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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Oh dear,
Looks like I’m a day late and a dollar short with regards to my previous posts. My apologies.
What next? Greens demanding “we’ll say who Labor can run against us and make ministers of this country” lol
It’s this attitude that has turned this hack right off the Greens.
299
The Greens will target those seats whether or not they have ministers in them. The ALP does not have many ministers from seats they hold that are marginal to the Libs do they? Kim Beazley moved from Swan to Brand in 1996. No party is going to not target a seat of another party who they are not in coalition with just because there is a minister in that seat.
Tom, as I said, the Greens have a perfect right to run wherever they like. My point was a response to Vote1Maxine’s argument that Labor and Greens should be natural allies. It’s difficult to forge an alliance with a party which is trying to unseat party leaders like Tanner, Albanese and Tebbutt, and forcing us to divert resources which we would much rather spend on defeating the Libs.
In Germany the SPD and the Greens can form an alliance because their electoral system doesn’t force them into conflict. In France, which also has single-member seats, the terms of the PS-Green alliance allocate a certain number of seats to the Greens, where they are essentially elected by PS voters. This is fairly easy in a house of 577 – it would be a lot harder in the House of Reps, but not impossible. But the current Greens leadership don’t want an alliance with Labor – they want to displace Labor as the main party of the left.
300
I’m happy for the Greens to run in every seat but it’s a bit rich to bitch about Labor having strong cantidates or ministers in marginal seats the Greens think they can win.
If you are so sure of winning these marginals good luck to you, stand up and fight for them but don’t expect labor to run crap cantidates to make it easier for you.
They already have. The ‘party of the left’ hidden somewhere within the ALP is perennially sidelined by the policies of the dominant right-wing faction.
Psephos @ 279
Your comments are both constructive & helpful. My intention in relation the election of Fielding was not “a stick to hit Labor over the head with”. Simply the frustration of Labor’s CPRS Bill being held up in the senate by a “synapse-challenged small town dweller”, (ie moron) who shouldn’t be there in the first place.
I believe that Labor’s present CPRS Bill (though weak) should be passed by the Greens. A start needs to be made IMMEDIATELY. The Greens can tighten the legislation later. (At worse case the Greens should abstain rather than oppose the Bill).
In relation to preference deals, it should work both ways. I understand that a party needs to maximise its senate numbers but more consideration should be given to the consequences of electing a moron ala fielding. (Likewise the Greens shouldn’t pref Nats over Labor). To be fair it would be very difficult to foresee these consequences. That is why I am advocating that the natural synergy between Labor & the Greens needs to be nurtured. Both sides need to do so. This, I believe, would minimize these unforeseen consequences.
Gusface @ 253
The most important issue is for the Greens & Labors to work together to get the CPRS Bill through the Senate. Something is better than nothing. The Bill can always be strengthened later. CC is the big stick to beat the COALition over the head with which a Labor Govt. can take to the 2016 election and win comfortably.
The field of candidates for Higgins is thinning out.
http://www.brisbanetimes.com.au/national/costello-to-endorse-liberal-activist-as-higgins-candidate-20090704-d80k.html
JV, it depends on the defintion of “left.” The Greens have replaced the communists as the party of the *far left*. You still have a long way to go replace the ALP as the party of the “broad left” – Labor polled five times the Green vote in 2007.
Go Dees! Five goals in a row.
Just what the Libs need, another banker.
301
The ALP can always more the ministers if it wants them to not have to pay so much attention to their own re-election.
302
I am not saying that the ALP should run weak candidates but that they cannot complain if they have important targeted if they don`t move them.
I haven’t heard Tanner & co complaining about who runs against them?
They’d be laughed outa town if they did.
“Banker”? Is that the correct spelling?
The dinosaurs at News Ltd reckon people are going to pay for their content on the net, the way they do for Pay TV. They are delusional! The huge difference between pay TV and the net is that most information is not freely accessable on Pay TV as it is on the net.
Also, not anybody can go ahead and operate their own TV station, whereas almost anybody can create their own website, and be in a position to compete for lucrative advertising dollars.
Buying a newspaper will no longer be necessary as information from every industry and sector of the economy and from experts in their various fields will be freely accessable on the net. As the dinosaurs at News Ltd know, the days of relying on newspapers for information are coming to an end.
309&310
Gonwyn Pike said in an interview after the 2006 election that she was disappointed that the Greens had targeted seats where progressive politics had been so strong for so long (may not have the wording quite correct but I have the sentiment correct).
What if Murdoch started buying up websites, even ISPs? Might that not give him the ability to up prices and charge for content?
I know there are probably a thousand reasons why he can’t do it, but if someone had asked whether a younger Rupert, resident of Adelaide, owning one newspaper, would today be one of the world’s richest men, own hundreds of newspapers, run pay TV stations, be an American citizen, be included on Time’s “most influential” list etc. etc. you’d have been laughed off the blog (except blogs didn’t exist then, of course, much less business models for on-line content).
Just askin’…
Just a couple of other things before I go to walk the dogs (great that I can write the word here and not have to spell it out under my breath…. WALK!):
1. One of the worst things about News blogs is that moderate. It can take hours for your post to appear, by which time the argument has moved on. No “live blogging” on Harto’s sites.
2. What if he made Crikey an offer they couldn’t refuse? He’s done this kind of thing before. That could well effectively shut down this blog.
Paying for newspaper content on the net would be like paying for an extra channel on pay TV that show replays of broadcasts that have been shown on free to air.
Psephos
Not me, I’m not any part of the Greens, or harboring ideas of replacing anybody, but I would suggest that the term ‘left’ as it is generally understood historically can hardly be applied to the current ALP. Centre-unity has control and has shouldered the party into the centre-right territory once occupied by the Liberal party up to and including Fraser. The ALP is the ‘Once Were Left’ party, to borrow the title of that great Kiwi movie. Although I do concede that residual elements of leftish types with more progressive ideologies still exist in the party, but their contributions are always swamped by the right’s numbers.
This is fairly easy in a house of 577 – it would be a lot harder in the House of Reps, but not impossible. But the current Greens leadership don’t want an alliance with Labor – they want to displace Labor as the main party of the left.
Displace Labor as the main party of the broad left? Hardly. If the Greens were after that, their policies would be markedly different, and much more centrist.
Labor just want to keep being able to totally ignore the left, and toss a tiny concession here and there to the reps in the upper house, like they do with the Shooters Party. I understand why Labor might be obsessed with caution to the point of it being ridiculous (hello? Rudd makes Obama look like a lefty?), but they shouldn’t be stunned when the left *stops voting for them* as a result.
318 last paragraph
Here Here
Psephos said,
Not only that, but a Lawyer to boot. One would think that the Liberal Party had enough Lawyers in their ranks and would be looking to broaden their ranks to more closely reflect the general community and its concerns?
http://www.brisbanetimes.com.au/national/costello-to-endorse-liberal-activist-as-higgins-candidate-20090704-d80k.html
Would that be the same Freehills as the one that drafted the Workchoices legislation?
“Left” is a relative term. It means “to the left of whatever point is defined as the centre at any given time.” It doesn’t mean “in accordance with the doctrines of Karl Marx / Kier Hardie / Ben Chifley.” Sixty years ago Labor stood for White Australia and nationalising the banks. So have we moved to the “left” or the “right” since then?
Invalid comparison. You know full well there’s no left-right scale that defines all policy. You have a left-right scale for economic, social, and moral/traditional issues.
322
The current Labor party is at about the centre line of Australian politics and there are many people in Australia who want more left wing policies than the ALP is offering. Labor has drifted to the right on economic issues in the last four decades or so (the Labor party of sixty years ago supported public ownership of assets and a Brittish NHS style health system). On social issue the ALP became more progressive in the second half of the sixties as did society but has drifted more socially conservative, particularly in the last decade.
No wonder the Libs have been blocking Labor’s Bill on Political Donations, especially “foreign donations”.
When it comes to vested interest, the Liberal Party have no peers in relation to hypocrisy!
[Dr Chau told the Herald he was just a "small businessman" who was fulfilling the role of a "good and responsible citizen". "When I make those donations, I do not put any conditions on the contribution."
The former prime minister John Howard told the Herald: "I had a very positive view of his contribution to the relationship [with China].
“He always struck me as a person interested in a genuine way in building relations between China and Australia. I never discussed donations with him … the access he had was not so frequent as to even justify that question.”]
http://www.brisbanetimes.com.au/national/chinese-billionaire-funding-our-mps-20090703-d7s9.html
Just love Howard’s comment which, when you relate it to the rabid attacks on Rudd over non existent favours for a mate and the amounts of money involved, leave me absolutely speechless!
Bingo.
What are these policies?
Obviously not a majority.
* i subscribe to pay TV for the live sports, news and current affairs, documentaries, World Movies and the music channels. Hardly touch the others.
* i subscribe to Crikey because i believe it should be supported.
* As far as MSM, they have lost “gatekeeper” role in term of publishing as well as deciding what they will let us see and read, and the circumstances where we are allowed. they dont like it at all that this gatekeeper role has been smashed by the new media. i will never subscribe them.
* i agree with BB about “moderated sites” where your posts can take forever to appear. The attraction of PB is that it is not moderated, except for the occasional Herr Wilhelm’s quirky sin bins.
* free to air, only watch ABC, SBS and cricket on 9.
* other than that, life is pretty good, no complaints at all.
Ta Vote1,
I am actually sympathetic to some of the greens causes, but as I stated recently, the stand on the CPRS is really stupid for so many reasons;
damages labor -green relations
perceptions by laborites that the greens are extremist
allows the libs elbow room to be part of the deal
stops any discussion on further developing the CPRS
ignores sections of the greens that may want a CPRS
least of all, we ARE still not doing anything substantive and have less weight vis a vis international targets.
Psephos
Neither. We have progressed recently on things such as immigration; capital punishment; women having greater equality; indigenes having the vote. But these things aren’t a ‘move to the left’, they are the result of better education and communication. It is a trap when doing this exercise to equate ‘movement to the left’ with ‘acting in accordance with better knowledge and understanding’.
We have regressed recently on: freedom of speech and association; and more draconian approach to law and order generally (apart from capital punishment); less tolerance of refugees; fewer rights and powers for workers; extreme powers given to security organisations.
Through all that the masses haven’t have moved either ’left’ or ‘right’. The same prejudices exist as always.
It is the two major parties that have moved to the right over recent decades, leading less on the basis of the better understanding and insight of the more educated, and catering more to the everlasting prejudices of the mass of people – a rich vein of votes.
Wow, parties giving people what they want. The mongrels.
Given that over 85% of voters gave their first preference vote to Labor or the Coalition in the HoR I guess there is not much pressure to move to “the left”. ?
Even the village idiot gets to vote – or should voting be weighted by education?
That other irrelevent 15% sit in the shadows feeling proud of all their grand ideas chucking rocks at the big 2. Sad ain’t it
Labor has opposed Capital punishment for a long time. They abolished in in QLD in 1922 and Lang tried in NSW too. Few executions took place under Labor governments.
It must follow logically from that that there are also many people who want more *right* wing policies.
And may I also say: go Jimmy Stynes and GO DEES.
There’s a bit of Steve Fielding in that comment Gary. You know that the concept of ‘giving people what they want’ is heavily qualified when it comes to government.
You don’t really believe that a group of voters ‘wanting’ something – whether a majority or not – should be sufficient itself for political parties to support it. If you do, you have been subverted by the focus group/polling sacred cow of the majors. If that were the approach we would never have been rid of capital punishment, we wouldn’t have taxation, secular public schools, the legal system, seat-belts, or any number of other things for the public good.
The move to the right recently across the two big parties has been associated with the tapping of base racial prejudice and xenophobia in our society. It was shamelessly played by Howard, and it has affected the policies of the current government.
As I’ve said many times before good government is about leadership – of convincing sufficient numbers of voters of what is right – not pandering to what they want as exemplified by talk-back radio. Polling is a natural enemy of leadership in that context.
340
They vote for the coalition and when the coalition (and independents and right wing minor parties) are in power they get some more right wing policies.
ruawake
You know the answer. Good government is leadership based on the best information – which is certainly not the polls. Example – emissions reduction. The government knows that the science is right, and the strategy for the action required must be taken if the planet is to be saved. So the critical role of government now is to explain the urgency of the situation to the people, regardless of what polls say about people not wanting to change jobs, or pay more for electricity; and then to take the action.
The government that wishes to pander to the village idiot vote does nothing on climate change, because the polls say people don’t like change.
jv
I think you will find the Govt. has introduced the CPRS bill.
I believe if the majority of voters “want something” political parties need to take notice of it and where possible support it. That is what our political system is all about. You seem to think it is about teaching us all what is “right and wrong” and implementing this “right” whether we like it or not. Why have representative government if that is the role of government? Why vote for anyone?
344
It is too weak because the government are too timid to stand up to fossil fuel lobby, the opposition and others who powerful and in the way of what is needed.
ruawake
Yes, of course. I’m not critical of the government for that. What choice was there? I was giving an example of how government should operate generally.
But there are signs of followship rather than leadership on the emisisons scheme in putting off action here until after the next election; the excessive permits to the coal industry; and putting up targets that are too low. All sops to the polls about the fear of change. There hasn’t yet been enough of a sense of urgency engendered by the government, aimed at garnering voter support for the required realignment of industry and employment. I am hoping that will come after Copenhagen.
One thing is for sure on this now they way things are shaping up is that if Turnbull doesn’t support the bill he will be left in the wilderness after Copenhagen in what I anticipate will be support for strongish targets aimed at no more than a 2 degrees C rise.
345
No one is saying that all decisions should be taken without reference to public opinion but that on some things governments have to make unpopular decisions. Governments are elected to govern. This involves taking decisions in the best interests of their jurisdiction which do sometime conflict with public opinion. Governments that mess up badly usually get booted*.
* Sometimes hampered by undemocratic parts of electoral systems like in the Commonwealth elections of 1961, 1969, 1990 and 1998.
Sorry, JV, but that is a totally ridiculous statement.
The polls from mid 2006 right through to the 24th of November told me that; 1. people do seek change. 2. they are willing to express that through the polling. 3. That they are equally willing to express that intention through the ballot box in an election!
Just because Howard won three elections on the trot after rolling Keating in 1996 (which was the people expressing a desire for change, also in polls leading up to that) doesn’t mean that the electorate didn’t want change.
Each election and the polling leading up to it has to be looked at on their respective merits. There are never or rarely, the same issues of concern or canvassed in each electoral cycle.
It may pay to reconsider that statement because I don’t agree with it whatsoever!
349
In 1998 the majority of the electorate voted for change but the single member electoral system hid this and returned Howard.
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