The latest Reuters Poll Trend weighted average of Newspoll, Morgan and ACNielsen results has federal Labor with a two-party lead of 55.8-44.2, presumably being weighed down a little by recent results from before the weekend.
UPDATE: Roy Morgan has joined in on the action with a small sample (546) phone poll including questions on leadership approval, which Morgan doesn’t normally do. It finds Malcolm Turnbull’s approval rating down to 25 per cent from 43 per cent in May, with his disapproval up a breathtaking 33.5 per cent to 62.5 per cent. Kevin Rudd’s approval rating on 63 per cent, up from 57.5 per cent in May, with his disapproval rating down from 33.5 per cent to 29 per cent. Labor holds leads of 56-44 on two-party preferred and 46 per cent to 39 per cent on the primary vote, which is actually quite mild by Morgan standards. Newspoll has also published its quarterly geographic and demographic breakdowns of recent polling by state, age, sex, and capitals/non-capitals.
Apart from that:
• Robert Taylor of The West Australian reports that Labor preselections for some highly winnable Liberal-held seats in Perth appear to be ”stitched up”. In the only two seats in the country which the Coalition gained from Labor in 2007, Cowan and Swan, those respectively named are Wanneroo mayor Jon Kelly and Slater & Gordon lawyer Tim Hammond. Kelly is interesting, as he ran as an independent against state Labor MP Margaret Quirk in Girrawheen at the 2005 election after a split in the Right faction. In Stirling, where decorated Iraq war veteran Peter Tinley failed to unseat current Shadow Workplace Relations Minister Michael Keenan in 2007, the nod is apparently set to be given to Karen Brown, former deputy editor of The West Australian and current chief-of-staff to Eric Ripper. Brown famously failed to win the new notionally Labor seat of Mount Lawley at the state election last September after suffering an 8 per cent swing, which many blamed on Alan Carpenter’s insistence that local member Bob Kucera make way for Brown. Peter Tinley is said to be holding out for a safe seat or a Senate position, and the unlikelihood of either suggests he will not be a starter at the next election. In Hasluck, which Sharryn Jackson recovered for Labor in 2007 after a term in the wilderness, Liberals are said by Taylor to be “working behind the scenes” to secure the endorsement of Mike Dean, who last week stepped down from his high-profile position as president of the Police Union.
• The ABC reports that Kathryn Hay will seek Labor preselection for Bass at next year’s state election. Hay is a former Miss Tasmania who became Tasmania’s first Aboriginal MP when elected at the age of 27 in 2002. After surprising everybody by dropping out at the 2006 election, Hay ran as an independent against Ivan Dean in the upper house seat of Windermere in May, and did very well to finish within 5 per cent of victory on the final count. With incumbent Jim Cox retiring, Michelle O’Byrne a sure bet for re-election, and Labor looking certain to win a second seat but very unlikely to pick up a third, the battle for the second seat is looking like a tussle between Hay, Beaconsfield mine disaster survivor Brant Webb, CFMEU forests division secretary Scott McLean (who famously came out in support of John Howard at the 2004 federal election) and Winnaleah school principal Brian Wightman, with only the latter looking an obvious also-ran.
• Rick Wallace of The Australian reports that George Seitz, western Melbourne Labor Right potentate and state Keilor MP, proposes to publish a “warts and all” account of his career in politics. Seitz is being forced out after nearly three decades in parliament due to a Victorian Ombudsman’s report which probed into the involvement of various state MPs in goings-on at Brimbank City Council. The aforementioned Wallace article is worth reading for a broader overview of the episode’s far-reaching impact on the Victorian ALP.
• Andrew Landeryou at VexNews reports that the closure of nominations has brought no challenges to sitting federal Liberal MPs in Victoria – including Kevin Andrews in Menzies, who was believed to be under threat from former Peter Reith staffer Ian Hanke.
• Nick in comments informs us that according to a Channel Nine news report, Labor polling has it trailing the Coalition 57-43 on NSW state voting intention.
2,238 Comments
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Rebecca,
There are several national women’s organizations, all of the major players, that are in direct consultation currently with Labor ministers and the relevant government departments with regard to policy development and implementation in several areas of concern relating to women [I mentioned some previously].
There can be, as I presume you are aware, a gap between policy and programme, where the nice words and the rhetoric, the sort of thing you get in offical policy statements, fails when push comes to shove and money and people and programmes do or do not get implemented.
When action is promised but never happens.
Since the election there has been slow progress made by the ALP and it is at the moment coming up with new structures that should have a positive impact on the real implementation of the lovely words contained in their policy.
If I mention “Time for Action” does that ring a bell?
The outlook is positive, far more so than pre November ‘07.
But look at the PRIMARY Vote ! Need I remind you.
TAGLIAFERRI – ALP 7,632 38.55%
CARLES – GRN 8,722 44.06%
And good old Mr ZAGAMI – IND 999 5.05%
I’m sure there are more than 999 Liberal Voters in Fremantle.
And as Adam has repeatedly stated was a result of Labor’s Primary Vote going DOWN. Why ? Because of “Socially Progreesive” Policies such as the Schools Hit List and Medicare Gold.
It wasn’t the fault of those on the left that Latham showed the political judgement of a newt in the weeks leading up to the 2004 election. Medicare Gold was the healthcare equivalent of Barnett’s grand canal, and the attacks on the supposed “schools hit list” would have gone down in flames if Latham’s spin doctors had been awake that week.
Bulldust – I recall the Liberal Party, in cahoots with the Principals of the major Independent Schools in their Newsletters imploring the parents to Return the Government.
I’m sure there are more than 999 Liberal Voters in Fremantle.
Yes, I’m sure there are. I’m not sure why this is so difficult to contemplate.
If the Liberals don’t poll in the top two, then whether they run a candidate or not is pretty irrelevant as long as they’re still preferencing the Greens.
The Liberals only just made the top two in Fremantle by a scrape at the last general election, and in the face of a campaign with several times more cash and volunteers, far more organisation and a full-time campaign office, there wasn’t a chance in hell that they were going to stay ahead of the Greens. So why waste the money?
Bulldust – I recall the Liberal Party, in cahoots with the Principals of the major Independent Schools in their Newsletters imploring the parents to Return the Government.
I also recall this. This doesn’t change that it wouldn’t have been a particularly effective attack if Labor’s spin doctors had been awake that week and actually done a remotely competent job of countering the attacks.
Frank, do you know what you get when you turn 999 upside down? Whooooo… Yes, the Number of The Beast!
And 999 was 5.05% of the total. Hmmm… 505, the same number as U-505, the German U-boat that was the enemy warship captured in action by the U.S. Navy in 1944 – the first since the War of 1812. If you add 1812 and 1944 you get 3756. Then, if you add those 4 digits together you get 21, the traditional age of majority. So the Liberals got a majority after all. You’re right!! There are more than 999 Liberal voters in Fremantle! Those Greens and their secret power with numbers …
You are living in La La land when you’ve got the Private Schools lobby with a captive audience of “Howard’s Battlers” and swinging voters via the weekly school newsletter, along with a Howard complient media. Oh and add the scaremongering of Today Tonight & A Current Affair- especially when it is an attack of parent’s “right to choose”.
THAT is the political reality – it ain’t in the Disney world the Greens live in.
Pegasus
edmund burke in 1774 warned the British
the rest as they say is history.
JV, thanks, I wasn’t aware of that. I’ve watched a lot of Senate hearings and I’ve never seen an oath administered.
Frank
If the message of the actual funding proposal for schools had been properly enunciated by the Latham team, the only newletters going home with a negative message would have been those from LNP headquarters. The policy did not attack the rampant state-aid rort to any real extent. Latham just shot himself in the foot.
You are living in La La land when you’ve got the Private Schools lobby with a captive audience of “Howard’s Battlers” and swinging voters via the weekly school newsletter, along with a Howard complient media. Oh and add the scaremongering of Today Tonight & A Current Affair- especially when it is an attack of parent’s “right to choose”.
If I were Latham’s spin doctor in 2004, I certainly wouldn’t have dropped the policy on the electorate at the last minute (due to the possibility of this sort of attack), and I wouldn’t have used the formula he did, for the same reasons.
If he’d brought it in a year or two before the election, set out criteria based on capital works need as opposed to plain numerical socioeconomic status (i.e. “you get money because you’ve got 30 year old science labs, not because your students fall into a certain demographic bracket), and backed it up with a press tour around the country showcasing run-down and neglected schools in need of that funding, he’d have been on a winner. Practically, you’d be targeting the funding at poor public and Catholic schools, and wiping out most of the funding going to private schools, but sidestepping accusations of class warfare in the process.
And isn’t Rudd doing EXACTLY the same thing, and Limited News STILL ran it as a Class Warfare scheme ?
Psephos @ 459
It doesn’t necessarily mean Lewis is correct though. Do we have a recording or transcript of the start of the committee session so we can see if there was an oath/affirmation? The Finnigans – are you there?
I would have made sure it was all on oath if I had been in the chair, public servant or not, given the implications of the issue being examined. It could also have implications for Grech himself if he was under oath and he lied or mislead.
And isn’t Rudd doing EXACTLY the same thing, and Limited News STILL ran it as a Class Warfare scheme ?
He might be, but if he is the fact that I haven’t heard about any great controversy suggests it isn’t exactly the electoral suicide it’s being portrayed as.
This debate is for children audience only, it contains:
* rough language
* illogical arguments
* personal attacks
* here we go around in mulberry bush
* class warfare
* La la land
JV, my recording has been consigned to the dustbin of history, along with Malcolm Turnbull and Sarah Palin (the Julie Bishop of American politics or is it the other way around?)
And right here Frank, “And isn’t Rudd doing EXACTLY the same thing, and Limited News STILL ran it as a Class Warfare scheme ?”, you have hit a crucial nail on the head with a very important hammer.
If you are going to be damned if if you do and damned if you don’t you may as well do that which is right and proper cos the Liberal media is going to kick …. out of you anyway.
And if you don’t because you can’t or you fail after trying then at the very least it has been placed on the agenda as a viable alternative which, with proper leadership can be developed into a vote winner cos that is actually what the public wants.
They say so in polls.
And I think you may be wrong about the current ALP policy of providing funds to schools based on ‘need’ anyway.
But had it been Election time and the Opposition wasn’t the rabble it currently is then we all know what the result may be.
Rebecca
The rich schools won’t be complaining with their $300,000 grants for another set of playing fields – so yes, there will be no controversy. Unfortunately, the shameful buckets of public money to private schools per student and for capital investment increased by Howard continues unabated. The stimulus money is flat, therefore favours the richer private sector.
So it is now been exposed that the Greens are the party of Envy, only the poor and disadvantaged get the spoils the the others don’t.
Congratulations, your dopey policies will ENSURE that Class Warfare continues in Australia.
If Grech lied he can still be in trouble, because contempt of Parliament is a criminal offence. But in fact he didn’t say there *was* an email – he said it was his *recollection* that there was an email. It would be hard to prove that he lied about what he recalled. That is, of course, provided it is not proved that he fabricated the email himself. Then he would be in very deep trouble indeed. Unless that happens, I expect prolonged stress leave followed by early retirement will be his fate.
The Finnigans
You left out my favourite:
“pot, meet kettle”
You discarded a contemporary record? How could you? That is a part of the history of 19 June 2009, an experience that will have us remember where we were when Eric brandished the ‘email’. (Oh dear, we’ll all be saying “I know exactly where I was -in front of the computer!” – how sad).
Anyway your recording somehow ended up on my Ipod – I must have had it connected to the computer at the time. I was listening in the car on ’shuffle’ coming back from somewhere last week, and went from Radiohead to the dulcet tones of Senator Abetz, “Mr Grech, Mr Grech, If you’d just let Mr Grech answer the question, it is within his knowledge…” . Tragically I listened on for most of it before going back to music. But I don’t have the very beginning of the session.
So it is now been exposed that the Greens are the party of Envy, only the poor and disadvantaged get the spoils the the others don’t. Congratulations, your dopey policies will ENSURE that Class Warfare continues in Australia.
This is insane. Green policy would merely ensure that the disadvantaged schools get a reasonable share of the “spoils”.
I went to two different high schools. One was in the process of seeing its first injection of capital works funds in about thirty years, still had science labs which were dubiously safe, had holes in the walls, and barely had playing fields to begin with.
The second was a low-end private school that, with the combination of fees and government funding, was able to afford about an extra wing every year, and built an entirely new library, arts centre and amphitheatre, with major extensions of its assembly hall and VCE centre in the space of four years.
How in the hell is it in any way rational that those two schools should get even anywhere near the same amount of government funding, purely on a basis of need? Labor needs to stop supporting this obsession with middle-class welfare.
And that second school was in a bracket that wasn’t even close to being touched by Latham’s suggested cuts.
And risk being in opposition for as long as we did LAST time ? Middle Class Swinging Voters decide election – you MESS with their choice of Private School and it’s funding at your political peril.
Frank @ 469
Please don’t suggest, yet again, that I’m a member or supporter of a party. I am a supporter of many policies and ideas, but not those of any particular party.
You could’ve fooled me with your constant pushing of those views – rather like so called “ALP supporters like Bob 1234 and JoleB1 who “was” a “Life Long ALP Supporter” -pull the other one – it plays Jingle Bells.
Youse should’ve learned by now not to get into arguments with Frank. He makes me look positively non-partisan!
Palin is pulling pin as Gov of Alaska. Reported to have been confusing about whether this meant “goodbye for ever”, or “see ya at the next presidential elections”:
http://www.nytimes.com/2009/07/04/us/politics/04palin.html?_r=1&hp
Psephos
I know, and that’s saying something. I imagine he chairs the ALP focus group sessions, as a neutral facilitator, keenly listening to the thoughts of others, and taking them on board and passing them on for the benefit of the party?
Youse should’ve learned by now not to get into arguments with Frank. He makes me look positively non-partisan!
Well, there’s no MasterChef on Saturdays, and I need my entertainment somehow…
Nope, ordinary, but PASSIONATE Branch Member who will defend it to the death, but according to the Perfect Greens, doing so is a major crime.
aka “I’m a T**ll”
How long are we going to be in Afghanistan?
The Pentagon estimates that it will take 7 years and between $10 and $20 billion to train an Afghan army of about 260,000 troops, about the number they reckon it would need to keep the lid on the volcano.
As for the national police force, nobody even seems to have much of an idea of where to start.
Meanwhile, back in the Old Dart:
‘A furious political row over homophobia intensified last night when the Conservatives accused two openly gay ministers of “stirring up hatred and division” after they claimed that many Tory MPs were homophobic.’
http://www.timesonline.co.uk/tol/news/politics/article6633214.ece
Meanwhile, Katharine Waymout, publisher of The Washington Post is into a whole new concept in peddling influence. The WP.. ‘had sent out a brochure offering sponsorships — a fee of $25,000 for one, or $250,000 for an entire series — for an exclusive “Washington Post salon” at Ms. Weymouth’s home in which officials from Congress and the administration, lobbyists and, yes, the paper’s own reporters could have a quiet, off-the-record dinner, discussions to be led by Marcus Brauchli, the newspaper’s editor. Theoretically, you can’t buy Washington Post reporters, but you can rent them.’
Following criticism, the idea has been dropped.
http://www.nytimes.com/2009/07/04/business/media/04post.html?ref=business
Oops Waymout=Waymouth
Boerwar 485
I know the MSM is desprate to find hew ways to make money, but selling off what is left of their credibility is not the solution.
Socrates
Yeh. There are several interesting things about it. The one that got me was the judgement about what was likely to be acceptable to the general public. So I checked: sure enough, Ms Waymouth was a lawyer.
The Indian Foreign Minister has indicated that India is not interested in engaging in greenhouse gas reduction by the numbers.
A new study has found that the top metre of permafrost soil contains twice as much carbon as previously estimated. The researchers think this might speed climate change a fair bit.
(I read this in hard copy, there was no author for the hard copy and no names of researchers were provided. Relevant article is said to be in the Global Biochemical Cycle.)
Well, I succeed in my aim. I have temporarily got Labor v Greens Flame War Chapter 7642 off the air, but I am exhausted by the efffort.
*goes*
Boerwar @ 478
Still laughing about Palin’s quote -
“We are not retreating, we are advancing in a different direction”
Straight out of the Monty Python handbook.
Frank is in charge of outreach and bridge-building, answerable directly to the National Executive. He does a great job.
Damn, you blew my cover
Psephos
GoogleEarth.
In Layers there is Geographic Web. Under that, at the bottom, is Businesses. You can tyrn that on and off.
Works for me
Psephos please read my reply @ 307 to your earlier constructive comments. We agree on more than we disagree.
Frank, all I can say is that you are the enemy of my enemy, therefore you are my friend. Love ya bro!!
. BTW loosen up a bit 
Psephos, Grech said he spoke to Lewis 4 times on the day before the hearings.
Steve, yes, but he didn’t say that he told Lewis there was no email, which is what someone claimed earlier.
Psephos but Grech does clearly state exactly that here it is even time marked 4-05pm.
Senator CAMERON—That is correct. So you denied the existence of any correspondence to Mr Lewis.
Mr Grech—That is correct.
CHAIR—Senator Cameron, you can have a couple of more questions. Other Senators have indicated to me that they have other engagements and will need to travel, so we have only got time for a couple more.
Senator CAMERON—So in relation to the media reporting today, what was it that upset you so much in the media reporting?
Mr Grech—Well, clearly, Senator, when news reports of that nature appear and when they are reporting on issues that are close to home, as it were, in terms of the work that you have been undertaking, it is very uncomfortable because people obviously will assume that a lot of these serious issues have been given currency or have been given fuel, if you like, by me when, frankly, the original representations as they relate to Mr Grant were part of my normal work. They came in, I dealt with it as best as I could in the circumstances, and what was supposed to be, from my perspective a relatively routine event, has turned obviously into a significant matter.]
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