The latest weekly Morgan face-to-face survey of 883 voters shows Labor’s two-party lead down from 60.5-39.5 to 57-43. Labor’s primary vote is down two points to 48.5 per cent, the Coalition’s is up substantially from 34.5 per cent to 39 per cent, and the Greens are down two to 6 per cent. Between Morgan, Newspoll and Essential Research, there is now significant evidence that some of the gloss has come off the extraordinary spike Labor enjoyed from its response to the global financial crisis.
Elsewhere:
• The Geelong Advertiser reports on the federal Liberal preselection for Corangamite. Prospective nominees: former Kennett government minister Ian Smith, “considering his position”; Graham Harris, head of the party’s Corangamite electorate council; Victorian Farmers Federation president Simon Ramsay; “Moriac district resident” Rod Nockles; Simon Price, unsuccessful Colac Otway Shire Council candidate and former electorate officer Stewart McArthur who lost the seat in 2007.
• Mark Kenny of The Advertiser reports that “pressure is mounting inside the Liberal Party to dump its candidate for the state seat of Newland, Trish Draper”. Draper was federal member for Makin from 1996 to 2007, when she forestalled what seemed to be very likely defeat by retiring. Draper is seen to have been damaged by reports an ex-boyfriend has been identified as a suspect in a murder investigation, which is currently the subject of a defamation case. A Liberal source quoted by Kenny says Right faction powerbroker Senator Nick Minchin has told Opposition Leader Martin Hamilton-Smith to dump her.
• The ABC reports “speculation” that Premier David Bartlett is “planning to visit Tasmania’s Governor on Monday and send Tasmania to the polls as early as April 18”, resulting from the government’s failure to table long-promised legislation to enact fixed four-year terms. Bartlett denies this, and he would have to be pretty silly to ignore the still-accumulating evidence that unnecessary early elections are a bad idea.
• The ABC reports that Labor is courting Beaconsfield mine disaster survivor Brant Webb as a possible state election candidate for Bass.
• An interim report by the Joint Standing Committee on Electoral Matters recommends an end to trials of electronic voting for the vision-impaired and overseas defence personnel on the grounds it is too expensive. The report said the 850 votes cast electronically in 2007 cost $2597 each, compared with $8.36 for each non-electronic vote. A dissenting report by Bob Brown argues the government should pursue electronic voting to assist disadvantaged voters, and investigate its use in the Australian Capital Territory and overseas.
• The Australian Parliamentary Library has published papers on women parliamentarians in Australia and the possibility of dedicated indigenous representation, a la the Maori seats in New Zealand.
556 Comments
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You can do a lot more with 1.3B over three years. I have no doubt whatsoever that Labor will get it’s tax measure passed. To have accepted the 300M would have taken the heat off the independents and the opposition. Let them simmer for a while and turn the heat up to 10.
I reckon Fielding will be asking the Govt to reintroduce Malpops in the senate before the year is out and he won’t insist on his amendment. He’ll simply be out to clear his conscience.
Turnbull misplayed alcopops badly, as he did IR, as he did the stimulus package, for the same reason – he simply announced he was going to oppose and expected the government to come crawling to him to ask him to negotiate.
In doing this, he dealt himself out of the game entirely.
Imagine if –
with alcopops, Turnbull had negotiated a range of health measures…
with IR, Turnbull had negotiated a range of ’small business friendly’ amendments…
with the stimulus package, he had voted against the cash pay outs but supported the schools package, defence spending, insulation, etc…
He would now be looking a reasonable Opposition leader who had cleverly used his powers to amend legislation in a responsible manner, rather than a sulky boy who didn’t want to play and then whinged because he didn’t get to bat.
On QLD, does anyone have any idea how many seats Labor holds on account of Green preferences, or does the preference information not become available until later on?
The weird definitions used resulted in one of the funniest episodes of the alcopops saga which was the introduction of “malternatives”, exactly as BB described. You have to give the alcohol industry full marks for ingenuity.
http://www.brisbanetimes.com.au/news/national/beerbased-alcopop-launched/2008/09/15/1221330777809.html
Whats the betting the definition is tightened in this year budget to make malcopop excise rise again OR some other device.
I really doubt the issue has just disappeared
zoomster
Turnbull was saying that he did exactly that on Insiders this morning. I just assumed he was lying. Does anyone know if there was any truth to it? This is what he said this morning.
AFAIK, none of the Opposition’s amendments passed. Turnbull is full of it.
There were something like 230 (more?) amendments that the government accepted, negotiated by the cross benches and the Libs in the Senate, but the way Turnbull’s played the politics, noone’s going to give him credit for them.
I suppose that’s what I’m pointing to – the perception that he’s created, which is (of course) more powerful than the reality.
Boerwar @ 404,
There would be some limited analysis available but a fully accurate assesment of preference flows would only be available after the declaration of the poll. There is a snippet here.
http://www.brisbanetimes.com.au/news/queensland/greens-preferences-crucial-for-labor/2009/03/21/1237526403199.html
Bushfire Bill
Posted Sunday, March 22, 2009 at 8:58 am | Permalink
I despise the women, but I couldn’t agree more, even if they were real they having nothing to do with her politics and should not have been published.
This comment by John Fairfax could only have been directed at one person. A brownie point for the first person who guesses who he is referring to!
http://www.theage.com.au/opinion/quality-in-journalism-20090320-949c.html
Doesn’t matter what their nationality, a conservative only comes with one set of colours! Clueless and hopeless! (MT et. al. have been singing some of these tunes recently as you all know)
+1
Was listening to the BBC earlier and heard that health experts were complain that Alcopops was the most common drink among binge drinkers.
Some earlier year revealing stories. Alcopops have been seen as big headache for quite some time.
http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/uk_news/politics/7282308.stm
http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/uk_news/5383504.stm
http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/uk_news/england/derbyshire/7145849.stm
Scorpio
Thanks
Thomas Paine @ 416,
Strangely enough, TP, we never saw any of this information surface during the twelve months that Labor were trying to push this issue and the Coalition and their MSM cohorts made sure that we didn’t.
Should send that to X and F.
Trying to find news articles tonight on Rudd’s trip to Washington this week and didn’t find anything worthwhile in my Google search excepting this
http://tinyurl.com/cc6nnq
TP, an interesting analysis of Fielding’s stance here!
http://www.theaustralian.news.com.au/story/0,25197,25218292-5013871,00.html
BEST episode of ORDER IN THE HOUSE ever!
Piers and co won’t like this. The article is about bad bosses underpaying workers in Vic being caught by Ombudsman inspectors and it contrasts them with St Therese who is loved by her Pommy employees.
http://www.news.com.au/heraldsun/story/0,21985,25225465-2862,00.html
Somebody should youtube it then.
AS fun as this?
Gillard
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=YkNnZz15cbI
TP @ 426
Oh the hilarity! If there is one thing that Julia Gillard can do well, it’s rubbing salt in the wounds of the Liberal Party… and with such razor wit too!
How appropriate!
That’s hilarious! Surely they will realise the date and reschedule???
The new LNP leader will be chosen this Wednesday. It will most likely be Tim Nicholls (a Liberal).
Johnson hit Steyn for 6 to bring up his ton! you beauuuty
FFS the USA is morally and ethically bankrupt. It will be a wonder if they ever recover.
This is just as bad as AIG bonuses and more troubling.
http://www.newsweek.com/id/190363
Obama will be having to dodge thousands of little sh+t piles on the street to navigate through this term and try and achieve anything. The stench in Washington must be overwhelming.
The way they throw billions and trillions around in the US Kev should ask for a lazy $50bn, they wont notice it.
Will the Rudd, the Global Warming Piker, get away with his dud 5% ETS?
I trust that Turnbull and the Greens will be successful in knocking it off in the Senate: better nothing at all than a bit of flimflam designed to lull the punters into a false sense of security.
http://www.theage.com.au/environment/state-emission-cuts-futile-and-would-aid-polluters-20090322-95oc.html?page=2
Of course, if the ETS is knocked off then Rudd gets two things: He is off the hook of his dud ETS and he has a beautiful wedge to use against Turnbull.
But the other thing he will have earned is an abiding suspicion that we are seeing the consolidation of the HowRudd Convergence Princple:
‘Power is everything; everything else is nothing.’
Good to see the truth come out, coming soon to an internet site near you …
Juliem
If you get a chance a really good read is The Commission
Mrs G and i both read it, and i can tell you a lot of “stuff” was never revealed and the “asscovering” was incredible
Condi does not come out of it nicely at all!!
Boerwar
So there will be less investment and subsidies to the renewable energy industry as a result. The Labor apparatchics have said this wouldn’t happen. And now we have a ministerial brief, from a Labor Government, showing that it will.
Gus, what is that? I googled what you’ve mentioned and got no likely suspects? Book, website, magazine? Cheers
(oh, if you haven’t yet, read Naomi Klein’s “The Shock Doctrine” [book]. It discusses a reasonable amount about how Iraq was dealt with.)
Another problem Australia faces from it’s “balanced” ETS is that other countries will impose green protectionism tariffs on us because our targets are so pitiful. Watch us shed jobs when we start losing our export markets.
Of course, we would lose badly because we aren’t actually doing anything and other countries recognise that.
http://www.theaustralian.news.com.au/story/0,25197,25213629-11949,00.html
Julie sorry, it’s a book
The Commission: The Uncensored History of the 9/11 Investigation, by Philip Shenon (the Twelve – Jan. 2008), ISBN 0466580755
” Philip Shenon’s book chronicles the human frailty and folly that went … The Uncensored History of the 9/11 Commission. By Philip Shenon ”
http://www.nytimes.com/2008/02/04/books/04thom.html
Gus, thanks much, will see if I can turn it up …..
Yep, let’s just do nothing, not get into the game at all. That will show ‘em. Great strategy that. Oh and what message will that send to the rest of the world, given that we’re supposed to have this great power over how other countries will react to global warming.
“If I can’t have it my way well just bugger it, noone can have it.” Sooo grown up.
Gary
A bit like Gillard’s attitude to passing FairWork and Fielding’s attitude to alcopops, eh?
Except that Gillard had an election mandate on her side and Fielding didn’t know what he was doing.
I can see what Turnbull and the libs stratergy will be from now on. They will say that the death of WC have caused business to sack people and Labor have said that they will support jobs – that the stimulus package was too big (How’d that work for the borg). It’s not rocket science, you can already see them getting their messaging out in small grab bites now.
Whether they will be able to sell this in the middle of a Global Recession is a big ask. What they will be trying to do is ask the Australia community to forget about the Global Recession and blame the death of WC on jobs being lost. Again like Qld’s LNP they tried to do the same thing and blame the GLOBAL Recession on the Qld Labor Gov and people thought Springborg was crazy. I think that if Turnbull and the Libs are going to treat people like their stupid, then they will be very disappointed come election time.
445 – I was about to respond the same way and while we’re at it I think the government also had a mandate to introduce an ETS didn’t it?
Anytime Turnbull critcises Rudd’s IR policy the question will come up, well what will you change? That will be the bit that will be hard to sell.
It looks to me like a case of them reaching out to their conservative base: the stupid, fearful and inward-obsessed. After all, what other mindset would possibly fall for Malcopop’s nonsense of a “Rudd Recession”?
zoomster
I think the Greens can argue a similar thing on CC.
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