a confected outrage piece and getting angry in the pub about it.
I used to think Rudd was saving up his surprises for a later date, when the results of the commissions and the inquiries and the reports started cascading out of wherever they’re coming from. Then would be the time for action and reform. In the meanwhile, try to weather the storm.
But instead, the boozers, thick-headed grey nomads who can’t afford to fill their tanks, deadbeat hayseed farmers raving on about local post offices, the ill-informed white trash who’ve bet the homes on permanent boom times (and lost the bet) and the generally wowserish bunch of idiots who make up the conservative voting class have, between them, taken over the asylum to the constant urgings of journalists and commentators who should bloody-well know better than to encourage this idiocy.
Rudd needs to set it out plain and simple.
You want 5c, 10c, 20c a litre off your petrol? Good. Then be prepared to lose your baby bonus, your pension increase, your homes, your jobs and your security.
You want us to blow the Budget on fripperies? OK, so get ready for worse to come: dry rivers with locust plagues in new desert areas, no new public hospitals, your kids without computers in their schools, harsher social security rules, old roads full of potholes and all the rest that goes with a goverment that’s blown its wad on trying to please everybody, all the time.
This message needs to be pounded into their ostrich-like heads till it hurts, and then maybe, just maybe, Rudd should stop for a while
It always feels better when it stops, they say, even if just for a moment.
I would have thought there would a swing in Gippsland of 2 – 3% to the Coalition so I was surprised by 7% or thereabouts. I don’t think seriously anybody thought that Labor could win it even though John Black tried but it can’t be seen as a good result for the ALP. Though it wouldn’t surprise me if people had voted against Peter McGauran – he always seemed like a bit of a tool.
The big adavantage the libs will have in Mayo is that all of the touted candidates seem to be top drawer so they will have few excuses there.
BBill, if Rudd and Labor refuse to give out more information and set the record straight, then the Milnes of the journo world will fill that gap and give Nelson his cues for spin aka Gippsland test for Labor. Groupthink by the media is alive and well.
To be frank I don’t understand why Labor aren’t out there setting the record straight or owning the agenda instead of replying to Nelson/Milnes. It seems that in relation to the petrol/emissions debate they aren’t going to include petrol. Which fits into the coalition’s argument perfectly. Labor are reacting instead of leading. What good would it do to not include petrol in the emissions scheme?
To me Labor has been incredibly weak in regards to countering articles and spin from Nelson and if they need to get a better media chief then they should straight away otherwise the coalition own the what the public are hearing.
I’m not suggesting anything, Gary Bruce (48). But it’s clear that national opinion polls mean nothing in the context of a feverish by-election.
The ALP will run in Mayo. They won’t win it and might get a small swing against them too (Not the 9% of Gippsland unless they impose another candidate of equal worthlessness). So it won’t do them any good but also won’t do much harm.
Not running however, gives a minor chance of either a third party (Green or FF) or a strong independent getting up. (The problem with FF trying to get up is the Greens will preference them last and vice versa with the Greens).
Too much is being made of this. It is not a good result for Labor but Labor wasn’t expected to win. I believe people are over reacting on both sides. They had a poor candidate and were out campaigned in a CONSERVATIVE electorate. No surprise really. This area turned on state Labor last election. The surprise was that Labor did so well last time.
Good analysis from William as always but disagree about the ALP candidate. From all I hear, he performed very well and will be favourably considered if he wants to run again.
Petrol and the implications of many of the policy prescriptions for petrol was clearly the killer for Labor, with petrol prices soaring 30 cents a litre in Gippsland in the past month. Unfortunate timing for them.
The solution is clear. Ease the burden of rising energy costs, show you’re on the motorists’ side not the tree-huggers. Cut petrol taxes, even if just temporarily, while the price remains at these distress-causing levels. And call off plans to slug energy users even more.
It is true the price of petrol in this country is not as high as many other places, with the US as the notable exception. And it’s also true that the ideal outcome for all of us is that we all stop using fuel which we must obtain from occasionally terror supporting Arab dictatorships. High prices will do that, they are doing that right now. Public transport use is soaring, people are voting with their feet.
But Rudd and his merry band of comrades with their taxpayer funded fuel cards need to show a lot more sympathy for the distress people – particularly those in the country and outer burbs who need to drive long distances frequently – are feeling right now.
Currently the government is embarked on a policy course which could see considerable increases in the cost of energy for working families in what amounts to a massive regressive tax increase, that disproportionately hits people who don’t live in the inner-city.
If they don’t make the policy changes now, there’ll be a change of government. There’s only a ten seat margin. All you comrades can’t say you weren’t warned.
Kevin Rudd has much to think about.
PS We humans are pretty clever. If petrol is going to be too expensive to use, we’ll use something else, we don’t need to be taxed or clubbed to death to get the message. The market does work.
Check this out. Mercedes Benz aim to no longer produce petrol cars by as early as 2015
This morning, Opposition Leader Dr Nelson did not rule out a bipartisan policy but said it was unlikely – even though he was not actually aware of what the Government policy would be.
“We may end up in a situation where both the Government and the Opposition actually do take the same approach,” Dr Nelson said on Channel 10.
However, he added: “I suspect that there’s a high probability that we will not support whatever the government may actually choose to do”.
The Fiberal policy statement on everything until the next election.
Is Landeryou a right winger? What would make me ask that?
Game on, BS.
What utter dribble
Wait until the Libs have to come out with policy, economically sensible policy that is.
I’ll put the Landeryou file right beside my Bolt file, locked, never to be opened. Anyone who comes out with crap like that needs to be ignored.
Rann’s no dill.
“If Brendan Nelson thinks it’s an endorsement of his leadership … he spent a fortune on this campaign, five times more than Labor on this campaign, and he came third.
“They wouldn’t even put Brendan Nelson’s picture on the how to vote cards.”
Mr Rann admitted there was a message for Prime Minister Kevin Rudd in the result.
“The message is that you’ve got to keep governing for the long term – which is exactly what Kevin Rudd is doing.”
A lot of battlers drive Mercedes-Benz.
Actually, Nelson’s “family with the Wheelchair in the back” might, as Benz does produce some nice mobility vans.
Whatever happened to the Steam Car concept as opposed to the petrol electric that Benz was building?
The way the Nelson and the MSM are carrying on you would have thought labor was booted out of Blaxland or another safe labor seat.
a good result for them, but it is hardly a big tick for nelsons leadership, more a reassuring night for the Nats.
I just bumped into a Federal Lib pollie. He seemed genuinely surprised and very pleased at the size of the swing in Gippsland. They don’t seem to have an explanation apart from unhappiness with the first 7 months from Rudd.
Yes, but where is all this unhappiness with Rudd in the national polls? Answer… it isn’t. All we’ve seen over the past 7 months is the gilted MSM and heart-broken Liberal voters whinging about any issue they can find. I mean, pass me a tissue…
Dario
I suppose that’s why the Coalition are so surprised with the result. What’s more important; numerous national polls showing that Labor is cruising or a single by-election showing a huge swing away from Labor? The national polls have to be the most important but I bet labor tries very hard to find why the swing went against the run of play.
The 7 per cent swing against Labor in Gippsland is good news. If Alexander Downer does retire and cause an election with another anti-Labor swing in Mayo, this would also be good news. Partisans can write off the meaning of Gippsland if they wish, but Labor hardheads will not, and a swing in Mayo would give them some more ammunition. I don’t expect Kevin Rudd to be defeated in the next federal election, but if he wants a long-term Labor Government, he needs to reduce the frenetic activity and focus on a few core messages, which will require repetition and reasoning so that they sink in.
Gary, if you don’t think petrol is going to hurt the government, you’re ignoring history and also current distress out in the burbs and the bush.
But fear not, Rudd won’t be ignoring the issue at all. As William identified, their challenge in matching rhetoric with policy while not seriously shafting their own supporters with highly regressive tax increases on energy use is as big a problem as the government is likely to face.
I’m not sure how you’ll go ignoring that issue and trying to understand politics in this country for the next year or two.
And BS, the point about Mercedes is that at these prices, making the investments we need to make to avoid using Saudi and Russian oil becomes very worthwhile for all involved in the transport caper. My point is the market is perfectly capable of making these changes without the state crunching people with Greens party flat earth flat taxes. It is already.
See here’s a clever announcement from Bligh just today
http://couriermail.news.com.au/story/0,20797,23941098-952,00.html
AL one thing that Queensland Labor is very good at is regaining seats and learning from lost byelections when they have to do so. Every time the Queensland tories take any ground off Labor they get hit straight back twice as hard.
I am very confident that any embarrassment felt by Rudd and Swan over the Gippsland byelection will be countered by far more embarrassment for Nelson and Turnbull over the next month or so.
Simpleton politics 1A (to quote Albenese) or 101 if you prefer.
Petrol prices are high and I don’t like it – its all their (insert favourite conspiracy theory) fault. Why won’t the Govt. do something?
Govt. does nothing because it can’t do anything, Coalition also knows it can’t do anything but promises a 5c tax cut in 2 and a half years. Meaningless and possibly non-core but simpleton says yes. Score one to Brenda.
Carbon trading – oops thats a bit tricky what does it mean? Brenda says “Your petrol and electricity bills are going to rise. We won’t let it happen even though it was our policy last year”. Score two to Brenda.
In the Gippsland context add that the lefties want to close the coal mines and power stations AND make you pay more for your cans of Bundy. Score three to Brenda.
Does Rudd care? At this stage of the electoral cycle? NO.
Garnaut – Green Paper – White Paper later Rudd has a warchest of an extra $21 billion, combined with another $70-80 billion in various funds. He will have close to $100 billion to play with.
Interest rates have fallen as we approach the 2010 election (due to global recession) – Rudd is the great economic guru and the mother of all Pork is dished out.
Rudd 101 – Brenda 3.
is there another newspoll out on monday night? that will bring the coalition back to earth
CJ I would be surprised if the Labor TPP vote is not lower on Monday night seeing half of this weekends survey will be reflecting the Gippsland result according to Milne which is why he wrote all that nonsense in the Sunday paper today.
I would like to see a poll with the question “Did you know there was a by election in Vic on saturday?
ruawake, Essential Media will be doing that as we speak.
Oil prices are not going to stay high, this is a speculative bubble. However we should use any lull in order to move away from oil as a transport energy source. This will require real leadership from the Feds. We have absolutely enormous reserves of CNG, a viable alternative. Did anyone see “Inside Business” this morning with the head of British Gas, the crowd looking to take over Origin. There is so much NG out there if someone drops a match the whole bloody country will blow into space. CNG is already used here fuelling Brisbane buses, and is widely used overseas in cars and trucks. Why oh why are we selling it at bargain basement prices to the Chinese and the Malaysians etc, and then importing expensive refined petrol from Singapore.
In the fuel prices game, Nelson is all flash and no bang so far. The truth is that we have to face some hard facts about energy costs, and the coalition have so far put up ZERO long term strategy for doing so. Something the general population is aware of, hence the lack of bite in the polls for Nelson’s 5c/litre tax reduction stunt.
We do not have a ‘right’ to permanently cheap fuel, that is a entitlement fantasy that has to be killed off for once and for all, and the sooner we do it and start genuinely adapting to more expensive energy, the better off we will be. Not only that, but
we are actually spending less on fuel than ten years ago.
The typical family is spending substantially less on petrol today, when unleaded is nudging $1.70 a litre, than it was a decade ago, when pump prices were $1 per litre cheaper.
For every $100 in real household expenditure in 1999, petrol accounted for about $3.70. The share was as high as $4.50 in the early 1990s, in the aftermath of the last recession.
The latest figures crunched by CommSec economist Craig James place the bowser’s bite on the household budget at about $2.90.
Incomes have risen faster than petrol prices. Why else would the graph start pointing south from the mid-1990s, when the nation began its longest run of prosperity?
Furthermore, fuel prices are minor compared to mortgage interest payments.
The cost to families of servicing their mortgages now happens to take about four times as much of their budget as fuel.
http://www.theaustralian.news.com.au/story/0,25197,23898033-2702,00.html
Let’s see what the situation is in a year, after both the government and the opposition have had a decent chance to respond to the Garnaut report, and fuel prices will almost certainly have risen even further.
Plus it is not as if oil prices will continue to rise. There are many deposits which are not currently tapped as it cost $50 or $60 a barrel to extract. These deposits will now be tapped as there very little risk that cost of production will be greater than the prices they can get.
Can I use a sporting analogy for a second here?
If Brendan Nelson has been opening the batting for the Libs, he’d be like Geoffrey Boycott
He isn’t scoring too may runs, but he’s still there isn’t he?
Just two boundaries from the whole morning session, (5c of Petrol, Gippsland) but not much else
He’s certainly knocking the shine of the new ball though, making it easier for next man in
BSF, the boss of British Gas said that they are still actively reviewing fields viable at $30 per barrel, they are apparently confident that the price will not stay high. The current hysteria over oil is just that, hysteria. That is not to say that we shouldn’t look for better alternatives, that is a must!
Yeah Mr S, and like good old Geoffrey Boycott, he is painfully boring to watch.
Time for Brenda to face a bit of Chin Music.
Basil Fawlty. Didn’t see “Inside Business”, but “Background Briefing” covered gas quite extensively a couple of weekends ago. It’s not just in W.A., but there’s also mega amounts in Q’l'd, N.S.W. and Vic.. La Trobe Valley, in fact.
I don’t buy Murdoch’s rags, but had a chance to read yesterday’s at a mate’s place and a letter to the editor caught my eye. Paraphrasing:
According to a recent survey 88% of Australians don’t want to pay to protect the environment so their kids can have a better future. Then why are so many forking out big money on private school fees supposedly to give the same kids a better future?
.
Basil Fawlty @ 79 -
All so true. But NG does have one almost as big a disadvantage, and one huge disadvantage over petrol.
In terms of greenhouse it is better than petrol, but still a problem, and because about 70-80% of households have NG literally on their doorsteps it could result in the government loosing about $10-12bill. in revenue unless they can figure out a way of taxing it without getting everyone offside by upping heating costs.
Mind you, from an environmental standpoint the latter wouldn’t be a bad thing. Most Australian homes are about as energy efficient as tents. California has had legislation for decades mandating efficiency standards for new buildings and rebates to encourage older ones to be bought up to date. Yet, here we’re still building homes without even the most basic insulation!
I agree with those who think that too much is been made of this by election.
And no, Labor does not need to forgo its long term plans. You see, despite “everyone” saying that Rudd only worries about the short term media cycle he has his eye firmly fixed on the future. If it was short term, how come Nelson is getting all the cheap shots in first in the Media? In a few days time the rises for pensioners, tax cuts etc will go into people’s bank accounts.
BB 49 – I have seen some wild stuff come from the anonymous “staff writers” on News.com. No one has to put their name to it. As usual it is full of BS.
Rudd would be wrong to buy this spin about this being a “microcosm of key national issues” and then change all his long term policies to suit.
Voters in the end have to make up their minds if they want a future in the long term for themselves or their kids or blow it all in the short term. But Labor has to stick to the path they have set out as it is best for the nation. I am not saying they shouldn’t compromise on some issues in order to make big gains, but they need to keep the essentials intact.
Too much should not be made of Gippsland. It is an individualist electorate with a mind of its own. Labor run a a half hearted campaign with a suspect candidate. Nations and Libs were full on. Further more it goes against every opinion poll taken since the last election.
In fact it would be damaging to make too much of Gippsland as it would put in jeopardy our long term interests and this would not help the nation. This would please the sh%t reprters of the MSM and the LNP. In the end Labor would have nothing as it would be seen to(with encouragement from media) to have caved in on the important issues.
But I agree with BB that Labor needs to take control of the media agenda.
Mr. S. Emo Man as Boycott? You must be joking. Boycott did his homework. Would take 3 sets of batting gear back to his hotel room and practice strokes every night for hours on end, when on tour. The only thing Emo Man is practising is his acting, because it surely isn’t policy development.
BB and Doug, if that is the article I read it had from ’staff writers’ at the head but at the end it said from GLEN MILNE and AAP, so is it any wonder it was crap.
Mayo I would not think that you can just run the NG hose into your car from the home heating supply, would have thought it need compression first, so not that simple. As far as the tax goes, perhaps we need to rethink the old approach of using every fuel outlet as a tax collector, and while we are at it, every poker machine as well. These tax forms are regressive and unfairly impact those who can least afford it. Collect revenue sufficient to cover transport infrastructure and whatever carbon levies they deem reasonable, if we need more revenue, tax wealth and income!! The only reason we got the GST was to finance Ratties gift to his rich mates, lower CGT and income taxes on the rich.
Basil Fawlty @ 91 -
Yes, you need a compressor, but these are not much more sophisticated than the ones sold for home spray painting, etc. It apparently, does take a few hours and the power used needs to be factored into cost calculations, but there’s no reason you couldn’t fill up at night on the off-peak tariff. However, people may opt to continue filling up at service stations and paying a small premium for the convenience of a rapid fill.
I don’t know what the current situation is but while ago there were problems with the range got from a tank of Natural gas. Even LPG gives a significantly better range than NG.
Steve you may be right, but that is surely a technical problem that is easily overcome with tank design etc. LPG is of course another option and I am actively considering it at the moment, however they don’t go out of the way to offer it on new cars. That may be about to change however if this article about Hyundai is any guide, this could shake up our lazy car makers:
(From Drive.com)
Hyundai is “seriously considering” selling a hybrid LPG vehicle in Australia.
The car, which is due on sale in Korea in the middle of 2009, would have easily the lowest operating costs of any car in Australia, costing roughly $10 a week. Hyundai won’t confirm the cost of the car, but it is likely to be priced around the $30,000 mark.
Its fuel consumption is expected to be slightly higher than Toyota’s hybrid petrol-electric Prius, but with LPG selling for up to 90c a litre less than petrol, the small Hyundai’s annual fuel costs would be less than half those of a Prius and five times lower than Australia’s top-selling car, the Holden Commodore. The Hyundai could travel close to 300km on $10 worth of fuel.
I found the post from Andrew Landeryou immensely helpful, as it means I know I won’t have to waste time reading anything from him, ever again, on anything with any more seriousness than I would read something from, say, Janet Albrechtsen.
Thankfully the Federal parliamentary ALP – left, right, centre, whatever – seems to know its duty to the people rather better than this at this moment amongst the complexities of the economic and political decisions required.
“Markets work” – wow, thanks for that insight Einstein, I’m sure that has not occurred to Ross Garnaut or Ken Henry – or Rudd, Swan, Tanner, or for that matter Albanese – the point however is to define the market in question.
Not hoping for any such from the Murdoch press but on this forum at least it would be nice to have a more economically literate and responsible approach than tagging along with the crap that emissions trading is precisely equivalent to carbon tax (um, it isn’t) and that any offset on petrol excise to take into account upfront costs of carbon permits would be either a sellout or a visionary scheme designed by Turnbull (if that were the case what have the Greens been doing all this time supporting offsets).
MF @ 87
The ACT Govt. brought in energy ratings about a decade ago. A whole new industry emerged – people carrying out the audits. Then the builders, insulators, sparkies, gas fitters etc found they had more work.
From memory it cost me a couple of hundred bucks when I sold my Canberra property.
Now I live in a house with NO heating at all. I have not turned the aircon on for over 18 months. I am sitting here in tshirt and shorts in the middle of winter.
Not all Australian houses are tents.
The 7.00pm News on ABC (Brisbane) had the headline comment that Rudd had “lost” Gippsland. Yet another example of “balanced” reporting from aunty.
Call me naive but how can you lose something that you never had in the first place? It was a National seat and was always going to be a National win. For all of Nelson’s irritating glee and fantasies that the Government is obviously finished and Rudd should be tarred and feathered as the worst PM since …….? (Howard perhaps?), he is still in opposition and likely to be for a while yet.
OK so it was a bigger swing than possibly expected but like many other more learned commentators above, I’m not ready to start quaking in my boots just yet!
The government may lose 10-12 billion in petrol excise if people are able to run their cars on natural gas, but they will more than make that up in the carbon taxes on everything else. It will also be a lot easier to subside low income earners on the bi-monthly and quarterly energy bills they receive, than it will be to compensate low income earners each time they need to put petrol in their car. Allowing people to cut their energy bills by running their cars on CNG (and subsidising the conversions), will be a good way to sell the whole emissions trading scheme to the public.
The media can harp on and say this was a bad result for Labor, but to me it was an okay result. Nothing much to worry about.
83 – Basil. Completely agree. The thing is many of fields at $30 range are held by companies that already are supplying enough oil.
Peak Oil fans are a little bit like those awaiting the rapture.
I was not at all surprised by this result, given the ALP’s quite chaotic approach to the campaign (which seems to be a tradition in the Morwell/Traralgon area).
The National Party used the obvious division in the ALP camp to devastating effect, most notably using a TV ad showing retired State member Keith Hamilton grumbling about McCubbin after the preselection.
Whilst the coalition parties clearly spent a great deal of money on the campaign, it allowed the candidates to be highly visible whilst the limited ALP program tended to focus on the Kennett era. They also quickly picked up a few populist issues like the Traralgon PO and never lost momemtum, whilst the ALP seemed to make very few cogent public statements.
I agree with some of the contributors on this thread who noted that the departed McGauran had a fairly patrician & dismissive manner – as a public affairs professional, Darren Chester is quite different and seems more at ease with the voters.
The real issue that Gippsland must face is that it now possesses the most junior MP in the Parliament who also happens to be in opposition. This comes at a time when the Federal Government will have to make some fairly weighty post-Garnaut decisions. The brown coal industry appears to be increasingly likely to be one of the sacrificial climate change lambs, even though it still produces 85% of Victoria’s electricity. There are fairly simple base load alternatives such as gas, but they all cost more to produce electricity, and that will have to passed on to the customers, most particularly the State’s manufacturers who thrive on cheap power (by international standards).
There are some projects in development that use brown coal as a feedstock (urea and synthetic diesel fuel are the current leaders), but they need to be carbon neutral. Both State & Federal Governments and industry are modestly supporting geosequestration research and trials, but the funding needs to be dramatically increased so that the commercial and environmental considerations are confirmed or denied as soon as possible.
Gippsland does have alternative industries that are in growth phase including services, dairy/horticulture, tourism and aviation. The expansion of these sectors could all be further facilitated by Government support for structural change. Unfortunately, Gippsland has historically missed out on that type of large scale support as opposed to the Newcastles & Geelongs.
Allan at #97,
Interseting point, the ABC in Victoria also ran with the line that Rudd had lost Gippsland, not that the Nats had retained Gippsland
My View: another opportunity for Nelson’s failure has past without eventuating
Hard yards,folds, hard yards
I’m pretty sure all the National TV News Scripts are written in Sydney and are sent out to the other states tro be read by the local reader.
ruawake @ 96 -
The ACT Govt. brought in energy ratings about a decade ago.
I wasn’t aware of that, but it seems to be the exception, rather than the norm.
As I write this I can hear my neighbour’s reverse cycle a/c cycling on and off. It’ll be doing that all night, just as it did last night, and if it’s as cold as predicted, probably much of tomorrow too. That is because the house has no insulation beyond that provided by the wall cladding. And because it also has no eaves, it gets as hot as hades in summer.
Now you could just about excuse the foolishness that allowed this when it was being built 12 years ago, but most days I drive past a new house being constructed nearby and it is being built in exactly the same way. I’m not talking about a small cheap hovel, the asking price is just under $600K!
I don’t know what it now costs to insulate a house as its being built, but I’m guessing about a grand. It’ll probably cost the owners that much in extra heating/cooling in just the first year!
The real issue that Gippsland must face is that it now possesses the most junior MP in the Parliament who also happens to be in opposition. This comes at a time when the Federal Government will have to make some fairly weighty post-Garnaut decisions.
Maybe the ALP calculated that it is not in their best interest to win this seat. Having it in safe opposition hands maybe means they can more easily ignore the constituent’s concerns, as they don’t vote for the ALP anyway.
Cynical, I know, but that is hard numbers realpolitik for you. All sides do it.
I don’t know what it now costs to insulate a house as its being built, but I’m guessing about a grand.
Bugger all, both as a % of the house cost, and the extra heating/cooling costs if they don’t insulate.
I have good quality insulation, and at 10C outside and windy, it is a moderately comfortable 21C inside, without any extra heating. Also, the inside temp falls slower than the outside temp.
Yes, ABC News in Sydney tonight was full of Rudd bashing, coupled with Iemma’s latest poll disaster! Be prepared for Shanahan and Milne tomorrow to be loudly proclaiming the end of the Rudd Government.
Let them, they’ll be wrong again.
Andrew Landeryou Says:
June 29th, 2008 at 1:00 pm
Yes Andrew very true. Why doesn’t Nelson want the market to do it’s job, why the, “lets ruin the budget with a reduction in excise to stop the market doing it’s job” nonsense”.
Back to the byelection result – I noticed that the runout was 76% (and noting this includes pre-polls) which seems low even for a by-election. I had a look back and noted that Werriwa had an 85% turnout, Cunningham 89% Aston 92%, Ryan 88%, Isaacs 81% and Holt 94%. I’m not entirely sure what conclusions to draw from this except maybe ALP voters stayed away?
“I’m not entirely sure what conclusions to draw from this except maybe ALP voters stayed away?”
Maybe Nat voters stayed away and their vote was going to be even higher.
Democracy means you have to accept the results and move on, no point making excuses for Labors poor showing at the polls.
The good news for Labor is that it now sounds like Brenda is confident he will be the one leading the Coalition to the next federal election. Doesn’t get any better than that.
Latest from the Poisoned one.
http://www.theaustralian.news.com.au/story/0,25197,23942559-33435,00.html
Holy $hit. The Dwarf has tied it all together, hasn’t he? “Glenn Milne’s Theory Of Everything”.
“Kevin Rudd, this is the first day of your political death,” by G. Milne.
From a “false expectation” that Rudd would bring prices down last year (in the fourth paragraph), Milne morphs this into a formal “promise” two paragraphs later. And the final word is one of Glenn’s favourites, “paradigm”. It’s all there. Brendan Nelson is now, apparently, confirmed as a political genius. He must be just trying to lull us into a false sense of security by deliberately under-achieving.
This article is pure von Danikenism: take a “What if” question in one chapter and turn it into an established fact by the next. Repeat as necessary to set out your totally bogus case.
A more egregious few hundred words of complete wishful thinking and illogical bootstrapping I have never seen. At least not since the last column from the Poisoned One.
Just as a P.S.
He even got “permission” into it, as in:
You wish, Glenn.
Sorry for the triple posting, but I had a long nap yesterday afternoon and now at 2.30am can’t get to sleep. So I guess it’s me.
Phillip Coorey gets it about right in his column. Same facts, completely different conclusions to The Dwarf:
I think that’s a fair analysis, especially the last paragraph quoted.
Yes Frank and BB – it is the first time I have seen the word genius connected with Nelson’s name. All parallel universe stuff. I always feel uneasy about his “poisoned letter” articles as I just hope nobody believes them in voter land.
Keating named him well.
“GIPPSLAND shows the PM can’t win by playing the populist, but must make good policy into good politics.”
Funny that such a comment is applied to Rudd but Nelson gets away with his an unfunded and environmentally irresponsible promise of a reduction in petrol excise and is opposed to the tax on Bundy and coke.
Apologies – the quote in 117 is from Milne in today’s Age newspaper. No wonder he’s referred to as the poisoned dwarf.
Frank @ 112:
Milne is increasingly living in fairyland.
The new political paradigm is what propelled Kruddy to the Lodge, and will keep him there, Gippsland or no Gippsland.
An isolated Nationals seat had the luxury of registering a protest vote against what exactly? Petrol prices that are beyond anyone’s control, and the price of Bundy?
The idea that these issues could cost Labor the next election are just Milne’s wet dream – dare I say it, they will come to nothing.
From the Poison Dwarf “The genius of Brendan Nelson’s uber-populist post-budget announcement that he would introduce a 5c a litre cut in the fuel excise was tactical, rather than strategic, as the pollsters like to say.”
Could this be the ‘Budget Bounce” expected since May 2007.
Let’s not over analyse this. The punters don’t like rising petrol prices. Byelections provide a guilt-free way of venting anger over this highly sensitive hip pocket issue. They were also a big factor in Ryan in 2001.
When it comes to choosing a government, it will be a different story. While Rudd certainly empathised over petrol in last year’s campaign he didn’t actually promise to do much so there’s little of any substance the Libs can really hang on him on. Emo man will try, but in the end there’s not much he can offer as an alternative with any semblance of credibility.
Petrol as an issue will fade as it has always done in the past when prices stabilise -or even fall, according to some analyses. That said, you can now just about guarantee that whatever emission scheme comes into play now will quarantine petrol – probably via an offsetting reduction in excise. Greens preferences will be critical as always and the ALP only need be a cent a litre less populist than the LibNats to finish in front…..
This is just a side show
I think pipingshrike has pretty much summed it up: http://thepipingshrike.blogspot.com/
Working on climate change: http://ambit-gambit.nationalforum.com.au/archives/003201.html
working on climate change: http://johnquiggin.com/index.php/archives/2008/05/29/carbon-taxes-and-fuel-prices/
By 2010 the northern passage will be a well used sea lane: http://www.independent.co.uk/environment/climate-change/exclusive-no-ice-at-the-north-pole-855406.html
This election in the brown coal capital of Australia is totally totally irrelevant, by 2010 the climate change skeptics will be in panic mode leading the pack demanding action, Rudd will have developed a plan and the Liberals will still be in disarray ( party due to the swing to the nationals in this poll).
With the caveat that the poll has not been declared yet.
There seems to be 17,000 votes either not counted yet or a significant number of people did not bother to vote.
As it stands Chester has 5,000 less TPP votes than McGauran acheived in 2007 and 2004. This may sort itself out, but if it ends up that less people voted for Chester is this really a “big win” or just a statistical blip?
Does the 18.89% reduction in voter turnout tell us anything?
Ruawake, it tells you they haven’t counted all the pre-polls and they haven’t counted any of the postals. Turnout will be above 85% by the end of the week, possibly around 90%. 15-20% of the turnout is made up of the various categories of declaration votes.
It was just a throw away line at an election campaign, Rudd telling people -Howard does not care, he does not care that interest rate has been rising, he does not care that ordinary Australian are struggling, grocery and petrol are rising.
It was not a policy and there was no promise, but because all the network news aired it, everyone thinks Rudd will lower petrol and grocery prices.
Petrol and grocery prices has been rising since the dawn of time, it is not going to fall. Rudd can reduce excise on petrol by 40c (ie whole excise) that would help family, but would not be really good for the environment.
So Rudd is stuck with a “promise” and “wrong perception” much like Howard was at the last election (ie interest rate will always be lower under a Liberal government) Howard also has little control on interest rate, did not promised to keep rate low, but after all the interest rate rises, the electorate through Howard had lied.
Would the same happen to Rudd now?
Thanks Anthony.
Is it usual for turnout at by elections to be lower? Looks like it may be 5-10% lower in Gippsland?
dovif 124
Howard advertising and promotion was that the libs would keep interest rates at a record low. Since they went up about 8 times between the 2004 election and the 2007 elections, interest rates were not kept at record lows.
dovif, I hear what you’re saying in a way but Howard DID promise to keep interest rates at record lows in several interviews and at least one ad (which did air for a short timeframe).
He also uttered the words ‘who do you trust to keep interest rates low’. Of course, it’s true interest rates were still kept (comparably) low. The point is he should never have made the promise as he knew he could not control interest rates.
One the other hand, Rudd never, as far as I remember, stated he’d do anything to reduce grocery or petrol prices. All he said was that he understood those prices were a concern and was willing to listen rather than ignore, as Howard did when he stated that ‘working families have never been better off’.
It’s not surprising that the Opposition will try and spin that as a promise to reduce petrol prices and grocery prices… but it’s not really the truth at all. If Rudd had said ‘Who do you trust to reduce grocery prices’ that would’ve been an equally stupid thing to say as what Howard said.
People underestimated Andrew Peacock’s short-term political skills, at the 1984 election he overperformed. But in the long-run the Liberals simply couldn’t win by nitpicking on individual Labor policies. Nelson is the new Peacock.
Howard was arrogant and deserved to lose the last election.
Rudd did not promised anything but implied he would do more to lower Petrol and groceries, if they increase exponentially like Petrol have been doing. It will be interested if the electorate blame him for a promise he did not make
There’s enough gas here to solve our woes
dovif,
Rudd did exactly the same as Howard. Howard never explicitly said that interest rates will never go up, just as Rudd never promised anything about petrol. In both cases , however, the implication that costs wil not rise could not have been clearer. The get-out clause didn’t work for Howard so I see no reason why it would work for Rudd. I think the ‘we’ve done all we can’ declaration on petrol six months in wasn’t a great look after all Rudd’s talk, and that he could have at least pretended to investigate cutting excise or something similar.
I beg to differ. There was election advertising that specifically said the Liberal plan was to ‘Keep Interest Rates Low’, and Howard had a similar banner on his podium at press conferences during the election. There’s no weaseling out of that one when after the election they go up 10 times in a row. Rudd went nowhere that kind of thing, but the MSM will try and pin it on him just the same.
I think the ‘we’ve done all we can’ declaration on petrol six months in wasn’t a great look after all Rudd’s talk,
I think that comment was in the context of the details of the recent budget, he was not saying there was nothing more ever that could be done. But, yes, he could have phrased it better.
Rudd did exactly the same as Howard. Howard never explicitly said that interest rates will never go up, just as Rudd never promised anything about petrol
It is true that Howard did not promise that interest rates would never go up. But Rudd did not make the same kind of promise as Howard. Howard said that interest rates “will always be lower under a Coalition government”, a claim roundly (and rightly) dismissed by economists across the board. Furthermore, a Coalition election ad explicitly stated that they would keep interest rates at record lows, an even more dishonest and idiotic promise. True, that ad that was only shown briefly and did not feature Howard himself, but it was shown. Rudd said that Labor would do what they could to keep petrol and food prices down. A very different kind of promise from Howard’s.
If voters and the media want to read things into pollies’ campaign rhetoric that are not there, (or believe pollies when they make undeliverable promises), then they have only themselves to blame for feeling let down when they do not get what they thought they were promised. Though it is certainly true that, rightly or wrongly, the pollies may well wear a lot of the consequences of that inevitable disappointment.
In my mind Howard and Rudd did exactly the same thing.
Howard said words to the effect “interest rates will always be lower under a Liberal government”. This was obviously impossible to prove either way but the public thought he had breached an (implied) promise and punished him.
Rudd said words to the effect “we will put downward pressure on grocery prices and petrol prices”. This is also not a promise. But it is not a good look when grocery prices and petrol prices have done nothing but go up since the election.
I think that the Liberals will regurgitate Rudd’s language again and again and the electorate may also punish Rudd.
It just goes to show that politicians (of both colours) will say anything to get elected.
“Rudd went nowhere that kind of thing..”
Dunno about that. He went in pretty hard during the debate, with plenty of “we’ll work hard to keep prices low, we’ll do everything we can” rhetoric. As I said, nowhere did either of them say the exact words “Interest rates/petrol will never go up”, but the implication was obviously there and the expectations were that this would be the case.
That’s why I think that being seen to admit defeat on petrol so early on was politically a very silly thing for Rudd to do. Irrespective of the merits of the policy, it would have been politically sensible for him to at least look as if he was investigating cutting the excise.
As I said, Liberal advertising clearly said that they would ‘Keep Interest Rates Low’, and they didn’t. We never saw Labor advertising saying they would ‘Keep Petrol Prices Low’ did we? End of story.
Under the Howard Government, the Reserve Bank always had discipline and inflation always went down and not up under Howard. With Wayne Swan now Treasurer, the Reserve Bank has no discipline and they are pretty much free to run amok and raise rates at their own will. Wayne Swan should just resign for the good of the people. Even Malcolm Fraser was a better economic manager in my view. May we say God save the Queen, because nothing will save Wayne Swan.
I strongly agree with Richard comment 138. Wayne Swan should resign immediately.
Wayne Swan is finished as Treasurer.
Dario at 137
Dario, you appear to be looking for a “hair to split” where there isn’t one. Both Rudd and Howard said remarkably similar things.
In any event, it does not matter what Rudd actually said. It matters what the electorate thinks he said. The electorate thinks he said he would lower grocery prices and petrol prices or at the very least keep them where they were in November 2007.
I clearly remeber Rudd saying “there is no silver bullet”. He said this many times. I don’t recall Howard saying that about keeping interest rates at record lows. Howard actually apologised for saying that during the last election campaign. The difference between Rudd and Howard on this is like chalk and cheese and anyone trying to infer otherwise is spinning furiously.
I agree with Honest John, I am fed up with Wayne Swan.
There is a big difference in saying you will “keep prices as low as possible” to saying “we will keep them at record lows”.
Honest John a.k.a Richard a.k.a. Persona a.k.a. Pompey a.k.a. Ted a.k.a. Valentino a.k.a. Queensland Voter has been banned for sock puppetry.
Honest John, who has proven here not to be that honest, seems to be agreeing with his alter ego. Maybe you can debate yourself Honest?
Absolutely GB #142, what Milne forgets is that while everyone thinks petrol prices should be lower (obviously) few believe the Labor government is able to do anything about it (20% according to Newspoll).
http://enrol.com.au/mumblestuff/pdfs/20080602newspollpetrol.pdf
He is just using Gippsland to prop up some lousy analysis that has so far proved to be wrong in every national poll.
Seems I’ve dropped in on a stoush.
Keeping downward pressure on grocery prices may mean that prices go down. But it is not a promise to make prices go down. It is only a promise to slow the rate of their rise. Anyone who believed otherwise is truly a fool.
Those who say “the voters” believed Rudd would lower prices have no evidence for this at all, except spin from the likes of Milne and Shanahan who have their own agendas to run. If they had their fingers on the pulse fo the voters, these morons of the 4th estate wouldn’t have been saying “The honeymoon is over” so often and wrongly.
Intererstingly the like of Milne and Shanahan state quite clearly that Rudd never promised to lower prices. They say, as some have asserted above, that “the voters” believe otherwise. Yet they have done nothing to correct this impression.
I repeat: anyone who believed that somehow or other Rudd could lower grocery prices was a fool to let their wishful thinking interfere with rational thought.
135
sniven Says:
Howard said words to the effect “interest rates will always be lower under a Liberal government”.
He said exactly that, not just words to that effect. Rudd made no such equivalent explicit promise about fuel or food prices. He simply said what every political aspirant has to say, that they will do what they can to minimise price rises.
The electorate cannot have it both ways: They cannot want to live in a market based economy and enjoy all the goodies it delivers, but then run bleating to the government for protection when that same market system pushes prices up. You gotta take the good with the bad.
I think that the Liberals will regurgitate Rudd’s language again and again and the electorate may also punish Rudd.
I hope they do, but I’ll bet they don’t, because it will not support their case. All Labor has to do is just pull out the explicit promises made by Howard over interest rates to kill of that comparison.
sniven I don’t recall Rudd ever saying he’d put downward pressure on grocery and petrol prices. He said he’s set up a petrol prices commissioner (which he’s done) and I recall him saying something or other about what he’d do with grocery prices but I distinctly remember both Rudd and Swan routinely stating that they would not promise prices would go down and that to do so would be irresponsible.
I’d be happy for you to find a reference to him stating that he’d put downward pressure on prices though.
In fact, the ‘promise’ to reduce petrol prices and grocery prices was a media invention. The media even admit that Rudd did not talk much about petrol or grocery prices during the campaign. This was summed up by Steve Lewis 3 days before the election in an interview:
LEWIS: You made no mention, you made no mention of any measures to put, to address cost of living pressures on working families, and yet that’s been a common theme throughout the last 12 months or so. In particular there is no mention in your speech, in fact during most of your campaign, of grocery and petrol prices which you have promised to address if elected.
RUDD: Many of you have been at press conferences where I have said – and said repeatedly – I do not pretend to have a silver bullet on any of these questions, I don’t. But I do have a fundamental difference with Mr Howard who looks down the barrel of a camera and says to working families they’ve never been better off. Let me tell you, that’s not my experience as I wander around Australia and talk to people.
In fact, if you trawl through all transcripts from the election campaign and prior you will not find one statement from the Labor Party promising or suggesting they will lower or keep low the prices of either groceries or petrol, but instead:
“We will establish a Petrol Price Commissioner and a national inquiry into grocery prices to make sure working families aren’t ripped off.”
It’s completely different from a promise to ‘keep interest rates low’. Although it’s arguable interest rates were still low at the end of the Howard Government the fact is they issued a direct statement that they would control interest rates and keep them low.
The problem for Nelson next election, if he’s still around, is that he will have to answer some very hard questions like – “Given that Rudd couldn’t stop petrol prices rising how will you do it?” “How will 5c a litre drop help the average person?” “How will you ensure prices of groceries will come down?” Oh really, you can’t?
‘we don’t assume the economy will continue at its own momentum, it will only continue if we continue to do the right things, keeping the budget in surplus, keeping interest rates low, keeping them at 30-year lows.’
These are the words Rat Man actually spouted before the 2004 election. They came back to haunt him in 2007.
Rudd played a similar game – but was smart enough to limit his words to downward pressure.
I remember when Ratty said “Working Families have never been better off” there was an audible gasp in parliament – that was the day he lost the election.
Probably a similar gasp to the one Coalition members made when Rudd said he’d done all he can on petrol prices.
LTEP’s transcript shows what Rudd was talking about, it was to acknowledge that prices were higher to show that the Howard government was out of touch. The power of this was something the media never understood.
All of this is really about the media’s relationship with the Rudd government than the electorate’s.
153 LTEP – I think we can see from recent opinion polls the effect that had. Nix.
“How will 5c a litre drop help the average person?”
Well….they’d be paying 5c less per litre than they’re paying now.
That works out at about 3 bucks a tank – very handy. I feel much better about that now. LOL. “And how do you propose to pay for this Nr. Nelson?” What services will I have to go without?”
Back on topic
The swing against the Labor party on primaries is -8.48% and falling.
The swing against the National party on primaries is – -8.45% and rising.
#156:
… for about 24 hours.
If people are prepared to buy petrol at $1.60 and it suddenly goes down one-off by 5c to $1.55, the oil companies will find an excuse to raise the price by 5c faster than you can say “Working Families”. They’ll hide it in among the daily fluctuations in barrel price. Within a day or so petrol will be back up where it was, only this time the oil companies will be pocketing the extra.
The only ones out of pocket will be taxpayers who will find their country’s treasury about $2 billion short. That shortage is about theonly permanent result of dropping 5c off the excise.
MDMConnell that’s certainly not true. There’d be absolutely nothing to stop the petrol companies from swallowing up that 5c and it’s exactly what would happen. Almost all research in the area shows that cutting excise would have negligible impact on prices. In essence all you’d be doing is losing revenue with nothing to gain.
BB
I wonder if pensioners realise that a 5c a litre drop in excise equates to them getting an extra $20 a week?
Howard used that argument too LTEP. It’s one of the few things you could believe him on. That’s how it works, look at the early learning centres and how they up their fees when the government tries to help the average family with extra cash for child minding.
A 5c reduction off $1.60, times say 100 litres a week, gives a saving of $8 a week. Not even a sandwich and a milkshake, as they say.
Plus it leaves a big hole in the federal surplus.
That Nelson sure is a real deep thinker.
Nelson isn’t being asked the hard questions yet. When he is he’d better have the answers otherwise he’s going to look very foolish.
Of course, that should be $5 bucks a week savings. Even worse.
-8.42% each now. Oh dear it looks like the Nats will have a bigger swing against them than Labor on primaries.
Do you think I could get a job in the MSM?
Spins off into the ether….
Rubbish
Well, nobody seems to know what an ETS is, but at least they want petrol included in it
http://www.news.com.au/story/0,23599,23946385-29277,00.html
Is there a Newspoll tomorrow?
Predictably THE AUSTRALIAN was trumpeting Gippsland as some huge blow to Rudd and his government, any excuse will do to prop up Brenda!
The last newspoll was 13-15 June 2008 and they have been putting them out every two weeks – so yes there should be one tomorrow.
Banned for sock-puppetry, love it, go William you good thing
At least it wasn’t this kind of Puppetry
http://www.puppetryofthepenis.com/
But then again………
Did anyone see Mark Reilly on 7 Noos? Apparently the budget sell failed, Mark tells us, when it was first announced so Swan has had to remind everyone of the benefits again. Also it is an attempt to lift Labor’s flagging popularity. Mark consistent I guess. If he can make it a negative report for Labor he will.
There’s a says about being careful what you wish for, you might get it.
Perhaps what Rudd et al need to do is hit people between the eyes with the consequences of them getting what they wish for. Something along the lines of:
People: We want cheaper petrol
Government: Sure, well we take 38 cents in excise per litre. You tell us how much of that you wanted knocked off and we’ll tell you how much your (answer according to audience):
….. mortgage and credit card interest will go up
or
….. pension/middle class welfare payment will drop
or
….. hospital waiting lists will increase by
or
….. some/all of the above
People: Sod the environment! We don’t want to pay more for electricity and petrol and we want to keep our gas guzzling 4WDs too
Government: Okay, but you do realise that:
… food will go up, assuming you can find any, because as probably the country that will be most affected by global warming we soon won’t be able to grow much ourselves
….. you’ll be paying through the nose for insurance because of more storms,
….. water will cost you 5/10/20/? times more because most of it will have to come from expensive to run desal plants
….. etc, etc, etc,
One factor which doesn’t seem to have been mentioned much as a driver of the swing to the coalition in Gippsland is that at the by-election, people weren’t faced with the choice of voting for or against Work Choices.
The fishing Party has had its day in the Court of Disputed Returns.
http://www.austlii.edu.au/au/cases/cth/federal_ct/2008/953.html
I have it on good authority that the ALP underspent the normal seat budget in a big way on Gippsland.
Tom.
175 Pedant – that’s true. We don’t know how many of those who voted Labor last time (2007) were naturally conservative voters who hated Workchoices and now have no reason to vote Labor. As I said in a post previously, I think the vote Labor received in Gippsland in 2007 showed just how on the nose the Libs were and mainly due to Workchoices.
Rann said the Libs out spent Labor 5 to 1 in Gippsland.
175
Pedant
True. Not this time they didn’t but the next time they go to the polls they’ll have a chance to ask for workchoices to be resyored by voting condervative. In Gippsland they will bote conservative of course but anyone who thinks this sort of ’swing’ might take place across the country has rocks in their head.
Couple of spelling errors in #180 but you get my drift.
On Saturday I was talking to a Nats worker (a dairy farmer, and perhaps not the sharpest needle in the pack). He said he thought the 5c reduction in petrol excise was ridiculous, because everyone knew that they’d rise by 20-30c next week or next month. But it was hurting him badly because he had to run his diesel machinery, and travel 60k to go to the shops.
this sort of thinking is prevalent in the bush, and rightly so! If there is going to be economic pain, then it should be spread equitably through the community. A Labor candidate who promised to voice these concerns in caucus, even in the face of Govt policy, would have done better in the campaign.. That’s the sort of stronger voice rural voters need.
That said, the truly appalling results for the ALP were in the Latrobe Valley. I think the Keith Hamilton clique should hang their heads in shame! But so should the Government for failing to show workers that changing over to clean energy is not destructive of jobs, but opens up new opportunities. And once again, ALP policy should have a clear priority that the pain from any change should be shared through the community, as should the gain.
Summarising, IMO, the awful result in Gippsland was due to..
1. Govt failure to reassure Energy workers 50%
2. Personal vanity among senior ALP figures 30%
3. Rural discontent with Petrol pricing 10%
4. Anti govt by election swing 10%
If there were to be a by election in McEwen, point 1 would possibly be replaced by the water pipeline but as much less significant, and point 2 would nonexistent
Pedant @ 175 & Gary Bruce @ 178 -
Perhaps, but it’s pretty clear that the Libs still hanker for Work Choices and they’d bring it back in a flash if elected. It may not have been a risk in the bye election, but it was still an opportunity to reinforce the message that it wasn’t wanted.
Will Bishop be counselling caution after this result, or encouraging the party room to stick with WC because it’s clearly no longer frightening the punters?
Pedant is quite right that workchoices played no part in the campign. perhaps the ALP negative advertising shouldhave concentrated on this, rther than the much more ancent history of school closures!
Money they no longer have to spend at the next general election. Maybe we can sucker them into another huge spend at Mayo? Guess Call me Brenda is so shitscared of losing a seat and then the leadership he will foolishly, out of desperation, spend lavishly. BTW, heard on the ABC on the way in to work that the 82day(?) campaign was a very long one for a by election.
Kina mentioned early on that maybe people like shooters, anti GST or whatever felt free to vote Coalition again.
The carry on about it being an awful result, if i was a Labor strategist i would not worrry to much about this. It was a regional seat and a seat that traditionally votes Conservative, no matter what Labor would not have won and would have had a swing against it.
To digress can someone tell me what hard decisions has the Government made since being elected? First Tannner says it and then Rudd, still trying to work out what hard decisions they have made. To suggest the hard decisions are a cause of the swing is fanciful.
159 and 160
That is exactly what would happen to the 5c / litre BS. The same as the 8c / ltr subsidy we are supposed to be priveleged of in Qld.
Those kind of political, vote me, expedient decisions are “fools gold” and those amounts of 5 & 8 cents really pale into insignificance when you recall the $7,000 first home buyers grants. It did not take the industry long to raise the price of a house by that amount because the Government was throwing it at them. Most of the builders thought they had won Tatts.
Marky,
The hard decision was to not get into a bidding war on petrol price tax relief. Cost Labor a realistic opportunity to contest Gippsland.
Tanner and Rudd could be suggesting to us what the dopes think that Labor is responsible for higher petrol prices when it is not. Hard decisions are about higher petrol, no higher petrol is about scarcity of the resource and yet the government is hardly telling us and hardly educating us about Climate Change.
Listening to Tanner tonight yep climate change will affect us all, correct Lindsay but what changes are occurring and what changes will occur if we do nothing.
Stop saying it will hurt and instead tell us what changes are happening and will happen. Time to educate with ads and articles.
GG, absolute bulldust. Labor would never have won the seat, it had a dud candidate and has local problems regarding personnel and branches.
Instead Labor has been totally confused over petrol and being able to structure a policy response. I still for one do not know where they stand on the issue.
Their response has been feeble. Instead of hedging bets how about stating the obvious, the resource is running out- simple. And start thinking of policies to ensure people can drive or can travel to places, gas, electric or hydrogen cars and public transport. Instead it is silly policies like fuel watch.
No matter Labor would have lost the seat and had a swing against it.
Gary Bruce Says: @ 146,
{Honest John, who has proven here not to be that honest, seems to be agreeing with his alter ego. Maybe you can debate yourself Honest? }
With so many persona’s, Gary, he should be able to do a “mass debate” which I surely think he has!
i think the Mayo by election will tell us more of how Rudd is going in the electorate, i dont think labor have any hope of winning there, but it’s a more cosmopolitan seat and while the libs in K.I. and the old diehards in stirling etc will carry it for the libs i think it will show where labor truly stands a bit better, local issues aka the post office and the coal industry won’t be biting and the mind boggles at the landed gentry standing with a ute and working dog moaning about the bundy tax, if labor is careful in their selection process and run a good campaign they could give the libs a bit of a jolt, mind saying that, any electorate that votes in Lord Lunchalot with his smarmy, smug self satisfaction has got to be a bit sus–everytime i think of him i cant help but remember his squealing about how quickly he learnt french after Rudd’s fluency in mandarin was revealed, i think his quote at the end of his tirade said it all.
what do you think Mayoferal?
it’s confirmed Lord Lunchalot is taking his bat and ball and leaving for greener pastures.
http://news.ninemsn.com.au/article.aspx?id=589351
The message out of Gippsland is simple, educate the electorate on the changes you wish to introduce and why and if peoples’ jobs are at stake get in their and do something about it before it happens, by offering oppourtunities and never walk away until security in peoples’ lives is assured, actually never walk away at all.
Excellent post from my old sparring partner LTEP at 150. A fair, balanced and truthful comment.
I agree with you guys about the 5 cent cut in excise. The oil companies would be laughing. The building companies increased their house prices over the first home owners grant and now childcare centres are doing the same thing.
I don’t like the childcare rebate for that exact reason. And I think the baby bonus is a bribe to have a kid for the wrong reasons. Maternity leave is another grey area.
Surely we could do something innovative and creative to assist those people that the above policies intended.
Maybe Brenda and her mob could properly adress those issues instead of their useless populist politics. Oh that’s right, they wouldn’t know how, they are conservatives.
Will the Labor Party say anything about expensive by elections when in fact one of their own in Victoria quit just recently and we had a byelection on Saturday?
How anyone can suggest that ALP ran a good campaign is beyond me. It was a bad result by any measure. But in hindsight, it might be the preferable election to lose. This will restore confidence in the conservative side, which shouldn’t have any. And it might wisen the government up a little and remove some of the cockiness.
The only thing that may worry me about this by-election is that maybe the MSM might be getting through to the electorate with their garbage???
Take fuel watch for e.g. An excellent concept. You should hear what the ACCC’s Samuels has to say about it. At the moment it’s as close to collusion as you can get. Petrol prices can vary as much as 20 cents on any given day. I have no doubt that fuel watch could deliver as much as a 3 cent cut in prices.
But the MSM are succeeding in putting sh1t on it.
judy
I’d love to see Mia Handshin run for Mayo. Nicole needs a bit longer to get over the last election and she can do without another loss. There’s an awful lot of Greenie types in Mayo (remember the vote John Schumann got there). They need someone young and dynamic.
Diogenes, thats what i mean by the labor party choosing a good candidate, i agree i think this would be the wrong try for Nicole, i don’t think she’d fit in with the old school, now Mia–thats a good thought, she’s clever and more confident and she oozes talent, hmmm wonder if the libs want to slot someone in to act as a seat warmer until Lord Lunchalot jnr is ready to run for parliament.
Marky,
Oh wise one with your incisive repartee.
Petrol prices are what drove the Nats. Truss came out a week before the election and said 20 cents a litre discount is what is required.
You know why he said that? Because he thought it might work. Great harlots are the Opposition. All influence, but no reponsibility.
judy barnes @ 192 -
I think the Libs will bolt in. Not sure if it’ll be by a bigger or smaller margin, there are arguments either way, but IMHO, Labor should save its money, or maybe slip some of it to a good independent candidate should one stand.
I do feel for the poor people of Cyprus. They’ve suffered enough already!!!
Lunchalot would have to be the most incompetent blowhard that has ever graced Australian diplomacy. He buggered up badly on East Timor which ended up destroying a nation, was a leading player in what most believe has been the greatest foreign policy debacle in modern history all but destroying another nation in the process, and ignored (I’m being generous) bribery of a murderous despot who he claimed was trying to build biological/chemical/nuclear weapons that may have been used against us.
That the UN would employ a war criminal as a peace envoy just beggars belief!
MayoFeral, now that description of the good lord L certainly strikes home BUT i’m surprised you held back so much, lol, a good independant, as you said, might just do the trick, i KNOW labor wouldnt have a snowflakes chance in hell, latte sipping is too modern for the landed gentry, if an independent was given under the lap aid by labor then there might just be a modicum of sympathy for the labor agenda. a well known local identity would be the ideal candidate.
By elections are by elections, these people protest a vote because they think that politicians are to blame for their troubles where in the end many of their probs are a result of their own doing. In by elections we let out our frustrations so to get our politicians to do something about them, petrol prices are not a result of the government but people in Gippsland thought otherwise, put simply this result is an aberration.
MayoFeral
“That the UN would employ a war criminal as a peace envoy just beggars belief!”
Dolly’s just the type of d!ckhead they would employ. They made Kofi Annan Secretary-General after all. He’s lucky not to be up in front of the War Crimes Tribunal for his role in stopping the UN from intervening in the Rwandan Genocide.
does anyone know if newspoll results will be published tonight, this is nearly as bad as waiting every fortnight for the polls before the election.
204 marky marky – I agree. It’s just a bloody bad time to have a by election, let’s face it.
Mayo Feral their are war criminals everywhere doing as they please. Tony Blair he is now some ambassador for some justice group, pathetic.
Kissinger gets a noble peace prize for bombing the stuffening out of Vietnam and Cambodia with Agent Orange. America supports the overthrow of government in Chile with a despotic dictator who jails and oppresses his countrypeople….
Mugabe travels the world and represents Zimbabwe and the world allows it.
I could go on on on on on on with this pathetic individuals they are everywhere.
Downer is a small fish compared to this lot…
Newspoll
55/45 2PP announced on Lateline
http://www.theaustralian.news.com.au/story/0,25197,23949610-601,00.html
Landslide win to Labor!
Shanahan is going to have a field day with that poll
Samantha Maiden already has
Just watchd world leaders allow Mugabe to be at a conference in a couple of weeks with them and allow him to speak. Mugabe should be arrested as soon as he sets foot in another country outside Africa.
I thought Maiden’s story was reasonable and mostly balanced.
These numbers are going to jump around.
Turnbull should either jump of a cliff or hang himself, these figures ruin his short term leadership aspirations.
If the government is going to do anything about petrol it should look at transport costs, thus people who are owner drivers, it is these people who are hurting badly.
Their costs have risen sharply and these people perhaps need help.
In a very difficult economic environment the government still has a landslide lead. Amazing stuff. Of course it won’t be reported that way but still we know its true.
For a one term government they are doing well. That bloody honeymoon just won’t go away.
The end of the thousand mile salad is upon us.
Talk to your parents and grandpaents. In the good old days you only ate fruit and vegetables in season.
Agree nothing to panic about. However if petrol prices go to 2.20 and beyond by December and the government does not have an alternative strategy in place such as looking at Gas, or Electric vehicles than it may be serious trouble long term.
Nonetheless it has one postive- Brendan Nelson because he is unelectable, and will be in 2010, just looking at him will turn people off.
Marky, the Liberals will also need a strategy at the next election. They won’t get a free run as they did in this by election.
Apart from the last Newspoll, which is more and more looking like an outlier, the opposition have recorded a primary vote of around 37%. This time it is 39%. Labor has been getting 46% and this time it’s 44%. Does the term MOE mean anything here?
GG @ 219 -
I hope the 12,000 mile bottled water joins it.
Over the weekend had someone chewing my ear about the high cost of petrol. Which might have been fair enough except the drongo was sipping on a tiny bottle of a well known French mineral water that probably cost twice as much as a litre of unleaded.
Okay, I don’t drink the tap water here either, its officially the worst tasting in the country, but there’s plenty of local spring water that is cheaper and hasn’t been transported half way around the world.
mayoferal,
Maybe your right. Perhaps bottled water in places like Australia is the “jump the shark” indulgence that our modern society can’t sustain.
Agree Gary, but who will get the balme? The dopes will no doubt blame the government of the day?
Tony Jones got Turnbull good on Lateline tonight. He virtually admitted 5c a litre is just a political “sham”. Not good shadow treasurer material
221 “Marky, the Liberals will also need a strategy at the next election.”
The Liberals will also need a strategy for the next fortnight. The only thing that has substantially changed is that their bid of a five cent petrol price cut has been trumped by the Nationals to a twenty cent cut.
The next fortnight won’t have parliament sitting for them to grandstand. It won’t have state Newspolls coming out on a daily basis setting the news agenda each morning. Tax cuts come in from tomorrow and who is to say that when the Greenhouse Gas Emissions report comes out on Friday that there won’t be huge positive announcements of excise cuts accompanying it?
Newspoll thread up.
How to misinterpret by-election results by Swinburne Politics Professor Brian Costar.
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