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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But we are talking O’Connor, where the ALP could’ve got Fat Cat to run and he still would’ve lost to Wilson
Argghhh
For some reason my old computer seems unable to handle:
http://www.happyplanetindex.org/learn/download-report.html
These are very important issues. Our country is so badly mishandled because the government forgets that the sole purpose of the economy is to provide a vehicle for overall well being in a sustainable manner. Every week the pollies argue over money, money, money but money won’t buy happiness – Jesus, Muhammad, Buddha, any psychologist and any Lotto winner can tell you that. So why can we not get our priorities right? Why must we ruin the environment to produce a bloated, overactive and unsustainable economy that still leaves many in misery thus completely failing at its purported objective? It would improve all our lives immeasurably if the pollies focused on the important things. The bickering points are always “how will this policy effect the economy?” and not “how will this policy effect the well-being of our people and the sustainability of our planet?”.
Where on that list is Bhutan? Has the focus of the government on its ideology of GNH (Gross National Happiness), rather than GNP, produced better results than its neighbors or the impoverished Western economies?
[Argghhh
For some reason my old computer seems unable to handle:
http://www.happyplanetindex.org/learn/download-report.html
Well I’ll be nice to you and post the direct link to the pdf file
http://www.happyplanetindex.org/public-data/files/happy-planet-index-2-0.pdf
Thanks Frank – I now have it working.
Bhutan comes in at 17 out of 143.
Something strikes me as rather profound!
Check this out:
Vietnam: 5
Cuba: 7
Moldova:32 (the highest ranking European country)
Venezuala: 36
Laos: 19
Hmmm…. What do these countries have in common that is producing such a high level of well being and sustainability? I wonder? Those happy little watermelons!
Let us ponder another group of countries with something in common:
USA: 114
Australia: 102
NZ: 103
Israel: 67
UK: 74
Canada: 89
Luxembourg: 122 (the worst ranking European country)
Hmmm….
I also note that Belarus is way down the list at 104 as no doubt would the DPRK if they were included since extremely authoritarian dictatorships are never a good thing. The list does have its flaws though. Saudi Arabia comes in at 13 partially on the back of a low ecological footprint but this fails to recognize their part as an oil exporter. To an extent I do believe that it is the consumer that holds ultimate responsibility (and this goes for CPRS’s also) and so this is fair enough but at the same time I also feel that Saudia Arabia and Australia could make a very possitive contribution by capping oil, coal and uranium exports – which is about as likely as an Australian Democrats landslide at the next election.
I say:
Well about that likely in the foreseeable future anyway.
On to the topic of tobacco taxation as a “TAX GRAB”: Before someone pointed out that it will probably go into a seperate account to the main budget and, if effective, could actually lower revenue I actually thought to myself “oh goodie, more taxation on tobacco means either more services or less tax in other areas where there would be social progress from a decreeced tax. I like the sound of that tax grab”. If others think likewise then this Lib attack could be counter-productive.
This reminds me of early today on the news when Rann was attacking some of the leadership contenders for opposing his authoritarian bikie bill and I thought to myself “oh, thats pretty good of them not to agree with that populist anti-human rights police state clap-trap”.
Just to demonstrate that I am not blanketly hostile to the ALP (and I will admit things have improved since Howard) I will commend them for this tobacco policy as a genuine step in the right direction – that is if they actually follow through and don’t water it down once industry gets involved like they did with the ETS and with GroceryWatch (the second of which I don’t really care about).
My line for tobacco is similar to my line on ganga as discussed a few days ago – legalized but only through highy taxed government monopoly stores. In the case of tobacco higher taxation would probably increase the sale of blackmarket tobacco (or “chop-chop” in street lingo I believe) but would still lower overall consumption, which is the primary consideration – with discouraging organized crime (without being a totalitarian-esque Rann) and raising tax as secondary motivations for drug policy.
From today’s OO editorial, headed “Looking like losers”:
http://www.theaustralian.news.com.au/story/0,25197,25737091-16382,00.html
By implication, the OO has also given up on Malcolm Terminal.
Frank says:
So Frank would you be satisfied if on election day the Greens how-to-vote-cards hand-out-volunteers looked up and down at every arriving person and if they look conservative say “I’m sorry sir/madam but I cannot give you a how-to-vote-card as we have qualms with accepting the Libs primary vote so please vote for someone else”? Furthermore Frank how would you respond if it was discovered that a serial infanticide maniac once voted for the ALP? You would point out that this does not mean the ALP endorses infanticide and that it is not considering changing its policies on the murder of children. Ditto the Greens and conservative voters. Every party tries to maximize its vote and this includes getting people of different ideological persuasions to vote for you. A MASSIVE number of ALP voters are ideologically closer to the Greens: Do you have any qualms with accepting their primary vote? So how can you be attacking the Freo Greens on the grounds that some people of different ideological persuasions voted for them?
Also as has been stated before there is a school of thought spearheaded by some very respected psephologists (I think it was my hero Mr Green of the ABC or possibly our Mr Bowe) that a sizeable number of ALP voters turned to the Greens and Lib voters turned to the ALP but that this phenomonon was camouflaged because they both occured at similar rates.
Well I think I successfully demolished that argument.
For the record I don’t agree with the Democrats and ALP preferencing FF but there are far worse sins. Also as I’ve said before 1 senator is much closer to the Australia wide support for the Religious Right parties than 0 is and so in a strange way it was almost kind of good for democracy even if the Greens candidate got far more votes (although based on other criteria it was sort of undemocratic).
I don’t think Frank actually believes this. Could anyone actually believe this? Which begs the question, why did Frank say this? It can’t be just an exaggeration because that is completely wrong at any intensity. The only reason I can think of is that he is intentionally trying to disturb the peace. What do we call it in the blogosphere when people intentionally make stupid comments to cause maximum havoc? Could it start with the letter ‘T’? To play devils advocate though, he did use the disclaimer words “sometimes I wonder”.
oh, perhaps Franks words were just a lame joke that just fell flat on its face.
And here is Glenn Milne at his… err… best:
http://www.theaustralian.news.com.au/story/0,25197,25737024-7583,00.html
-too much hypocrisy to list in this self-serving, anti-Rudd rant.
Indeed Milne, so why push the dubious line,
Grech did not swear anything. Erica Betz read the fake email into the Senate Hansard.
Hmm, looks like I’m the second post in a row to link to the Oz (not that I can be bothered reading the first one). Young Libs bounce on a web poll yet again…
http://www.theaustralian.news.com.au/story/0,25197,22073824-5013404,00.html
What exactly is the point of rigging the result to look like Rudd’s good/average/bad performance goes 73/14/13? It’s not believable. Looks like those kids need to learn a thing or two about tactics and/or the fine art of rigging stuff properly.
I’d love to see Milne’s explanation of this exchange on page E44 of the senate transcript.
Senator CAMERON—You were asked more than once by Steven Lewis to confirm that correspondence and communication had taken place between the PMO, the Treasury, on the issue of Mr Grant. You denied that, and he persisted, and you again denied that that had taken place. Is that correct?
Mr Grech—Yes.
I can only assume that Milne did himself an undiagnosed but nasty head injury falling about at the Walkleys a couple of years back, and it’s pushing him over the edge. Today’s
is delusional.
What’s there to explain? Sounds like it’d be pretty standard for journalists to doggedly pursue their sources.
Besides I thought people here were claiming the entirety of Grech’s testimony was unreliable… if so you can’t seek to use bits of it to attack people you wish to attack and then disclaim anything that might look bad for the Government.
Ah, utegate, about to become and Autralian Story:
http://www.smh.com.au/opinion/pollaxed-turnbull-hangs-on-as-leader–for-now-20090705-d93v.html?page=-1
This AS will probably break viewership records!
I really love this pearl of wisdom from Milne:
i swear, on balance, Nessie exists.
i swear, on balance, God exists,
i swear, on balance, he’s an idiot.
ltep @ 614, perhaps he could explain why Lewis did not report that had Grech “more than once” refused to confirm the contents of the email that Lewis then ran with anyway?
As I read it, Steve’s point @ 612 was that this was a “relevant available fact” -as per the journalists’ code of ethics, and that not reporting Grech’s denials was “suppressing” this fact.
LTEP, I don’t think that ‘the entirety of Grech’s testimony was unreliable’ but I do think the opposition and News outlets have not given a balanced view of what Gretch did say at the committee.
#599, my understanding is that these are two different indexes.
Peter Brent gets with the program.
It be a different Peter Brent who comes out the other side of that program.
I hope Hartigan’s rant played a role in Mumble’s move to more bloggy blogging! I like the idea of H’s inspiring his own demise!
I think, from the look of The Oz’s front page today, its ed & most journos have truly lost the plot (ie increasing circulation, esp in the under 50s).
What on earth is our Prime Minister doing by fronting the Pope to give the drive to make a saint out of Mary McKillop?
Is he about to pull off the health budget coup of the century? Once it has been “proven” that praying to Mary McK will fix lung cancer (and, by papal extension, other forms of the disease) he can eliminate all of the comparatively useless radiotherapy, chemotherapy and surgical treatments. All he has to fund will be the cheap, self-administered treatment of prayer!
What patent mumbo jumbo. It has no place in Australian politics.
Not once did Milne in that story, point out that Rudd was right and Turnbull was wrong.
I think Rudd got caught on the hop by a few nuns who asked him to put in a good word for Mary McK while he was meeting the Pope. No big deal really. Keeps the religious types happy and the rest of us don’t care anyway.
I agree religion has little place directly in politics, but he is meeting the Pope, how much more religious can you get. So I guess if your talking to the head of a religious group you put in good word for those in your own country.
I would be more concerned if Rudd, as I suspect Abbott would do, based policy on religious doctrine.
I wouldn’t be reading Milne if I were you, no good can come of it. I gave up his nonsense long ago and only ever run across it accidentally.
In fact if you read any of the Murdoch media you should know what to expect from the papers and from certain writers. You don’t actually have to read these papers. Just choose the topic of the day and you already know how they will write it up.
In fact Murdcoh could save a lot on printing costs by just putting out a daily single A4 page saying…’these are the issues of the day, you know how we would present it. Thank You. For token balanced story please imagine what George M would write.’
TP @ 626
Spot on!
ust for fun I wrote a reply to Mile’s article. I publish it here because it probably won’t make the cut over at News:
Yes, I stole that last phrase from a fellow PB’er.
Just listening to a Liberal Party wonk on Sydney ABC Radio:
It’s worse than I thought. Their delusion is terminal.
BB @ 628
Even by your own high standards – it’s a ripper!
Bushfire Bill,
If only you could make the headlines and shopfront posters for a day!
The Libs and MSM have been using the same tactics for decades (centuries?), but wouldn’t you have thought that with the volume and variety of media these days, and the number of ‘investigative journalists’ competing for influence and reputation, that there would be some who would be keen to actually seek out the facts – and disseminate them? Perhaps Marilyn Parker could be considered an exception.
While that’s definitely right, the fact that there are penalties available for any witness who provides false or misleading evidence makes the ’swearing in’ of witnesses unnecessary. So while the use of the words ’sworn evidence’ is annoying and factually incorrect it’s not really too far from the actual situation.
In another area, reading this from Kerry-Anne Walsh today… something seems odd about it:
Given that they don’t poll the popularity of minor party leaders and the Greens are polling subsantially lower on primary votes than the Liberal Party (although above The Nationals) I don’t really know what she’s basing this on. I doubt Malcolm Turnbull is laying awake dreaming of polling a primary figure in the low teens.
Milne once again refers to Grech’s “sworn testimony”. I spoke to the secretary of the Senate Economics Committee this morning and he confirms that no oaths were administered at that meeting, not at any other meeting he can recall. The only legal sanction on committee witnesses is the possibility of being prosecuted for contempt, which to the secretary’s recollection has never happened.
Are we out of touch with reality? i dont think so, as we are the reality.
This is one confused journo echoing his master’s voice, hoping, just hoping, that we are not as mean as we blog.
http://tinyurl.com/poddkv
love to see hacks like Milne and Lewis thrashing around, trying to salvage their tarnished image. If there main defence, their reliance on Grech’s testimony, had any validity at all, they would have accurately reported his hesitancy and uncertainty. He had more qualifications than a graduation ceremony.
and the deadline stuff is bulldust- sending it to Rudd 4pm Friday was designed specifically to not allow time to respond before the first edition
and good to see Hartigan attacking bloggers- we’re getting to them!!!
Can’t understand why the MSM is worrying about a handful of blogs that makes stuff all difference to their business. And by getting into a slanging match with blogs it is only the blogs that will benefit, from increased product awareness. Also engaging the blogs also helps give them legitimacy since they must be important to annoy the big boys.
In effect News Ltd and others getting stuck into the blogs is only providing free advertising. You would think the smartest thing for them to do is ignore blogs.
Clearly they think it does, or will given time
http://news.smh.com.au/breaking-news-business/inflation-at-sevenyear-low-says-survey-20090706-d9ow.html
Finns (634) – yes I saw that article, and thought it was a typically lazy piece of writing. Day makes these broad statements about blogs without providing a single example – surely when they are all so “highly trained” they might at least pay lip service to this basic principle of writing – don’t “tell” us what people are saying on blogs, “show” us.
Having said all that, I think we here in blogland need to show a little less hubris. Neither the MSM or the blogs have a monopoly on the truth, and indeed I would argue that both work best in relation to the other. The MSM is able to fund investigative journalism, and while they sometimes get things wrong (see utegate), without that work done, we in blogland are just shouting into a vacuum. On the other hand, the MSM needs to be a little less precious and accept the real-time criticism that comes from the bloggers.
Dario I think things would be more ideal if inflation was sitting around the 2% mark, the lower end of the RBA’s target. It would make unemployment a little less of a problem.
A leading inflation indicator sugests inflation is lower than forecast, giving the RBA scope for further rate cuts if required. So if the economy keeps recovering there is no inflation threat; if not they can drop interest rates further till it does recover. Presto, recovery assured! Hard to think of any way Turnbull can talk this one into a negative.
http://www.abc.net.au/news/stories/2009/07/06/2617677.htm?section=justin
But I’m so confused; I thought inflation and interest rates would be higher under Labor? Surely that can’t be wrong – John Howard told us so himself. And he was a former Treasurer.
Maybe its time for Turnbull to start warning of the dangers of low inflation and interest rates, giving lower incomes to wealthy investors. Its a serious problem if you are trying to buy a new Merc.
Dario 638 Snap!
Sorry I missed your post on the same topic. Very good news. Another point too – it proves that the high inflation scare campaign run by opponents of the stimulus was a load of … Liberal Party press releases.
True, the band is 2-3%, however at the moment I feel happier with it under the band than above it
Job ads fell again this month. Hopefully they bottom out soon.
http://www.news.com.au/business/story/0,27753,25739113-31037,00.html
Latest ABS jobs figures due out on Thursday. Fingers crossed that it shows some good numbers.
Job adds should start to pick up once major projects funded enter the construction/delivery phase. That should start to happen within 3 to 6 months.
At least the rabid right won’t be able to use ‘migrants stealing our jobs’ as a dog whistle this time around. Some good work from George M once again.
http://www.australianit.news.com.au/story/0,27574,25738678-15306,00.html
First the government was spending too much on the stimulus, and now they didn’t spend enough? What the???
http://www.news.com.au/business/story/0,27753,25738816-462,00.html
I like the fact that Glen Milne has dragged up the stinking corpses of Burke-gate, Fake-Dawn-gate and Scores-gate in his article today.
If the current beat-up is failing… why not try one of the past failed beat-ups?
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