The Australian reports that Labor’s lead in this fortnight’s Newspoll is down slightly from 57-43 to 56-44. Kevin Rudd is down three points as preferred leader to 65 per cent while Brendan Nelson is up two to 14 per cent.
The latest weekly Essential Research survey shows no change in Labor’s long-standing 58-42 lead. Also featured is a national-level question on state voting intention which suggests collective primary vote support for the state Labor governments is 7 per cent lower than for federal Labor (40 per cent compared with 47 per cent), although Coalition support is only 3 per cent higher (38 per cent compared with 35 per cent). Further questions involve federal Labor’s performance on various individual issues, and attitudes to the balance of power in the Senate.
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Well-spotted GB. With my predilection for razzamatazz over substance and detail, I’d missed that completely.
We’ve had so many years of back-of-envelope “policy” making that Rudd is expected to solve the nation’s problems within a few months.
Meanwhile over at the Big Top circus tent, otherwise laughingly known as “The Liberal Party”, Tony Abbott has come out (or at least according to Shanahan he has) openly spruiking for Pistol Pete to segue into the leadership of said rambling caravan, and in the process to save Australia from the Rudd hordes.
They delayed and delayed last year in holding the election, hoping that the economy would turn bad in time for them put themselves forward as the only party who could manage us through the Dark Times ahead. The idea was tentatively put forward by Costello, re-election, but unfortunately those naughty sub-prime lenders managed to stave off the bad news for a vital few weeks, forcing the Libs to face up to the impatient people.
I think there was a lot to the theory that a goodly, one might venture the word “winning” proportion of The Mob thought we were bullet-proof economically and that even Labor couldn’t wreck something that seemed so robust. The Coalition bods were certainly dead scared this would happen. In effect they were worried they’d done their job too well. Hence the dark September glowerings from Cozzie, but sadly (for them) and happily (for us), it was all too little too late. Too bad.
Now that there are glimmerings of sunlight on the horizon, the first furtive peeks of a new fiscal day dawning, Cozzie (it seems to me) is waiting again. This time he’s waiting for things to improve so he can take the reins, take the Prime Ministership and, as usual – he’s such a good taker, rather than a getter – take the credit for it all.
Wouldn’t surprise me at all that if Pete took over the Libs and things co-incidentally improved, he wouldn’t take the credit (or be given it… same thing) for single-handedly turning the economy around by mere dint of his brilliant bum sitting on the front bench seat immediately to the left and centre of the Speaker. Oh Possum! Wouldn’t that be wonderful!
We’ve seen Morris Iemma move from Plan “A” to Plan “B” on electricity in the space of a single memorable afternoon yesterday, hoping that the people of NSW, his party and the Parliament (despite their trenchant opposition to Electricity privatization, across the board) will forgive and forget this week’s shenanigans and re-elect him with a resounding “Hurrah!” in two years’ time.
If Morris can do it – can trash democracy, our state’s institutions and particularly his party’s credibility with a shrug of the shoulders – why can’t the federal Libs take a self-inflicted gut-shot from a scatter gun, an auto-cleaving from the nave to the chops by their own best and brightest (I speak here in relative terms), and then put themselves together T-1000 like (he was the bad droid from Terminator II) in a mimetic process of self-regeneration in time for election 2010?
The simple answer is that they’re a bunch of self-indulgent, underperforming dickheads who’ve deluded themselves into thinking the long-suffering public is smiling benignly upon them, not realizing that the incredulous expressions on the voters’ faces contain more laughter than love.
Come to think about it, that’ll do for for the complex answer as well.
Kerry Packer once famously said “You only get on Alan Bond in a lifetime.” Iemma certainly prospered from the gift of the doltish Debnam. Kevin Rudd now has his very own show-pony to parade around the ring for a while until the poor thing is sent off to the knacker’s yard, via the remainder bins of Australia’s bookshops.
Peter Costello, Tony Abbott, Brendan Nelson, Malcolm Turnbull, Dennis Shanahan and all the rest of the ever-hopeful denialist nongs on the conservative side of politics, I have a secret for you…
Terminator II was only a movie. Those bits and pieces youse have rendered yourselves into..? They’re “it” for the forseeable future, and quite a way beyond that too.
Harry Snapper Organs
*broad smile* learned a bit about blogging, I did, concerning gender. Thank you for the offer of checking out venues but I won’t be around to take advantage of them.
Abbott is going full throttle on Costello stating that if he doesn’t take the job on he would be ‘the greatest PM we never had.’ OO suspects this is important because Abbott is the leader of the Howard loyalists and is whistling them up for Costello.
Apart for the fact that the stuff goes on and on, and has assumed some sort of ‘normalcy’, Abbott’s behaviour raises some reasonable questions:
1. Does the Liberal Party have any benchmark for loyalty to the party leader at all?
2. Assuming it does, and that Abbott has descended below acceptable behaviour, why doesn’t Nelson sack Abbott and arrange for him to be drummed out of the party?
3. If Nelson is not prepared to sack Abbott, why doesn’t he do the appropriate thing and resign?
4. What sort of parliamentary party has members who are so gutless and so paralysed that they sit around for months while allowing a complete leadership vacuum at the top?
5. Why isn’t the MSM condemning the Liberal Party for its failure to address this appalling state of affairs in the Opposition?
And Christian Kerr pipes up thinking because Costello yelled out “blame game” that meant he won Question Time yesterday.
452 All very good questions.
boer
point 5
for all intents and purposes the MSM is the fiberal party
vera #421,
If you want vomit inducing, don’t read Cur this morning.
I like to start most days with an OO article, just to kick off the day with a little fire in the belly; this morning I feel just plain sick.
Cur’s sado-sexual, lustful, lost-in-love, tarty, I’m-for-sale, virtual bl#w j#b, Costello’s-the-man-for-me schtick offers readers of the OO new lows in terms of a lack of impartiality.
(he’s allowed to sing his song – and the target audience of the OO need to find hope where there is none – he’s just gone a little too far with the schmooze, IMHO)
The MSM trying to guilt Costello into staying?
He ought to be aware that when he doesn’t win the next election the MSM will then crucify him on the atlar of Howard’s legacy. If he has a bad image now of being gutless it will be made much worse when he fails – all the woes of the Liberal party will be neatly put on him.
I’m still picking myself up from the floor, did i read it right??? Shanahan is giving Rudd credit for carrying out his pre election promises.
http://www.theaustralian.news.com.au/story/0,25197,24257613-17301,00.html
Wow! I just read that Christian Kerr article referred to above.
Now there’s balanced and fact-based journalism for you.
Sounded more like one of my long-winded raves here on this blog than the work of a proper journalist. It’s amazing isn’t it how they get so full of themselves, so Goddamn high and mighty. Why, christian Kerr is just another blogger, only he gets to write his empty-headed thoughts in the national laughingly-called “newspaper”.
“Question time was Costello’s”? WTF?
All Cozzie had to say, apparently, was two mysterious words, “Blame Game”, and the floor was dutifully wiped with the guts of Rudd for garters.
Methinks these “journalists” need to get out more and see the real world in operation, including how political decisions are made. Costello ain’t going nowhere without rock-solid guarantees that he’ll need to indulge in more effort than uttering two words every now and again.
If Kerr thinks that two QT words from Costello and a few happy-clappy “me-too” bon mots from Opposition drones as a result are going to single handedly reconstruct the floundering Liberal Party, he is dangerously disconnected from the reality he purports to love, admire and (amazingly) report.
Must be a stand-in writer…
457 jB – Have to give credit to Shana – he’s on the money with his last line:
“Rudd is keeping his promises, he’s working frenetically and taking on vested interests over equitable education. He just has to ensure that expectations and fears are met and managed at the same time.”
maybe he’s got on the whacky weed in despair over the never ending honeymoon, i think maybe i need whatever he’s on to help me get over the shock of a sudden about turn to balanced reporting–regardless of the stupid headline of the article.
461 – yep the headline as ever is idiotic.
Have to think the ALP’s election strategy come 2010 will be along the lines of keeping promises…
Shanahan wrote:
Jeez, Dollar $weetie will read that and decide the PM job’s not for him.
On the NSW power sell off, and inept jurnos. How come none of them had a clue that Iemma would thumb his nose at the upper house and go to plan B?
“The Government now plans to sell electricity retailers and development sites but leave the power generators in public hands.”
“It’s a package that doesn’t require the support of the Opposition and doesn’t require legislation,” he said.
http://www.abc.net.au/news/stories/2008/08/28/2349565.htm
All we’ve been hearing here in NSW for the last year is that Iemma is done for.
Now I’m not as smart as those jurnos (Hell who is!) but I’d be willing to bet that Big business who run the Fibs will be demanding the head of O’Farrell for biting the hands that feed him.
“Business groups say the latest development is welcome, but they would have preferred the full electricity sale to have proceeded.”
Wouldn’t that be a turn-up, Iemma still there next election, O’Farrell nothing but a dissapointing memory.(smiles)
Obama:
Geez, after “Working Families” I thought he was going to segue onto “Education Revolution”.
BB
Kev had a talk to to Obama last week, maybe he gave him a couple of tips?
Nah, I don’t think so. I didn’t hear anything about outcome-based stakeholer differentiation within the paradigm of community orientated socio-demographic related stakeholder relationships and remunerative sub-classes.
Come to think of it, I did.
Obama called it “The American Dream”.
Nelson happy for Costello to try for leadership:
http://www.abc.net.au/news/stories/2008/08/29/2350178.htm?section=justin
Either Nelson knows PC ain’t going to challenge, or he knows he is going to challenge and is quite happy about it.
Vera @ 465 & 466: A sound observation about journalists reporting NSW politics who did not see the Plan B (on electricity privatisation) coming. The same journos who write about lack of talent among state politicians (a relatively easy point to make), need to pay more regard to their own abilities to investigate, report and analyse public affairs in NSW.
I also agree that Barry O’Farrell is likely to be gone as Liberal Party leader by the next election. Similarly, I doubt Morrie can survive until March 19 2011, but good luck to him (and the ALP) if he does.
Bushfire Bill: Creating the policies of good government, knowing their substance (which includes the reasons for having them), and then detailing how bureaucracy is going to implement them, are all required. Yet that work becomes ineffective or, even worse, wasted, if electors don’t understand the policies or are not persuaded why they are necessary. We need political practitioners in this country who can engage and (I daresay, when needed) inspire, the public. Easier said than done, I accept, but one way of doing it, has to be the ability to make speeches which have succinct, ‘cut through’ messages on policies, their substance and their implementation. Presentation is a key tool of effective political advocacy.
It has been Costello’s gift to keep a dead man walking in the Liberal leadership for months past his use-by date.
It is good to see that Costello has such a concern for his Party, his colleagues and for the people of Australia.
Nelson clarifies Costello happiness
http://www.news.com.au/couriermail/story/0,23739,24261362-5003402,00.html
It’s Looney Tunes isn’t it.
GB, it’s gold.
But can you recall anyone else who has deferred making a call on whether or not he want to lead the country until the release of a book?
And that various people in the media see nothing wrong with it is rather stunning..
Gary Bruce @ 443 -
To give the Courier credit, they did publish by comment. Which is even more amazing because I’ve had a few real run-ins with the paper, though it was quite a few years ago.
.
Bushfire Bill @ 451 – The Mad Monk spruiking for ‘Pistol Pete’ probably has much more to do with the ‘Anyone but Mal’ campaign than getting the messiah’s bum into the seat opposite Rudd.
I really thought that Cossie was only waiting for someone to do all the hard work before seizing the leadership, but after weeks of studiously ignoring the pleas of his party he’d look a real goose if he rolled Brendan now, dead man walking though Nelson is.
Kerr’s article was in the style of an Art Critic. If read as such, it makes some sense. If read as an attempt to make a balanced political judgment about what is happening in Government and Opposition, it doesn’t make much sense at all.
Where Kerr makes sense is that in the theatre of Parliament, Nelson is a loser, and, Costello is a winner. Kerr also makes a judgment that Costello is a superior actor to those opposite. The latter theatrical judgment would have to be premature.
Costello is a consumate parliamentary performer. He has excellent timing, he uses a good voice well, he uses a considerable range of tone, can be very loud, and has good inflection. He has good physical presence and he uses his body well in making his points. When he wants to, he can exude gravitas. He is not to be intimidated. Nasty words slide off him like water off a duck’s back. He does not use lots of big words. His messages are well-honed, easy to understand and well-targeted. His wit can be devastating. His considerable ego means that he believes that what he is saying must be true, so the words tend to sound convincing.
The problem for the Liberals is that he had all of these skills before the election and during the election, everyone was clear that a vote for Howard was a vote for Costello. People voted no thank you very much. Bottom line: there are winners and losers in parliamentary performances but it is what Governments actually do that makes the main difference.
Costello as leader of the Opposition would be up against at least ten challenges:
1. It is the Government that will be beavering away doing things. Costello will only be able to talk about doing things.
2. People probably generally regard the unlikeable Costello as a bit of a flat-track bully.
3. He will not have a compliant Speaker.
4. He will be able to ask questions, but not, in general, to deliver set piece performances as answers. This will restrict his performances.
5. He is reputed to have personal qualities that include laziness and abrasiveness.
6. He won’t have the financial resources of incumbency and he won’t have the intellectual resources of the public service.
7. He is up a Government that is determined to meet its promises and which is equally determined not to frighten the horses.
8. The things that worked for the Howard/Costello Government in the last campaign are unlikely to work as well this time. For example, the union frightener campaign is going to be a complete fizzer.
9. The Government does not have to spend a lot of time on the Leader of the Opposition. He can bluster and fluster and be histrionic as much as he likes. This is because the Government has the ultimate satisfaction of getting on with the job.
10 A substantial rump within the Party which either don’t like him much or hates him and would prefer Turnbull or anybody else.
Put together, these will continue to make the theatre of Parliament intriguing but which factors will have a significant impact on the way people vote?
The Opposition appears to retain a view that it is the natural party of government. It has yet to realize that it will need a solid base of competent policy work that will place it well as a Government in Waiting. But it looks work shy. Scrabbling desperately for the applause of MSM theatre critics is a poor substitute.
Think its appropriate to formalise PB’c critique daily of MSN journalists in th fair & balanced fashion this site is renowned for , beit Mr Shanahan Mr Kerr or otherwise
Starting days of with balanced writers from redoubtable Bushfire Bill then to even handed posters conrributions like Gary Grog Boerwar Steve Rx Judy Bowewar Thomas Dario David Vera Gusface Fagin we should reach a consensus of a Journalist’s journalistic skill performance that day..a “SIT” score (or otherwise named)…”Spin” , “Imbalance” , “Twist”
LL may in time feature this ‘SIT’ for evening comment , encouaging Red Kerry to follow to suit
Journalistic performance should be excellent , so mathematically DEVIATIONS from excellence should be minus , so “SIT” scores should always be a minus…fitting realisticaly for th MSN
Perhaps -10 in each category with -10 being th maximum deviation from excellence , with 3 categorys making -30 as worst possible score of deviation from excellence , meaning even a score of -15 still represents a 50% deviation from excellence
Suggest nothing would make th MSN take more notice than if daily they were actualy graded …and graded “publicly” by a score …by such a collection of skilled posters as were listed above Boerwar you initialy stated down this track so you any one got ideas of todays score or alternatives
should add th satire is I did not add a 4th category , starting with th letter “h”
Ron @ 479
*grin*
I would like to reserve my right to go feral, be bitter and twisted and to lose all sense of balance, but only every now and then. Why should the MSM have all the fun?
lol Ron, not a bad idea!
Boerwar
#379 ” I reserve my right to go feral, be bitter and twisted and to lose all sense of balance but only every now and then” You hav every right to ! AND in that mood suggest can score for th 3 categories
Actualy on this occasion , was making a very serious suggestion (subject to anyone’s variations suggested) , and with serious critique and scoring …MSN accountability….with anything lite hearted as separate
Boerwar most posters ar far more concise than I , but for 3 categories a poster can give 3 scores , up to a line on each if they wish , thats 1.5 to 3 lines if desired , individual choise
Gusface @ 417
Yep. It was the editor of the OO Opinion page (forgotten her name) plus two youngsters in the audience v Pilger with some not very useful asides from Emerson.
The three articulated fairly standard Israeli mainstream right wing lines. Pilger ran the standard contrarian leftie lines. Nothing new in the discussion.
The OO opinion editor seemed to be a bit surprised when was laughed down when she made the observation that Israel has yet to acknowledge that it has nukes. There was a bit of argybargy about the nukes. The pro-Israeli rightwingers thought Israeli nukes good, all other nukes bad. Others thought that Israeli nukes good meant that everyone else would have a go at getting them as well, and then where would we all be. Nothing new in this discussion.
The OO Opinion Page editor’s considered view on the causes of the plight of the Palestinians was (a) they were doing it to each other, and (b) the rest of the Arab world was wealthy enough to do something about the Palestinians only they didn’t because they wanted the Palestinians to be that way. *thought: Really? That’s it?* Her view has some elements of truth in it, but it is far from the whole story. I must admit that when she started, I was hoping for a bit more balance, depth and nuance from the editor of the OO Opinion Page but there just wasn’t any. The MSM keeps on disappointing me.
Pilger opined that her’s was an interesting view but that Israel seemed to be missing completely from her analysis.
Everyone thought Obama v McCain would be very close. Hartcher made the observation that Obama would get in with 3% less of the vote than Kerry got because the dems have made such a concerted push to register voters. This went completely above my head.
It was not a particularly good Q&A. The chair has to develop a mechanism for shutting up audience people who want to make long commentary rather than asking a question.
Ron @ 483
It would be an interesting exercise. Some issues would be:
1. how would you take into account differing values?
2. how would you take into account the role of judgment?
3. how do you discount for variations in perceptions, these being in the eyes of the beholder?
4. how would you describe benchmarks against which to measure journos’ quality?
5. how would you take into account variations in style?
The statistical analyses by Possum and others had a significant impact because it was open to third party assessment and judgment. Ultimately, MSM journos had to bend to the sense of it or continue to look willfully partisan and/or ignorant. You now quite often seem them refer to a particular poll and make the comment that the changes are within the MOE. It would be far more difficult to have the same impact based on textual analyses and on personal judgements.
In an earlier thread someone asked if the country was in drought in 1838, the year of Charles Sturt’s expedition down the Murray.
Turns out that the Canberra region at least was in drought. In fact among the worst droughts in post white settlement history started that year according to this account taken from the 1931 Year Book of the Commonwealth of Australia:
Which makes it likely that the rest of S.E. Australia also was.
Whoa there, Mayo!
I thought the price of primary products always went up during droughts?
Woolies said so.
Don’t tell me this is not true!
Don’t know about that, BB. My family has been involved with sheep since 1864 and (apart from the 1940-50s) the price has always been crook. At least that is what I was taught to say whenever anyone asked.
But I’ve just realised I got the wrong year/expedition. Sturt went boating in 1830. He drove cattle to Adelaide from his Mittagong in 1838. Sigh! Probably got peanuts for them too!
Boerwar
I’d expect re #478 people will make there own values , there own judgement , there own perseptions , and there own benchmarks all in there own personal way ..to score , th average of scores represents an average …of PB’s
Then whether any 3rd Party takes notice , one does not know till its tried , and in any event still represents an average of many views rather than one , however suggestion only works if there’s general interest
It appears the Libs have a “John Howard’s loyalists” faction, according to the Mad One.
Just what do these JHL’s want? Apart from annointing the Spineless One.
Is the JHL faction really the guys and gals that don’t like being made accountable for thier pathetic efforts over the last decade?
It appears we have the JHL, the ABT (anyone but Turnbull), the OMGWANTG (oh my god we are no-longer the govt), plus the WAF (we are fruitcakes).
Please Fibs sort it out. We need a decent opposition.
The OO are at it again:
by M. Franklin, “Chief Political Correspondent”. http://www.theaustralian.news.com.au/story/0,25197,24261642-601,00.html
The article blithely ignores the truth of the matter, as does a similar story in the on-line Herald: http://www.smh.com.au/news/national/costello-pursuit-continues/2008/08/29/1219516721094.html, datelined 2.51pm and still prominently displayed on the front page of the on-line edition.
The ABC reported at 2.28pm, over four hours ago, that:
http://www.abc.net.au/news/stories/2008/08/29/2350178.htm?section=justin
I don’t know why I’m defending Nelson, but this is egregious journalism. Within a few minutes of the original statement being made by Nelson, it was corrected as to meaning, and issued to (at least) the ABC and (presumably) the rest of the Media forthwith, on an urgent basis.
Christian Kerr defends the magnificence of journalism in a recent column. Shanahan’s always on about it, as is the Dwarf. The Herald journos are out on strike on a matter of editorial integrity. These people are supposed (in their own minds) to be the inheritors of Ed Murrow, Walter Cronkite, even our own Alan Reid in reporting fairly and accurately on politics. There is no question that Nelson’s office would have advised the Herald and the OO to revise their stories, as the ABC have already done.
That they have not changed a word, and continue on with the fiction that a “Drama” is unfolding tonight, is pure gutter journalism and the bastards should be thoroughly ashamed of themselves for running a total beat-up as “news”.
That’s if they had any shame.
They are reporting a statement made and quickly corrected as if it had never been corrected. Presumably the earlier wrong story is “sexier”.
Sack a few hundred of them? Get rid of the lot as far as I’m concerned.
…and this is coming from someone who doesn’t give a toss whether Nelson is leader or not.
Parenthetically, the AFP have dropped proceedings against Haneef on the grounds of “insufficient evidence”.
Read: NO EFFING EVIDENCE.
AFP inquiry time:
http://www.news.com.au/comments/0,23600,24261886-2,00.html
Short Article:
THE Australian Federal Police (AFP) has dropped its investigation into former Queensland doctor and terror suspect Mohamed Haneef.
The AFP said in a statement that it had advised the former Gold Coast doctor’s solicitor Rod Hodgson that the agency had recently informed Attorney-General Robert McClelland and Home Affairs Minister Bob Debus that Dr Haneef “is no longer a person of interest”.
Spectacularly amusing comment (not mine):
How about we detain Mick Keelty for 12 days on the suspicion of having a brain? Of course the charges would have to be dropped due to lack of evidence.
BB @ 491,
I hold no brief for Nelson (the Libs would be better off with another leader – no doubt about it) but the instance you raise just highlights the hopelessness of the MSM.
It’s fascinating, I find on any of the (few) topics where I personally have any inside knowledge or expertise, when it gets into the papers the reporting is superificial, selective and quite often downright wrong. The one possible exception is sport (although even there, there is plenty of rubbish in the media).
In an interview shown on tonights ABC news, Cossie said that his tribute was neither a farewell nor resurrection.
The speculation is over. You don’t need to be Columbo, it’s an absolute forgone conclusion that Cossie will be staying and then at some point pretty soon taking over the leadership.
If he was leaving, he would have said so.
That’s game, set and match, fellas
“If he was leaving, he would have said so. ”
Ha Ha Ha der ha ha har. If he was staying he would have said so.
Dyno @ 493
I have had occasion to have both some of my speeches and some of my comments reported in the MSM. The topics were usually innocuous and un-newsworth. It was routine for there to be errors of fact and of representation in the reporting. It was mostly just straight incompetence, but on several occasions I was verballed by journos seeking to push a particular barrow.
I learned never, ever, to trust a journo.
You will notice that when politicians are giving talks or having discussions that they will usually have a staffer with a recorder around. That recorder is often all that stands between journos and lies.
Dyno @ 493. Recently, him indoors was Jury Chair for a prominent case in Victoria, and was frequently beside himself with fury, and the Judge had a go at them as well, for being simply wrong in their reporting. I can’t understand why reporters can’t get simple facts right. Is there something going on that we, mere plebs, don’t know about, that interferes with reporters’ ability to seek out and discern the facts? I just hate it when Fran Kelly, predictably, trots out whatever the main talking points from the O.O. has been in the morning.
In time Ruawake, in time
494 Centre – I’ve really wanted to see Cossie become leader so that he could lose the next election. Because of you Centre I’ve changed my mind. I hope to hell you are wrong and have to eat crow.
Boerwar, have had similar experiences myself. Blessed if I know and came to the same conclusion.
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