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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I would like to see a Labor govt be able to reap the rewards of its reformist work for once.
I arrived in Oz in ‘57 as a (nearly) 10yo, just in time for one of Mr Menzies’ credit squeezes that meant Dad wasn’t able to find work. I know now it was John Curtin’s visions to have the postwar immigration and projects like the Snowy Mountain Scheme to employ them. Chifley managed to to lose the ‘49 election and the ’somnolent’ Menzies coasted on Curtin’s work until the late 60s and Labor did not get into power until ‘72, when I became politically aware–I had to register for the draft! Yech!
While Whitlam presided over a very undisciplined cabinet at least raw sewerage no longer dribbled down the streets suburbs of capital cities. Fraser then coasted until the early 80’s and his two Treasurers did nothing much. Anyone remember balding, sweaty Phil Lynch?
‘Our Paul’ as Treasurer and PM completely reformed the economy only to see the dreadful Rodent win in ‘96 and coast on his work for a decade.
I would love to see, before I shuffle off this mortal coil, a Labor govt do the hard yards and then be able to enjoy years of government as a reward for their ground breaking reform work!
Hopefully the cautious Rudd will usher in such a period of ‘golden years’ for Labor! As long as he isn’t ‘too’ cautious!
The love that dare not speak its name.
Pity the US constitution doesn’t allow more than 2 non-consecutive presidential terms. Then we could have the pleasure of George Dubbya taking on Obama in 2011. Result would be the most one-sided in history and consequential mass suicides of neo-cons. No downside that I can see.
President of the galatic federation?
Psephos
You could also look at it in another way. Huntsman knows that a moderate, with adopted international children, who has liberal views on gay marriage and it determinedly bipartisan and diplomatic is not someone the Repug Party could choose in 2012 as it’s candidate. Either way, it’s more bad news for the Repugs.
BTW I’m in Batman. Ferguson is as dull as dish water but it’s a good old fashioned working class area.
Congrats Julie @ 791. When I was in high school, there were two big bookies betting on Rugby League, myself and another kid. I used to offer everyone who could pick all the winners for the round odds of 5/1. So one week this kid starting offering everyone else 6/1. Well I had to put a stop to that. He was stealing all my business.
One week, I thought all the winners were a certainty. So I spread the rumour that for that week that I was going to offer 7/1, knowing that the kid would go to 8/1. And he did. So I turned around and bet nearly half of all my winnings on that round with him at odds of 8/1.
After that weekend of footy, all my teams had won, and I sent the kid broke and he couldn’t pay. If you are out there Doug Bowen, you still owe me LOL
#768, WTF the USB port for on the turntable. Surely if you take the audio to be digitised, you’d take it off the amplifier?
William
There was a brilliant comment posted on AB’s site in response to that article. All the posters had been very respectful with no political point-scoring. And then this:
That sent them off
Centre
I bought my first house when I was still at school ( Canberra Grammar ), running an SP book on Sydney races at the Belconnen Way Hotel.
Lots of dumb punters.
And plug it in where? Unless you have a very good sound card USB-2 is far superior.
I’m going to have to put more effort and thought into my posts. I’ve just discovered that everything we say is archived at the National Library of Australia.
http://catalogue.nla.gov.au/Record/3118781
Who is AB?
Andrew Bolt
Hope you thought about that one, Diog.
Wow, that’s hard to top Ruawake
Diogs are you saying how much we loved Howard and his Liberal Party is stored forever? Cool
jovialmonk @ 801
Labor had 13 years in government from 1983 to 1996, which is longer than either the Coalition period from 1975 to 1983 or the Coalition period from 1996 to 2007.
If any of us ever wanted to run for public office, I imagine that archive would provide a treasure trove of career-ending quotes if anyone worked out who we were.
Exactly…and that’s why I’m not saying which electorate I live in!!
I remember those Vic Libs who were blogging to try and get rid of their Leader who were outed. That didn’t end well.
Too late for me…
JD @817
But they weren’t golden years tho. Recession, then when Paul’s reforms had just about fixed that along comes Howard!
I wonder what would have happened if Keating had handed the PMship to Beazley say in 1995?
jovialmonk @801:
Great post.
They simply cannot help themselves. Nepositism is not in the dictionary at all.
http://www.theaustralian.news.com.au/story/0,25197,25495864-601,00.html
But there is more than one Gandhi on the horizon:
Rahul Vs Varun, a family affair.
jovi Keating would never hand power off to someone else.
The real what if would have been if Hewson had beat Keating in 1993 as he should of = no Howard = Keating a has been failure (bar early period as treasurer) also probably no Rudd either…
Psephos (759). When the missus is down at the hairdressers getting the blue rinse done, that’s when the blokes get the blue movies out of the hidey-hole in the shed. Hence, males are part of the blue generation also. That’s what my old man told me anyway.
Keating has said repeatedly that he would’ve ultimately handed over to Beazley if he won in 1996.
Keating is the most influential Australian politician since Menzies. The choices he made have had a greater effect on Australian society and the economy than any other politician. Howard’s major policy achievement – WorkChoices – was thrown away 3 years after he implemented it.
Big call
I would add gough and rfx and possibly daly
Non labor I would add chip,fraser,brown and possibly georgiou
Well, looks like LWA will not only be late, it will be unlamented by bludgers.
If someone working on water policiy in Canberra does not make it rain soon in the MDB then a lot of farmers will go away, which should make some bludgers happy as well.
CSIRO may get itself off the Government tit by commercializing, but it may in the long run lead to the death of public-good research. Not sure what bludgers would think about that. Looks like some have mixed feelings and others would not give a hoot.
What a strange world some of you people inhabit.
Each one, in their own way has had a major influence on oz politics.
NB we are talking as a politician as opposed to as a leader
Remind me what Fred Daly did again?
wrote some good books
was the last of the old guard
maintained links between lib and lab post 75
made gough
Remember the comment about the torture pictures leaking? It turns out SBS in Australia had them, or some of them. And they’re coming out. The slide-show is not nice at all. Something brown is going to hit the fan in a big way.
http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/worldnews/northamerica/usa/barackobama/5325444/Prisoner-abuse-photographs-surface-as-Barack-Obama-prepares-to-block-publication.html
That’s got to be close to the strangest statement I have ever seen on PB and I have seen quite a few strange ones!
Boer
I don’t have any axes to grind on this but, as I said, as a rural person interested in water and conservation issues (and at one stage on a catchment management committee) I’ve never heard of them before.
So what exactly did they do? (I’ve read their website and still am not sure).
Scorpio
are you and wilhelm tag-teaming on put downs tonite.
Zoomster, I heard a former head of the organisation on the radio last week or the week before who was explaining why an organisation we had never heard of was absolutely indispensible. Seems they were set up yonks ago to decide “apolitically” who should get research funding. They did no research of their own, were merely a mailbox for funding decisions.
William Bowe @ 832
“Remind me what Fred Daly did again?”
As Minister for Services and Property in the Whitlam Government, Daly brought in the legislation which lowered the federal voting age from 21 to 18. Other legislation he brought in reduced the redistribution tolerance from 20% to 10%, and in doing so started to break up the cosy consensus around rural weighting which had existed for decades before. That was quite an achievement – these days only wingnuts try to argue that rural seats should be substantially lower in enrolment than urban ones.
He also tried for a lot of other electoral changes which bit the dust in the Senate (see the Electoral Laws Amendment Bill 1974), but which underpinned many of the reforms which the Hawke Government was finally able to implement in 1983-4.
For some reason the CSIRO is completely unacceptable to the conservative elements in politics and society, but is acceptable to rural socialists as long as it concentrates on rural research and doesnt mention global warming.
Personally I find its track history to be excellent, and I believe that with the consistently low research spend of Australian industry we desperately need to see it work expanded in both breadth and depth, probably to the detriment of old fashioned rural research.
Pedant
I had always picked you as a gentleman , now I gladly add scholar
Michael Cusack
bingo.
Real nation-building stuff. Just looks invisible to most folks. Unlike rail lines to Darwin that cost a squillion to build and millions to keep going.
Blue rinse
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Blue_rinse
The ‘real what-if’? Is it?
I would nominate as the real what-if ‘What if Robert Cook had not mistaken the closing time and instead had submitted his nomination before the deadline?’ I think that’s a strong candidate for a ‘for want of a nail’ scenario.
The CSIRO’s willingness not to mention global warming under Howard did it irreparable damage as an independent scientific body. Fortunately, the Ruddster is not as anti-science as Howie, who fitted the scarily accurate stereotype of increasing hatred of science as you go further to the Right.
William
anyone else you wish to be reminded of?
Do you have a person/s you would nominate?
Without (I hope) denigrating Fred Daly, I suspect the electoral reforms he achieved and also the ones he pushed unsuccessfully were party and government policy which would have been promoted for that reason by whomever held the relevant ministerial portfolio.
The rest of your post does.
Daly promoted both a cultural change and simultaneously tried to hold on to some tradition
beyond being a raconteur he had a quick mind and never bore a grudge
much admired,within and without, he was the quintessential everyman
he is sorely missed among todays crop
We’d all have a few extra seconds of our lives to spend constructively, for Sophia Mirabella’s tiresome arsenal of anecdotes would be somewhat smaller in number.
What should the Government policy be if a major Australian super fund goes belly up?
(1) Nothing – let those who miscalculated the risks take the consequences.
(2) Step in to maintain faith in the superannuation funds.
(3) Tighten up the regulator regime on super funds
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