The latest weekly Essential Research survey (providing a rolling average of results over the previous fortnight) shows Labor’s lead up to 59-41 after a long stretch on 58-42. Also included are leadership approval ratings which provide an interesting point of comparison with Newspoll: Kevin Rudd has 56 per cent approval and 33 per cent disapproval (compared with 59 per cent and 25 per cent in last week’s 56-44 Newspoll), while Brendan Nelson’s ratings are 24 per cent and 51 per cent (compared with 36 per cent and 39 per cent). Breakdowns are provided telling us how much of this approval and disapproval is “strong”, and there are also results on whether Nelson’s party has given him “the support he deserves”, and on the seasonal workers issue.
Reflections on the Miracle of Democracy at Work in the Greatest Nation on Earth
Essential Research: 59-41
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554 Comments
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Turnbull may be sharp, but he is no politician. He’s the man who lost the unlosable Republic Referendum, don’t forget. Mostly by being a smartarse about it.
Not only does he grate on his own party, but he would be rejected by the public for this trait as well.
Just Me
These are painful memories for me. We got flogged by Hillary in the redneck states of West Virginia (about 65-35), Tennessee, Kentucky, Arkansas, Indiana and Ohio with monotonous regularity. We won the redneck Carolinas based largely on the black vote. Ron beat us around the head with it endlessly.
http://www.channel4.com/news/articles/politics/international_politics/can+barack+obama+win+the+appalachian+redneck+vote/2436192
151
Bushfire Bill Says:
Turnbull may be sharp, but he is no politician.
Not yet.
He’s the man who lost the unlosable Republic Referendum, don’t forget. Mostly by being a smartarse about it.
I know it is fashionable to blame Turnbull for that loss, and he certainly has to wear some of the blame for it, but it is more complicated than that. The referendum was basically doomed from the start because Howard rigged it by demanding the convention produce a specific model for people to vote first time round, instead of going for a plebiscite, then a binding vote on the particular model. It was a totally inappropriate process, and Howard knew it.
I still say it would be foolish to underestimate what Turnbull is capable of, and to write him off as a serious political opponent. He may well turn out to be complete turkey as a pollie. But it ain’t certain yet. I am reserving my judgement on him for now.
Diogenes
These are painful memories for me. We got flogged by Hillary in the redneck states of West Virginia (about 65-35), Tennessee, Kentucky, Arkansas, Indiana and Ohio with monotonous regularity.
Fair enough, though that does not prove that those voters would still preference Hillary over McCain.
#152 Diog [These are painful memories for me. We got flogged by Hillary] – I can assume that you would commit a hara-kiri when Obama loses the unloseable election in November.
Julie Bishop was on Agenda saying the the RBA lowered interest rates because it was worried about unemployment.
The RBA actually said “…there have also been some signs of an easing in labour market conditions.”
Thats it. “Some signs” becomes the “reason” in the Fibs parallel universe of voodoo economics.
The first interest rate cut in seven years – I wonder when Labor will have a tpp with a six in front of it?
If there were/are signs of easing in labour market conditions, I’d have though this would be largely the cumulative effect of the interest rate rises (10 of which were under the Liebrals’ watch).
I notice the Liberals bleating on about low consumer confidence, attempting (dishonestly as always) to draw a cause-and-effect connection between this and the change of government.
What they never say is that the rate rises were meant to curb consumer confidence, to get people to stop spending so inflation cools.
That being the case, the blame for lowered consumer confidence should by rights be put back into the Liberals’ lap – as presiders over 10 of the 12 confidence-curbing rate increases.
Diogenes, Finns There really isn’t any evidence that Hilary Clinton would be doing better than Obama against McCain. With the GOP seeming to have somewhere near 40% rusted on conservatives and fundamentalist Christian supporters its easy for the Dems to get pulled apart/pull themselves apart when they are trying to balance support from various constituencies.
Despite the heat of the primaries Obama still seems to have GOP/McCain on the run otherwise they would not have made such a spectacular gamble as Palin for VP. Trying to stop the listing of the polar bear as a threatened species by the Bush administration and denying human impact on global warming as the Arctic ice-cap disappears potentially taking a lot of polar bears with it hardly seems to be mainstream conservative or popular (except no doubt in Alaska where oil wealth rules).
McCain ‘they’ say needed a surprise out of the blue candidate to resurect interest in his campaign.
He certainly got it with Palin but looks as though the media focus is going to be a net negative with most being on the odd things about her life which, is going to make her look awfully undeserving and unsuited to be VP by campaigns end.
It has also been noted that Palin herself gave birth 8 months after getting married which is no big deal for anybody, unless you are a fundy Christian against the teaching of sex education in schools and favour teaching abstinence.
Does Palin have to debate Biden?
The vultures are circling and a crowd of voyeurs are gathering to see a grissly dismembering, maybe.
ruawake
I think Possum worked out that each 0.25% change in RBA rate equated to a 2% change in TPP. And there’s more to come.
Please explain!!
If so, how did her 17 years old daughter find out what it is, what it is for, what to do and how to do it.
Turnbull is not sharp. And he is definitely no politician. I will tell you what Turnbull is:
ALL PERCEPTION – NO SUBSTANCE! Truly.
Not enough parental supervision. Dad’s away on an oil rig. Mom’s busy being governor and plenty of boys around to show the Governor’s daughter what, uhm, bristols are for.
The Libs are wailing like vampires denied a juicy village virgin for dinner. Today’s news on interest rates was like spinkling Dracula with Holy Water.
“Aaaaargh! It burns! It burrrrnsss!”
While not claiming that Labor can take all the credit for what looks like will be a coming road to recovery, they certainly didn’t drop the ball, either.
* A responsible Budget: a nice mix of tax cuts and spending (remember how all the critics said that going ahead with the cuts was economic suicide?)
* A suitably finger-wagging lecture to the Aspirationals for over-spending (seems they got the message)
* Concrete steps to enforce market conditions on the Banks.
* Looming large increases in government infrastructure spending (leading to greater productivity, which is not of itself inflationary).
The Coalition’s wailing response to all this was to ask how many would lose their jobs as a result of an assumed economic downturn. Turnbull even asked “Is this the downturn we had to have?”. But unemployment last time I checked was at a record low, so WTF was Turnbull on about? He couldn’t be “talking the economy down, could he?”.
Already private investment figures are looking the best they have for years… as is the trade deficit… as are business profit expectations.
Put all the good indicators together and it looks like Labor haven’t done a bad job at all of staving off recession.
A for the other mob. They’re history.
No wonder Costello wasn’t in Parliament today to face the music.
AHHAAA. Now we know why the Pope and Pell wanted you to populate the planet. Because they don’t want you to have sex without contraception. No wonder Palin has had 5 kids and now her teenage daughter has had a kid.
What a SICK SICK SICK religion. What business is it of theirs how people get their jollies. Kaarriisst.
Why dosen’t the catholic church do something constructive with their billions, instead of worrying about what people do with their sex lives. Sheezus.
Got to check out the second half of QT today. Turnbull asked Swan a question about the rate cut and unemployment, and Swanny let rip and tore them to shreds. He was outstanding.
MSM note: That’s (Costello) not a parliamentary performer. That’s (Swan) a parliamentary performer.
in parliment Swan is calling Brenda !st choice, Allbull 2nd choice and Smirk 3rd choice.
And to think everyone was calling Swanny the weakest link, saying he wouldn’t last, not too long ago.
Yes Vera. I remember Wilson Tucky calling out in QT to “give Swanny a go” in answering a question. I bet he wont be doing that again.
Before the budget, Turnbull was actually preferred treasurer miles ahead of Swan. Now it’s the opposite. Now, even Cossie is miles ahead as preferred leader.
There is something uncanny about the ability of the electorate to judge character. They know Allbull is, all perception – no substance.
Finns
I think we are selling the young man short. His name is Levi Johnson. From his website;
I’ll take that as a denial that the kid is his.
http://www.nypost.com/seven/09012008/news/nationalnews/palin_admits_her_17_year_old_daughter_is_127025.htm
Talcum just proved what a dill he is on the 7.30 report. He tied himself in knots over interest rates and then resorted to the Smirk when asked about the damage to the Liberal brand that Tip was causing.
What a pack of whimps – someone do something, we need an opposition.
164 Centre – yep Swan was in very fine form today – but to be honest he has been since the budget. He has had to wear the preseption of useless parliamentary performer due to his perfromance in the first 2-3 weeks of the year; but he ain’t no bunny anymore – Turnbull needed to get him out cheaply – he didn’t and now Swan is looking set for a big score.
and btw “preseption” is a fancy way of spelling perception.
Centre
I have met Swan and he is highly intelligent and can have a sharp tongue when required. He preferred not to be in the limelight but he was Labor state secretary in the critical period leading up to the election of Goss. I would say that he and Beatty were the best performers in that job by far in the last two decades.
Swan did handle QT very well so too Rudd. The Opposition just continued from yesterday, being irrelevant and doing the blame game and taking no responsibility for their work in letting out the inflation genie, even after numerous warnings from the RBA.
Regarding inflation and government spending lets not forget that despite the rate rises and RBA warnings, and the leaked speech by Dr Henry last year, The Drunken Sailor was still promising to increase spending even further in the last election campaign. Overspending was like Workchoices for Howard – a personal hobby horse tactic he couldn’t let go of. The Liberals own the current inflation and interest rate rises as badly as Keating owned the 2001 recession. The fact that Labor has got them trending down after one budget shows that it wasn’t inevtable. Our interest rates under Howard were amoung the highest in the OECD. And all that spending was done without adequate investment in infrastructure or technical skill training. You can still smell the embers of the pork BBQ.
I missed Turnbull on 7:30 Report, but he couldn’t have been worse than he was on AM this morning: check it out:
MALCOLM TURNBULL: Well there is wide spread confidence in the market that the reserve bank is going to cut rates.
LYNDAL CURTIS: But most people are saying by a quarter of a per cent.
MALCOLM TURNBULL: Most but not all, I mean Brendan Nelson has been standing up for homebuyers and for borrowers. …
Wayne Swan when it was three per cent, said inflation is out of control. He said the Genie is out of the bottle and he said it again and again and just before the Reserve Bank met. So what Wayne Swan did was he stoked inflationary expectations and he egged the Reserve Bank on to put up rates.
LYNDAL CURTIS: But isn’t Doctor Nelson egging the Reserve Bank on to cut them by half a per cent?
MALCOLM TURNBULL: Brendan Nelson is standing up for homebuyers;
Yep it’s true he did actually think that arguemtn had merit:
http://www.abc.net.au/am/content/2008/s2352657.htm
Vera
Ignore th information you got told today , working class workers States like Ohio , West West Virginia , Pennsylvania usually vote Democrat when th candidate is not an elitist like Obama and has practical Labor type policys , which is why Bill Clinton won such States (twice) , as did Jimmy Carter , LBJ When Democrats pick an oiliness type elitist and/or lack of working familys policys then working class familys see th bullsh.t & usualy instead vote Republican Same reason Hillary smashed Obama in all th working class workers States Yes Hillary smashed McCain too in polls in those States as well
Thats now past history & choice is between oiliness & a maverick & neither for me As to info on th Lady today you can dustbin that also , inaccurate & incomplete
Saw toffyiness TURNBULL on 7.30 tonite and he fluffed his lines on interst rates , did not know econamic rational at all , but his smirk when challenged is B grade compared to Cossies
Ron
It has begun. Intrade has a new category to bet on;
Sarah Palin to be withdrawn as Republican VP nominee before 2008 presidential election.
Currently at 15.0% up from 3.0%.
McCain is an idiot.
Grog, Socrates & Muskiemp, yes, the ALP does have a very strong line up. In finance and as possible future leaders (after Rudd breaks Hawkies record).
Instead of playing cheap opportunistic politics with everything, the tactics that I would recommend to the fiberals if I was one of their advisors would be to me-too with the fair enough policies and try to devolop your own policies that would be effective for the economy. They can’t keep doing what they are doing at the moment, they are heading for a 100+ seats defeat.
2010 is a long way off yet Centre; but so long as interest rates don’t go back up (cue 15 minutes of interest rate sunshine speeches) they’re looking pretty solid.
He may have made a fool of himself on The 7.30 Report tonight, but what pi$$ed me off was that turnbull was interviewed at all.
This was Labor’s day, not Turnbull’s, with his fairy stories about “talking the economy down”.
Dio, I was wondering how long it would take for that market to appear.
What sort of outfit chooses a Veep and then does the vetting?
A desperate one.
How stupid is American politics – reports are coming out that Palin’s husband may have been arrested for drink driving more than 20 years ago.
Wow geez Batman better get Commissioner Gordon on the phone to let him know about that one. I mean wtf! 20 years ago??? her husband??? And they wonder why they struggle to come up good candidates – why would anyone good want to run?
http://www.theaustralian.news.com.au/story/0,25197,24280358-601,00.html
Possum
PaddyPower has her at 33/1 to be dropped before Sunday and 14/1 to be dropped before the election.
Lieberman is now at 6/1 on Betfair to be VP.
Surely he HAS to stay with her now.
BB
It is better to be thought a fool than to open your mouth and remove all doubt.
It might be better to let Allbull reinforce the thought in the public’s mind that the rate cut is only happening because they voted AGAINST the idiot on the box.
Sure, a rate cut is good, but rates in general must surely be in the ‘negative’ pile?
No one likes someone bragging about something they didn’t really do anyway.
What Allbull is doing is telling somone who’s found $50 on the footpath that they’re unlucky…who is going to believe him? His mommy might listen to him and nod a little, but that’s about it
TP, McCain got what he wanted and needed with Palin- a huge jolt to the contest. The initial favourable responses to her looks and gender are sure to be eclipsed by the skeletons and her lack of experience
Grog
It’s happened before in 1972. Eagleton was McGovern’s Dem running mate until it came out that he had a fairly serious mental illness which had required shock therapy on two occasions. He had to withdraw. Of course McGovern went on to get the hiding of all time from Nixon, winning every state except Massachusetts.
184 – I agree. Nothing to be gained by gloating. Let the monthly mortgage statements do the gloating for you.
Turnbull’s transcript is now up on the 7:30 website:
http://www.abc.net.au/7.30/content/2008/s2353568.htm
here’s a classic snippet:
MALCOLM TURNBULL: I am not exaggerating. Look, all I’m saying is this: had we been governed by leaders who were responsible, and who had the economic interests of this country at heart, we would have had lower interest rates, the cost of money would have been lower, both in terms of the credit squeeze would have been less severe here, and I don’t believe the Reserve Bank would have put up rates twice if Wayne Swan had been more responsible at the beginning of the year.
!!!! Yep read it a few times; it’ll makes sense one day… (well, one can only assume)
The selection of Palin has given much opportunity for the media to mock the GOP.
Which this piece of mocking humor at the Washington Post does.
Just to show that he would not ask of others what he would not do himself, McCain came before Chris Wallace to sing Palin’s praises. He said that he had “watched her record . . . for many, many years” which is, a prudent man might say, more years than she’s had a record. McCain, as a fellow military man, did not mention Palin’s tenure as the supreme commander of the entire Alaska National Guard, maybe because he thought it speaks for itself. If that’s the case, he’s right.
Probably the most depressing thing about Palin is not her selection but the defense of it. It has produced a parade of GOP spokesmen intent on spiking the needle on a polygraph. Looking right into the camera, they offer statement after statement that they hope the voters will swallow but that history will forget. The sum effect on the diligent news consumer is a feeling of consummate contempt for the intelligence of the American people — a contempt that will be justified should Palin be the factor that makes McCain a winner in November.
In 1959, the novelist Terry Southern published “The Magic Christian,” a darkly comic tale based on the premise that people will do anything for money. The choice of Palin proves that people will also do anything for political power — including rising early on a holiday weekend to make fools of themselves.
http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2008/09/01/AR2008090101715.html?hpid=opinionsbox1
186 Diogenese, cheers – didn’t know about that (my main knowledge of that election comes from All the President’s Men, where McGovern is talked about offering the VP slot to…err everyone)
That we’re comparing McCain to McGovern says a fair bit I’d suggest.
Diogenes @ 176 -
McCain is an idiot.
No. He’s a reckless loose cannon as his military career, and now his VP pick demonstrate.
Which makes him far more dangerous that the current President. GWB may be a lazy twit, but there are limits to his bravado. McCain won’t be as timid, particularly if he’s not playing with American lives. Georgia seems to be an example if the whispers about his involvement in egging on his old pal Mikheil Saakashvili are true.
If i recall correctly, Saul Eastlake of ANZ was predicting tonight that:
1. Two more interest cuts this year to 6.5%
2. Four cuts in 2009 to 5.5%
3. Two more in 2010 to 5%
So that will be 9 cuts over 3 years of the Rudd Government as it sails near the election in 2010. No wonder Cossie is furiously paddling the other way.
“(cue 15 minutes of interest rate sunshine speeches)”
There is no bully in a dark suit this time and the reserve bank minutes are now made public.
“Trooper was “elegible” to be fired because he had been found guilty of using a Taser stun gun on his stepson”
You’re not allowed to use tasers on your kids!!??
When did this become law?
Finns if Eastlake is right (I don’t think they will fall that much) the liberals will be in for a massacre in 2010.
I find it interesting that the Libs claim low interest rates are an absolute good.
Yet, to get to low interest rates you have to have falling interest rates beforehand.
And today they are saying that falling interest rates are bad.
I don’t get it.
Am I supposed to?
Centre, i recall rather incorrectly, this is the actual quote from Saul Eastlake. It is still a pretty good cycle to sail into the election year in 2010:
http://www.abc.net.au/7.30/content/2008/s2353661.htm
Didn’t realise all was not posted , “eligible” to be fired , meant he was not a police officer with an impecable record nor one to be held up to community as a role model policeman Police investigations hav found th trooper guilty of several infractions , including using a Taser stun gun on his stepson , and also he has been reprimanded for violating nearly a dozen laws and departmental policies since December 2001 & in police parlance not good
195
I think whether you ‘get it’ or not depends on how you voted recently.
Those who voted for the loser find it easy to understand, while those who voted for the government don’t.
odd eh?
It’s soo much fun using ‘allbull logic’ where heading toward the good (low interest rates) is B A D bad; for example:
If you’re in Melbourne and you want to get to Sydney – head toward Perth,
If you want to boil the kettle – turn on the switch, but then remove the plug,
it’s endless fun…(and oh-so successful)
The fibs haven’t yet worked out that the easy availability of media also allows the easy access to news and opinion other than the old media. I know they don’t know it exists, but surely one of their minders does??
Still, I guess they deserve some credit for even being in the game – imagine how you’d be doing if your knowledge was limited to what Murdoch thought you needed to know?
(What’s worse is that our former national broadcaster wants to grow up to be just like Rupert)
So what? It still requires due process to get someone fired. And when you can’t get him fired you don’t then fire the boss who refused to fire him.
any home with kids should have a Taser
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