The latest fortnightly Roy Morgan survey has Labor’s two-party lead increasing from 59-41 to 60-40. Labor’s primary vote is steady on 50 per cent, while the Coalition’s is down 1.5 per cent to 34 per cent. The balance is evenly distributed among the Greens, Family First and others.
Other news:
• Antony Green tells you everything you need to know about all this double dissolution talk.
• Phillip Coorey of the Sydney Morning Herald reports the Liberal contest to replace Brendan Nelson in Bradfield could develop into a contest between two big conservative guns: The Australian’s opinion page editor Tom Switzer, and John Howard’s legendary former chief-of-staff Arthur Sinodinos.
• The Federation Press will publish a self-explanatory volume entitled Australia: The State of Democracy, edited by Marian Sawer, Norman Abjorensen and Phil Larkin of the Democratic Audit of Australia, on June 15.
• Brian Costar of Swinburne University of Technology reviews the implications of the Victorian Ombudsman’s recent report into Brimbank City Council and the related internal matters of the Victorian ALP.
• The Victorian Parliament’s Electoral Matters Committee has published the final report of its Inquiry Into Political Donations and Disclosure, which I won’t claim to have read at this stage.
• Two electoral events in Western Australian tomorrow: the daylight saving referendum, which you can discuss here, and the Fremantle by-election, which you can discuss and read about in very great detail here.
886 Comments
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The next Morgan poll will be interesting in that it will show fairly accurately just what the Budget effect on voting intentions is as this poll was taken before the Budget although there were substantial budget leaks to at least give people a reasonable idea of what the Budget would contain.
That being the case, then there seems so far to be a tick of approval from the electorate.
And thus the natural order was restored to the electorate.
Stand easy
Wonderful times to be an ALP supporter eh?
Also it indicates that all the bluff and bluster by Turnbull and Hockey leading up to the Budget release was rejected by the electorate at large.
The fact that Turnbull’s Budget reply speech and the subsequent follow up commentary by both Turnbull and Hockey, (especially on Q&A last night) differed not one jot from the pre-budget commentary, should mean that there is unlikely to be “ANY” bounce in upcoming polls towards the Coalition.
This will be a major concern for their support base and will further undermine Turnbull’s leadership support.
Where’s Boerwar? The ASX is up 1.6% today… it must still be the budget, or Turnbull’s brilliant reply right?
I predict Labor’s lead will increase in next week’s Newspoll.
Yes, after all the buildup and hype from the Liberal media toadies, Turnball’s Budget Reply was a fizzer!
I agree with you but Kieran Gilbert on Lib…. err ….Sky Noos said it was a srong speech and should secure his leadership to the next election. Promises, promises.
srong = strong
I think the ASX is up because after Turnbull’s reply the market is confident that Swan will remain treasurer for some time
The proportion of people who went to the trouble of listening to Turnbull’s reply would be small compared to those who listened to the budget. Therefore, I think Tunbull’s effort will make minimal difference either way. The budget was likely to impress, with its rise to the pension and huge infrastructure investment. People can see that these are the measures appropriate for the times. Next Newspoll to show a 2-point improvement to the government.
I sees it but I don’t believe it. Now this is absurd and hurting their cause. Ungrateful pr…s.
http://www.theage.com.au/national/protesting-pensioners-stop-cbd-traffic-20090515-b5g1.html
Gary at number 11: You can bet your life they are the sort of geniuses who will join with the coalition in moaning about “the government going into debt”.
I agree GB – all those “representative” pensioners protestors are doing now is exposing that they are hopelessly partisan and anti-Labor, and will never be satisfied. Rudd or Swan should ask them where they were when Howard refused to raise the pension despite ten years of budget surpluses?
The answer is that Howard knew they would vote for him anyway and so did nothing, as Poss’s analysis shows:
http://blogs.crikey.com.au/pollytics/2009/05/15/gen-blue/
Surely it would make more sense for the Libs if Switzer got Bradfield and Sinodinos got Mackellar (at the expense of the now increasingly-dead wood Bishop). It makes no sense for the two of them to get into a major preselection fight, when there’s plenty of deadwood lying around on the Opposition backbenches.
An even better idea would have been to put Switzer in Robertson (against the highly vulnerable Belinda Neal) and Sinodinos in Bradfield. That way, you get both of them into parliament as well as picking up a marginal seat.
Spot on Cuppa (12).
5 Dario, now come on, you know whatever Rudd does that seemingly turns negative somehow is his fault but when it seemingly has a positive effect it has nothing to do with him. Haven’t you learned anything yet?
The Budget speech was watched by about 1.07 million viewers. The Budget reply was watched by 0.72 million.
Seems the listening audience to Turnbull last night was 721,000.
Keiran Gilbert needs to take a cold shower but nothing like talking up your boy. Hewson was trying hard this to do the same with Gilbert on Agenda.
Malcolm has to get personal tho – his comment that his speech and the hard decision to increase ciggies’ tax shows he is a better man than that dreadful Rudd is hilarious too,
I watched Q&A last night.
Lindsay Tanner
Is a spanner
Loosening the nuts of the Liberal machine
Joe Hockey
Is too cocky
Whining and jibing and shouting obscene
I think even the most hardened Liberal fanwill find the above poem a self complete, self supporting argument.
Sorry, I should have known
Ah, you beat me, Itep. We tuned in to the 7.30 Report – watched footy tips on Fox for the first half which was far more interesting than Mr Turnbull’s half-truths.
Listening audience?
Lol !!! It was so boring and with Turnbull just droning on, I went to sleep two thirds of the way through.
My feeling is that those who tuned in to catch Turnbull were predominantly Coalition supporters, looking to see what “their boy” had to say.
Will Tom Switzer continue editing the opinion section of The Australian from the Liberal backbench? This would complete the merger, as well as transferring his salary to the taxpayer. A nice arrangement all round.
Adam, he hasnt done that for a while.
Looks like Turnbull is moving along the same lines as Howard in wanting to eliminate Medicare. They do love to give the Government a range of things to bash them about the head with, don’t they. Just love their strategy.
http://www.abc.net.au/news/stories/2009/05/15/2571709.htm?section=justin
Dario – yeah, you got me. It shld have been watching altho probably many of them were listening hard to hear what his debt would be.
He must be mad with Hockey for spitting out the $25b. less figure the other day. But his debt is the ‘name he cannot speak’ so there should be no more silly comments about Swannie not mentioning his debt.
Kindly do NOT spoil my jokes with tiresome facts, Possum.
Ooh, sorry.
Normal standup will now resume.
Hey, Vera – have I missed you out the front of Turnbull’s office in your ‘altogether’. I’d drive to Sydney for that. Especially if you were joined by Fielding in his. lol.
Heard Grattan, Malcolm Farr and Bongiorno on RN this a.m. – none of them were impressed with Turnbull last night except for in the delivery of the speech. His barrister’s wormly ways were good experience for delivery. None were impressed by the content. Their comments were interesting.
There is still one credible, potentially damaging team yet to give their critique on the budget – The Chaser Team.
Turnbull does a good line in haughty contempt. That may go down well in court but it won’t win him an election.
The claim that Liberals make against Rudd – “all talk no substance” – surely applies to Turnbull after last night’s little effort.
Wouldn’t that mean that the taxpayer ie the Government, have to subsidise those without the ability to pay for comprehensive health cover, wouldn’t that mean that the Government would have to cover the total cost of those who cannot afford comprehensive health cover like pensioners, the disabled, the unemployed and those on low incomes who can barely exist now?
Wouldn’t it be better to have a universal comprehensive health cover for “ALL” Australians rather than the costly and inequitable mismatch we have now which excludes a major portion of the population from decent health care and is becoming prohibitively expensive?
Oh, I remember now. We once had that. Brought in by Gough Whitlam, wasn’t it? And it was a program that John Howard and the vested interests in the Medical Profession and their Union, the AMA vowed to destroy and almost succeeded.
On a completely random note (mainly because I have nothing to contribute about Turnbull’s budget reply as I was winning money at poker), I think Labor has been extremely lucky with the news coverage this week regarding the budget.
On the week when it would ordinarily expect to get pilloried on the front pages every day, they’ve been relegated to the inside pages of the tabloids thanks to Matthew Johns (at least in the Northern states).
One has to feel mildly sorry for the Coalition (although I view it through the lens of schadenfreude) about this. They have one opportunity for a good week and they lose it through no fault of their own…
Yeah, no wonder Judges and Jurors go to sleep during trials. It lulled me off to sleep when I wasn’t even tired.
‘Haughty contempt’ is excellent, Poss. They’re the words I have been trying to find in my somewhat aged brain. Thanks. It is perfect.
http://business.smh.com.au/business/a-nation-of-whingers-20090515-b5bm.html?page=-1
Psephos
Do your cats wear pyjamas? With different designs on them? And with food stains? Because if they did then we could have this :
Adam’s cats’ pyjamases’s dinners’s stains match their patterns’s colours. I think.
Yo Ho Ho,
Looks like you can add whinging journalists to the tally.
In an ideal world Australia would have a health insurance industry which sold a product which Australians wanted to buy, without being forced to or bribed to do so with taxpayers’ money. Instead we have a health insurance industry which sells crap products which few people want to buy.
It’s quite an article. You can almost see the anger dripping off the page. Plust there’s plenty in there to agree and disagree with. Good times in my view.
Gotta love footy
Why does Malcolm want to fight the Govt. on Health issues?
Or was it a cunning plan to pass the Alcopops bill without a “back-flip” thus removing a DD trigger?
It was rumoured that the government was going to completely remove the 30 per cent rebate on plans that subsidised nonsense ‘medicine’ like crystal healing and homoeopathy, did they do this?
I have no problem with a person using those ‘remedies’ if they want to, but they shouldn’t receive ONE CENT of public money.
ShownOn, you’re just saying that because you’ve got shakra issues.
The new Liberal Private Medicare scheme is called: MalChoices.
Yes, who do you trust to make you better when you are sick, it’s MalChoices. We can guarantee that the Malpractice is always with you.
The Govt should ditch the 30% rebate on Private Health insurance premiums, ditch the increased Medicare levy for those high income earners who do not take out insurance.
This revenue should be returned to the Public Hospital system.
Then it would not matter if the policies include shakra stimulating – if people want it they can insure for it.
Dario et al
All right, all right, so the stock market is up today. Irrational exuberance emanating from day trading kiddies combined with thin volumes overcomes the commonsense of older and wiser investors who realize that the budget has cost them money. The instos are staying out as well. Just give reality some time. Youse’ll see.
BTW am I the only bludger who thinks the budget itself was based on irrational exuberance or is everyone here happy that Swan has based it on accurate forecasts?
btw Where is Centre? After his statement yesterday, I hope he didn’t short today’s market. lol.
Ahem…
Psephos
Posted Friday, May 15, 2009 at 3:19 pm | Permalink
Turnbull does a good line in haughty contempt. That may go down well in court but it won’t win him an election.
Bye for now
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