The first Roy Morgan face-to-face poll to catch the full force of the OzCar aftermath shows Labor’s two-party lead up from 55-45 to 58-42. Conducted over the past two weekends from a sample of 1190 (smaller than usual from a poll covering two weeks), it has Labor up 0.5 per cent on the primary vote to 46.5 per cent and the Coalition down a sharp four points to 35 per cent. The slack has been taken up by the Greens, up 3.5 per cent to 11.5 per cent.
Here’s an incomplete sampling of the past week’s action. This site’s normal energy levels will resume in about a week or so.
• Monday’s weekly Essential Research survey had Labor’s two-party lead up from 58-42 to 59-41. Supplementary questions showed a spike in confidence in the economy, but a somewhat paradoxical increase in concern about employment; Joe Hockey favoured over Malcolm Turnbull as Liberal leader by 17 per cent to 13 per cent; and the Labor Party viewed more favourably than the Liberals on 11 separate measures.
• The South Australian Liberals have a new leader in Heysen MP Isobel Redmond. Redmond succeeds Waite MP Martin Hamilton-Smith, who was mortally wounded after accusing the government of doing favours for an organisation linked to the Church of Scientology using what proved to be faked emails. Hamilton-Smith called an initial spill last Friday after Mackillop MP Mitch Williams quit the shadow ministry, which was universally interpreted as an attempt to undermine Hamilton-Smith ahead of a future pitch for his job. However, Williams declined to put his name forward at the ensuing spill, at which the sole rival nominee was deputy leader and Bragg MP Vickie Chapman. After inital expectations he would comfortably survive, Hamilton-Smith emerged from the vote without the support of a party room majority: while he won the vote 11 to 10, one member had abstained. Hamilton-Smith called another spill to clear the air, but when Redmond (who had been newly elected in place of Chapman as deputy) said she would put her name forward he announced he would stand aside. The result was a three-way tussle between Redmond, Chapman and Williams, in which Redmond defeated Chapman by 13 votes to nine after Williams was excluded in the first round. Goyder MP Steven Griffiths won the vote for deputy ahead of Williams by eight votes to six (since only lower house MPs get to vote for the deputy, whereas members from both houses have a vote for the leadership).
• Antony Green crunches some electoral numbers to conclude that, contrary to widespread belief, Labor’s position in the Senate would be better if the next election were for half the chamber in the normal fashion, rather than a double dissolution.
• Against his better judgement, Peter Brent at Mumble enters the world of blogdom. He’s also written a piece on Inside Story which delivers on what I emptily promised a few weeks back, namely to review the report of the Joint Standing Committee on Electoral Matters report into the 2007 election.
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Does Tony Abbott’s proposal of at fault divorce mean that we can get to have a private detective stationed under every bedroom window to prove fault? Maybe they could bring back the Sunday Mirror which used to fill it’s pages with news from the divorce courts.
And this one, a couple of weeks ago, on the Coalition’s inability to understand Rudd’s success:
http://www.ozforums.com.au/viewtopic.php?id=5816
Greensborough (255),
Tony Abbott has, on more than one occasion claimed – falsely – that the DLP is alive and well inside the Liberal Party:
Santamaria’s influence still survives
Tony Abbott
The Age January 30, 2007
http://www.theage.com.au/news/opinion/santamarias-influence-still-survives/2007/01/29/1169919271439.html?page=fullpage#contentSwap1
I sent in a letter:
‘Tony Abbott insults the thousands of men and women who sacrificed so much to found the Democratic Labor Party when he says the DLP is “alive and well and living inside the Howard Government” (“DLP lives on in Coalition: Abbott, 30/1).
‘It is certainly remarkable that Catholics would join the Liberal Party. That fact says something about modern-day Catholics but nothing about the DLP. The DLP was a Labor party committed to social justice and human rights – from the right to life to the right to be treated with human dignity as an employee.
‘The DLP senators would have rejected the Howard government’s industrial relations legislation out of hand. They would have been equally critical of the treatment of asylum seekers. They certainly would not have joined in the kow-towing to the Chinese president.
‘Bob Santamaria’s idea that the DLP should amalgamate with the Nationals was also a denial of the DLP’s Labor tradition. The DLP unions re-affiliated with the ALP twenty years ago, and that is where the DLP belongs, not in the anti-worker, anti-family Liberal Party.
‘Yours sincerely,
Chris Curtis
(Vice President, Victorian DLP, 1976-78)
‘e-mailed to: letters@theage.com.au
as Tony Abbott is dead wrong’
I sent a similar one to The Australian, which was published:
‘A Labor party, nevertheless
The Australian Thursday, February 01, 2007
http://blogs.theaustralian.news.com.au/letters/index.php/theaustralian/comments/a_labor_party_nevertheless/
‘TONY Abbott insults the thousands of men and women who sacrificed so much to found the Democratic Labor Party when he says “the DLP is alive and well and living inside the Howard Government” (”Abbott’s tradition warning to Libs”, 30/1).
‘The DLP was a Labor party committed to social justice and human rights – from the right to life to the right to be treated with human dignity as an employee.
‘The DLP senators would have vehemently opposed both lots of the Howard Government’s industrial relations legislation as attacks on the union movement and the family. They would have been equally critical of the treatment of asylum-seekers. They certainly would not have joined in the kow-towing to the Chinese president.
‘The DLP unions re-affiliated with the ALP 20 years ago, and that is where the DLP belongs, not in the anti-worker, anti-family Liberal Party that even Robert Menzies stopped voting for. ?Chris Curtis ?(Vice president, Victorian DLP, 1976-78) ?Langwarrin, Vic’
I sent a third one later the same year:
‘Contrary to Mick Hawkins’s assertion (“Voters should look behind the façade of political slogans”, 20/11), Tony Abbott would have been completely unacceptable as the leader of the Democratic Labor Party. There is no doubt that if the DLP senators still held the balance of power, they would have used it to block, not only Work Choices, but also the first lot of Liberal IR laws passed with the help of the Democrats in 1996. Almost all the former DLP officials that I keep in touch with can’t wait to see the end of the Howard Government.
‘Yours sincerely,
Chris Curtis
(Vice President, Victorian Democratic Labor Party, 1976-78)
‘e-mailed to: letters@theaustralian.com.au
as Tony Abbott and the DLP- – no way!’
I really do not want to go about the ancient history of the DLP, but I will not allow certain claims about it to go unchallenged.
aka ‘whose up who, and whose paying the rent’
Gusface, I think that Abbott was sent out to announce the Liberal’s stimulus page.
This has not been widely reported in MSM:
http://www.chinamining.org/News/2009-06-24/1245827354d26135.html
This could very well be the partial explanation to the action taken by the Chinese against Rio. The Comrades behind the Gate of the Heavenly Peace are saying to Rio and the likes:
1. Dont farq me up again like what you did to us. We saved you from BHP, then you ditched us suddenly and shacked up with BHP.
2. Dont mess with us. We might not need you as much as you think.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=sFl2CVuM3No
(Hugh is better looking)
Finns, Africa must be looking good to Chinalco at present too.
http://allafrica.com/stories/200907060042.html
Rubbery Figures advertising Mutual Community Money Savers Account.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ukd4ehqggGI
Chris,
One thing about Abbott is there is no subtlety in his approach to vote grabbing. He wants your vote and he wants it now. Abbott sees himself as the spear chucker for socially Conservative Liberal cause and is more than happy to cast his net far and wide to attract votes to this banner.
My comment about the wish for a DLP connection is that he perceives a need for a Party like the DLP to act as a preference collector for the Libs much like the Greens appear to do for the ALP. He appears to think there is a proportion of the protest vote parked with the Greens. If that were instead going to a right of centre minor Party, there would be a fair chace the Libs could get a larger preference flow. I don’t think Abbott is interested in the more traditional Labor values that you have espoused were a core part of the DLP.
Your comments about Catholics and the Libs are a bit quaint given, Abbott, Turnbull, Nelson, Pyne and Andrews are all Catholics. I put it more to a side outcome of the growth in prosperity that has occurred in Australia since WW2. (People, regardless of their background can become rich enough to vote Liberal).
Steve, i was talking to a business associate from Mozambique few weeks ago. He said very few people really realise how much investments China is making in securing resources and business/political influences in Africa. He said it is simply in a staggering scale.
Australia should not assume it is the only starfish on the beach.
Yep, Julie Bishop standing up for human rights…
http://www.abc.net.au/news/stories/2009/07/12/2623361.htm
Greensborough (309),
Chance plays its part in politics. Had Tony Abbott been president of the La Trobe University Democratic Club in the early 1970s instead of president of the Sydney University Democratic Club in the later 1970s, he could very well have ended up in the ALP. It was his misfortune to be a New South Welshman.
Family First could serve as a preference collector for the Libs, but it will never be very strong. Society has changed too much. The Liberals have to straddle the great divide between liberalism and conservatism, and they are finding it hard.
It is a sad truth that as Catholics have become more middle class they have forgotten the social justice concepts of their church and moved to the right in politics. Thus you have people like Tony Abbott and Andrew Robb actually in the Liberal Party.
However, they are insufficient in number to give that party predominance in Australian political life. Labor plays that role, with only one election loss at the state or territory level in the last decade and a quite a few more victories to come. Come 2014, the Liberals will be wondering why they have governed Victoria for only 7 of the previous 32 years. Come 2016, they will be wondering why that have governed Australia for only 11 of the previous 33 years. (I know, I should not fall victim to hubris.)
GG @ 282 posted
Vortex @ 285 posted
“IF” indicates one of a number of alternatives; and I’ve yet to find any political issue in a democracy that does not have more than one alternative, that’s the point! Our democracy is set up with the expressed intention of making people debate alternatives – hence Government & Opposition.
The moment you cease entertaining alternatives, you move from possibility to absolute truth, and truth is difficult enough to find in hard sciences – and most ‘truths’ come with a rider of the under normal circumstances type, even mathematical ‘certainties’ like parallel lines are lines which never meet (they do in nonEuclidean mathematics) … in fact, according to very recent scientific reports, science is on the verge of proving Einstein’s non-normal circumstance. How much more so, then, if the qualifier is unless no god/s matching the characteristics of the one or more I believe in exist/s or unless the assumptions on which the computer simulation and/or programme prove to be incorrect.
So, GG, if you don’t consider every possibility, you are the one “sidelining the reality of what actually happened or an excuse to engage in a flight of whimsical speculation” – and that’s before one even get’s to what is ‘reality’?, a varitation of Socrates’ question/s What is ‘truth’? Is my ‘truth’ the same as yours? Ask any police interrogator trying to get at what witnesses ‘actually’ saw, what chances are of their answers’ being indentical, and the answer (with the rider ‘unless they’re all trained observers with near total recall) is ‘none’.
Truth, justice, reality and similar concepts are individual constructs, reflecting individually constructed reality etc. Accepting one ‘reality’ without understanding that, crosses the line between rational “accepted on current evidence, but I’ll revisit it if evidence changes” and “I believe.” If “I believe” involves taking up the fight to force others (esp all others) to accept & act in accordance with the same belief), the line between rationality and fanaticism has been crossed. And indulging in ad hominem, “poisoning the well” and ad hominem, “guilt by assertion” does nothing for the credibility of your case.
If you study sociology, you’ll very quickly encounter a taken for granted:
http://74.125.153.132/search?q=cache:3zas_L6fyi8J:arts.anu.edu.au/sss/SOCYEssayGuide.pdf+sociology+challenging+%22taken+for+granted%22&cd=1&hl=en&ct=clnk&gl=au&client=firefox-a Nor does such study occur only in sociology. Every science student undertaking research is urged to choose one historical or current “taken for granted” and examine it from its origin to the current day. You’ll do it in all social sciences, in philosophy & religion, and other subjects. Mature people, as vortex argues, have lived through enough changes to accepted taken for granyed “reality” to add riders like “As far as I know”, “to the best of my ability”, “according to what’s currently known”.
My best memory of the folly of believing something endorsed by physicists of great repute was a 1957 statement, on an ABC radio science programme (& the ABC was then not given to speculation) celebrating International Geophysical Year (IGY). Asked about science exploration and the possibility of some big breakthrough during IGY, the interviewee (USA male) answered that this would probably never be possible because of the Van Allen Belt/s. The reason I can still hear the question & the answerer’s voices war that, within days, Russians shot Sputnik into orbit (October 4, 1957). For years it was discussed as the perfect example of why a rider such as “based on what we currently know” should always be added.
Nor was it the only such example. We heard the same about transplant (esp heart) surgery, cloning, miniaturising electronics (computers, even SciFi ones, were always supposed to get bigger & bigger). That’s why mature, rational people start with “If” and consider a range of conditions. Been there, done that, learned the lesson.)
OzpolTragic,
“So, GG, if you don’t consider every possibility, you are the one “sidelining the reality of what actually happened or an excuse to engage in a flight of whimsical speculation”
Your blustering admonishment leaves me underwhelmed but highly amused.
I definately rule out any chance of Arthur Caldwell winning the 1961 election. I further rule out the likelihood the Electoral Commission is ever going to gerrymander the electoral boundaries to (allegedly) make it easier for Greens to win seats in the HOR. I also reserve the right to form an opinion about the contributions of particular posters based on them posting the same arrant nonsense on a regular basis.
Tom can post what he likes. I can use my judgement to point out the basic nonsense that underpins much of what he says.
Collingwood winning the AFL Premiership is a concept that I will never countenance.
BOB1234 @ 67.
This is correct.
The Australia 1st Party will not do well at all. Before them there was Australians Against Further Imigration and they didn’t get good results. Its true that the GFC will help Far Right extremists a bit but I think its still unlikely that they’ll surpass the 4% threshold for electoral funding in any federal seats.
The Australian Greens are not primitivist. There is a strain of thought within small ‘g’ green thinking which is primitivist but it does not have popular support and is not supported by large ‘G’ Green policies or politicians. For a good debunking of green primitivism by a pro-technology green read anything by Murray Bookchin. If you want a return to the ’stone age’ your best bet is to vote for a party that wants to do nothing about climate change, nothing about peak oil and other resource depletion and nothing about environmental pollution and destruction.
Chris Curtis @ 303 cited:
Greensborough (255),
As does every serious Oz political commentator, historian, political analyst etc since the 1950s. In the last year, one NSW MSM journo commented (from memory, over the stouch at an Art gallery function) that the real problem with NSW’s major parties is that The Split didn’t extend to NSW state politics, so the right wings of both Liberal & ALP still contain old CA/DLP elements, adding that different RW usually (but not always) RC racial groups gravitated to different parties, and the Libs tended to attract those with personal contact with communism (E Europe, Greece, E Mediterranean inc Lebanon and SE Asia, esp Vietnam). It was certainly discussed extensively, especially with regard to Liberal pre-selection brawls in the lead up to the 2007 NSW & Federal elections.
Colonisation of major political parties by the remnants of the DLP and others of like mind has been discussed since Tom Truman’s “Catholic Action and Politics” was published (1959/60) There’s some more recent commentary on Ambit Gambit during 2004’s Bankstown brawling: http://www.nationalforum.com.au/blogs/mt-comments.cgi?entry_id=272 A proper electronic search at a university library will turn up every article, book review etc.
But as I’ve yet to encounted a DLP poster on any blog/board that was as open to reason and discussion than a dyed-in-the-wool JW, I’ve yet to find that poster.
GG @ 314 Do yourself a favour and get your head around logical fallacies through The Fallacy Files, by far the best & easiest to read I’ve found on the web. As most of the fallacies used in argument are “informal”, the best place to start is with the list of Subfallacies on Informal Fallacy
Why not take your post @ 314 and identify all those that appear? Many of us oldies went to schools where logic was a compulsory, especially for those aiming for non-science faculties where advanced logic was also a requirement. Good secondary & uni teachers in still teach it as a component of valid debating and argumentative essay writing.
It never does one or the cause one is supporting any good whatsoever of someone can take you apart as illogical.
There are also sites where fallacies are initially identified by well-known quotations; in your post, after a flurry of loaded words (fallacy begging the Question bursts into : “The flowers that bloom in the spring, Tr La Have nothing to do with the case.” and question-begging epithets.
Not a good advertisement for your cause GG. You can do much better than that!
OzPol Tragic,
I should make it clear that “Santamaria’s influence still survives” was the heading of Tony Abbott’s article, not my words.
If when you say “As does every serious Oz political commentator, historian, political analyst etc since the 1950s”, you are referring to the line “Santamaria’s influence still survives”, I would agree. I don’t think anyone, even the non-serious could disagree.
If, however, when you say “As does every serious Oz political commentator, historian, political analyst etc since the 1950s”, you are referring to the line “that the DLP is alive and well inside the Liberal Party”, I do not agree. The Liberal Party is anti-worker and anti-social justice, and thus has no “alive and well” DLP in it, despite the presence of some members who come from DLP families. The only person I know of who has made this claim is Tony Abbott. I am not sure if you are making it or not.
Is your use of the term “colonisation” meant to imply that people with a particular view of the world that you don’t like are not to be seen in the same way as the others with views that you do like when they join political parties?
If your last sentence is meant to refer to me, it is wrong as I am not a “DLP poster”, just someone who wants to keep the historical record accurate. Your debating tactic of dismissing those who disagree with you as “not open to reason and discussion” is particularly weak, especially given that I am engaged in a discussion with you at this moment. I am unable to persuade you with reason (which is what I am using), but I would not conclude that you are not open to reason, just that you can’t accept what I am saying on this particular topic.
It is easy to dismiss Tony Abbott as being a barking mad loony – but his socially conservative views resonate with a section of the community.
He knows that if these socially conservative people decide to vote for someone else the Liberal Party is toast.
His role in One Nations demise has never been fully explained but it was not insignificant.
If Turnbull and the moderates alienate the sc mob, Tony will be there to pick them up, within the party and without.
Poll movements are fluid rather than block. I think we all can agree that when the Greens go up and the Libs go down it is partially Libs to Greens and partially Libs to ALP and ALP to Greens. The issue is just, to what extent either is happening? Some would be protest votes from anti-ALPers or conservatives, some would be genuine coversions as former Libs ’see the light’ however it is my belief that the Libs to ALP + ALP to Greens phenomonon happens much more. Perhaps at a rate of 5:1. This is because Lib to Greens though not impossible, it is a significant leap and I give the voter a bit of credit.
Afterall, the Bulk of Greens supporters are ex-ALP supporters – we can agree on that, right? So why shouldn’t swings to the Greens mostly be from the ALP? That would make sence. Unless of course we sort the voting public into two classes, one politically educated and rusted on and the other easily swayed by propoganda and able to flip-flop all over the ideological landscsape. Again though both this argument and the one that Lib to Green or Green to Lib is just too great a gap to happen much in a credible electorate would both be true to an extend, so we are talking in degrees once again.
I don’t really know why the ALPers here (actually just Frank) think that Libs changing to Greens is something to attack the Greens over anyway. Its not as though they’re not trying to ‘convert’ Libs also.
Maybe if Tony Abbott ever gets the snits with his beloved Liberal Party – he could form the “Australians for Honest Politics” party?
He would probably win a Senate seat in NSW and with fellow “high profile” nutters maybe more.
Just a thought.
He is the guy who advised Jackie Kelly to call the racist leaflet affair just a Chaser stunt. I guess that qualifies him to lead a party called “Australians for Honest Politics”.
“Australians for Honest Politics” was Abbott’s slush fund to pursue One Nation in the courts.
Surely a fitting name? In a newspeak kinda way.
HM
when I make the comment (as I have more than once) that there’s a block of votes moving from the Libs to the Greens, it’s not an attack. I can’t understand why it would be. Certainly, some Greens react as though it is, and that’s perplexing.
They rarely (as you have) try to justify why this can’t be happening.
With all respect to your good self, however, your argument appears to be that a Liberal who changes their vote to Greens does so in full knowledge of Greens policy and that therefore a dyed in the wool conservative is making a huge jump to go from conservative politics to left of the ALP.
To me, this is a case of not knowing your constituency.
Firstly, your average punter knows stuff all about the Greens policy positions. They know that the Greens are ‘pro’ environment and that’s about it. I don’t -and many of them don’t – see being pro environment as being a left or right issue, so shifting their vote from Liberals to Greens in this circumstance isn’t seen by them as a shift from the right to the left, but as a decision to be more consciously supportive of environmental measures.
Some of the above do it for the same reason that many of the uber rich support charities and the arts – they recognise their own lifestyle isn’t as environmentally friendly as they would wish, and vote to compensate.
Secondly, the Hamerite Liberals are economic conservatives/social progressives. They’re anti union, pro individual choice and follow through on the second by being supportive of policies such as a woman’s right to chose, assisted euthanasia, refugees etc. Indeed, with the latter beliefs they are often further left than Labor to begin with. These ’soft’ Hamerite Liberals (Petro Georgiou types) are increasingly made to feel unwelcome in the modern day Liberal party. Again, it is actually easier for them to move to the Greens than Labor for a number of reasons – it’s too much to swallow suddenly shifting to the ‘team’ you’ve spent all your life opposing, and secondly, they’re actually more comfortable with Green policies as more representative of their viewpoint.
Hamerite Liberals are the ones I know best, very nice, decent people who loathe unions, believe that Labor is too much of a ‘nanny’, and are pro individual freedom.
Thirdly, you have the children of Liberal voting parents. The polls clearly show that the ALP and the Greens have the ‘young’ vote pretty much stitched up, which suggests that there is a ‘missing’ cohort of Liberal voters – the children I am referring to. Again, I would suggest that if you come from a pro-Lib family, it is easier to shift to the Greens than to the ALP (for the reasons I’ve already outlined above) and easier to explain to your parents.
Finally, there is the protest voter. They dislike and distrust both the majors and therefore vote for ‘A.N. Other’ and don’t particularly care what policies the alternative supports.
I would also argue that the perception (I stress that word) that the Greens are purer and more moral when it comes to politics gives the label ‘Green voter’ a certain panache in some circles – it demonstrates to others that you care more about the environment than they do, you are more concerned about ethical standards and moral rectitude, unlike the hypocritical, compromised and cynical people around you who vote for the majors ‘cos they don’t know any better.
Bird of Paradox @ 196:
Good question? What will we see first, a docker flag, or a lib PM?
Ok, so Kruddy will win the next ‘lection. And Kruddy/Gillard will win the one after that. Then all bets are off.
So, can the Dockers win the flag in that time? Simple answer, no.
So, looking 10+ years out, I am gonna have to say a Lib PM is more likely than Dockers flag. And I am a member. Pity me.
Following ruawake’s thought in #323.
The most likely candidate I can see for a change of party affiliation is Steve Fielding.
Not exactly a party change but a more open declaration of who his party will ally themselves, and therefore him, in the future.
Family First cannot win a Senate seat on its own primaries.
Nor with the second preferences of its usual allies. Such as Fred Nile and other Christian right wing groups. I have checked the FF ‘how to vote cards’ for 3 states and basically Fren Nile, FF and the other mob whose name I forget, preference each other with a little bit of shoving some independents in the mix.
That is getting them nowhere.
But enter the ALP and they managed to get FF/Fielding in at the ‘04 election.
I assume that is unlikely to happen again.
So bye bye FF and Fielding and his like in other states.
Unless ……
He /they can get a surrogate for the ALP and repeat the 2004 ALP/Fielding scenario with a different party.
And I reckon the Liberals would possibly be in that.
A preference swap between FF and the Liberals.
Where the aim of the Liberals is to get Fielding [or a FF person in another state] in before the Greens.
While it irk me to admit it, a “Conservative” party would find support.
Yearning for the “Good old days”, white picket fences, kids playing in the streets, no new fangled gadgets, no mucking around with genes. The simpler life for simple people.
My hunch is that someone will try it. But it will only succeed with a strong leader who has the sense of what to avoid.
OzpolTragic,
If only I’d taken notice of the “Molly Meldrum” cliched pearls of wisdom from mentors like yourself I’d have ended up an old tosser endeared with his own intellectual inadequacies.
Thank goodness for common sense.
279
Freeways are bad for various reasons outlined in this link.
http://www.ptua.org.au/myths/
Yes I am determined to discuss what would have happened if Calwell had won in `61 as it is a topic that interests me. From the 1st of July 1962 the Senate balance of power was held by the DLP who would have been less obstructionist than the Coalition. There may well have been a DD but this probably only led to the re-election of the DLP Senators elected in 1958 plus maybe one or two more in other states. All separate Senate elections occurred under the 1949-72 Liberal and Country Parties` government. The only separate house election not under the same government was in 1929 after the Bruce government lost the vote on its industrial relations legislation. I doubt that Calwell would have called a house only election. To increase the House majority Calwell could (Senate permitting) have given one or both of the Territory MPs full votes (they were both ALP). The DLP was mainly centre left voters who would have been voting ALP if not for the split.
I doubt that the DLP would have made a comeback if not for the Democrats because the Whitlam Government and Vince Gair finnished the DLP as a political force.
Had the spilt occurred after the 1955 Victorian election then the ALP may possibly have won a majority in the Legislative Council (I don`t have figure for the Legislative Council election before 1988 and I have googled it) and may have abolished it and entrenched one vote one value.
OzPol @ 313
Great post
Zoomster
Agreed, its not an attack – its psephology. What I stated was that its “just Frank” C that seem to think its something to hold against the Greens. I shouldn’t have confused things by mentioning the ALP because it’s just him.
If you look at my post, I cover all bases so as not to be wrong. Since I mentioned lots of voting types that occur it accidentally came across that I was advocating some factors to a greater extent than I actually am so I’ll rephrase:
Of the swing to the Greens:
• Some is caused by swing from Libs to ALP and ALP to Greens. I now guestimate 80%. This includes both protest votes and those moving due to policy/ideology
• Some is caused by unengaged Liberal voters shifting all over the place that don’t have much awareness of policies/ideologies. I guestimate 10%
• Some is an increased protest vote from ex-Lib caused by more bitterness with the major parties over the Grech Affair. I guestimate 7% (This overlaps with the second dot point a bit)
• Some is educated voters making a move from Libs to Greens. I guestimate 3% (how do you measure “educated” though?)
If there are two types of Green supporters: Those ideologically aligned and those that just don’t like the majors for whatever reason, protest voters etc. then I’d say that the vast bulk of the consistent Greens vote is from the ideologically aligned group. This is because the Green supporters are known to be the most engaged. I suspect that those that swing to and from the Greens will have more protest voters within them than the consistent supporters. However the increased Greens vote is not just caused by more protest votes but also from more people becoming supportive of their policies instead of the outdated ALP/COALition policies. Anyway protest votes do not just come from ex-lib voters but also from ex-ALP voters.
It is certainly true that the vast, vast, vast bulk of core Greens active supporters are former ALP/democrats supporters. This would imply that swings to them would mostly come from the ALP.
Pull the other one it plays Greensleeves
Oh and Are you discounting what happened in Fremantle as just political noise ? It is a FACT that withj the lack of a Liberal Party Candidate the bulk, if not all of thier vote went STRAIGHT to the Greens.
If you want to deny that political reality then keep dreaming that it will be repeated in a General Election.
Tom,
The numbers following the 1961 Senate election were:
Coalition 30
Labor 28
DLP 1
Independent 1.
Thus, the DLP did not hold the balance of power. The Coalition had sufficient votes to block anything on its own, including any attempt by Arthur Calwell to give voting rights to territory MPs. It could carry anything it wanted with the vote of the either the one independent or the DLP – though Senators Wright and Wood were well known for crossing the floor.
The one DLP senator, George Cole, would have supported a number of Labor policies, as would Senator Turnbull, but even the support of both would not get anything carried.
As for freeways, they are great in off-peak times.
THM,
The only point I want to add is that not all voters are ideological. Frank McManus of the DLP got 19.1 per cent of the Senate vote in 1970 (still the third party record). Don Chipp of the Democrats got 16.1 per cent in 1977. There is no doubt in my mind that a considerable number of DLP voters from 1970 switched to the Democrats in 1977, despite the differences in the two parties.
Hence the animosity between some sections of the ALP and the Greens, as was the case between some Democrats and some Greens. Fightng over the same potential voters.
Or one Democrat leader who joined the Greens.
DLP: Splitter
Democrats: Splitters
NDP: Grassroots single-issue party.
Australian Greens: Grassroots movement.
One Nation: Politically centralized flash in the pan oddity.
FF: Political wing of the Assemblies of God churches.
The NDP, ON and FF were not major players. The Greens arose out of a need: as an effect of the transition to the new era and cannot be easily replicated by the conservative side of politics. If they want to have a conservative party (as if the Liberals or Natonals don’t count) then the easiest way would be to split from the Libs, this could give them DLP/Democrats level of support rather than ON/FF/NDP short lives.
Of which Jo Valentine eventually joined The Greens
http://www.smh.com.au/world/china-raises-xinjiang-death-toll-to-184-20090711-dgoh.html
Please excuse me from laughing as I fall-off my chair and puking. Is this the same Turkey that denied the Armenian Genocide.
And the consistent use of the State Terrorism to punish those who dare to criticise:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Armenian_Genocide#Republic_of_Turkey_and_the_Armenian_Genocide
Oh dear, how many Kettles, pots, kettles, do you need to cook the Turkish Delight.
Molotov
One Nation had 11 seats in the Qld Parliament. With a Primary of 22.7%
The stuff Green dreams are made of.
St Bob would have an Orgasim with numbers like that
One Nation were so popular it must have really affected the Liberal vote for them to react in the way they did.
ON certainly were in Queensland.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/One_Nation_(Australia)
Admittedly, that 22% in Qld was predominately at the expense of the Nats who also foolishly, against the wishes of the Feds, preference’d ON in that election.
If they hadn’t subsequently imploded, they certainly could have been players for quite some time and eroded even more of the RW National and Lib vote.
With slightly better candidate selection and better central control, the ON Party could have been a big player in both State and Federal politics.
Howard of course neutered them to a large degree by taking on board many of their policies and forced the Qld Coalition to cease preferencing them.
Tom tfab, here’s a bit of light reading from the era you’re interested in.
http://dspace.anu.edu.au/bitstream/1885/46052/2/02whole.pdf
They also turn off a much larger section of the community
Which is what the ALP need to do to neuter the Greens. How likely is that?
Frank Calabrese
A while ago I made a really long post, which listed 1000 reasons why you are wrong to attack the Greens for receiving votes from former Libs in Freo but you never replied so I don’t know if you saw it. I can’t be bother saying it all again but I felt it was convincing to a rational person (ie anyone here except you). I have no idea how to quickly scroll through the archives for it but if you have all the time in the world then check back a fortnight or so.
Reading your post I have to again say what I always have to say – I don’t follow. You should always put one more sentence in to clarify what you are talking about. However I think I gather enough to confirm what I was saying to Zoomster that you do think that former libs moving to the Greens is something to attack the Greens over, which Zoomster and I do not think is valid.
It is not a FACT that “the bulk, if not all” (I mean really! If not all! As if every single Liberal voter moved to the Greens?!!! I suppose included the conservative independent candidates that personally voted Green. Why make such comments?) Liberals voted Green. This is contested by many including um either Antony Green, William Bowe or both I think.
It all seems so “yesterday” discussing the DLP. And before you accuse me of being a young wipper-snapper too wet behind the ears to know any better etc. etc. I can still rmember Father Kennedy reading out Cardinal Gilroy’s wannabee encyclicals on the evils of Labor. I was an altar boy at the time and old Paddy Kennedy confided in himself (with Eager Ears me overhearing) that it was all a lot of garbage. All he wanted to do was go back to Ireland and retire (which the Fathers eventually took up a collection for and made possible… poor Paddy died on the Oriana on the way over).
Anyway… as I was saying… what was I saying? Oh yes… Calwell didn’t win in 1961 (”Killen, you are magnificent!”), Menzies continued on, then Holt then Gorton then the Weasel McMahon (whom I shook hands with once at ANU’s Garran Hall in 1971… a hirsute moi had been intending to spit in his face but couldn’t summon up the courage when it came to it) and the rest is history, with the emphasis on history.
I had done my schooling at St. Pat’s, Strathfield, thinking all the time that it was a breeding ground for real estate agents, doctors and motor trimmers. It wasn’t until years later I realised it was a hotbed alright. Yeah sure, some of my alma materites did become doctors (and damn good ones too, I’ve since concluded), and there was one who now owns a chain of pubs, another who was a pain inthe ar$s captain of the footy team who had a retarded kid and became probably the most human of them all, and yet another who always had pies stains down the front of his tie but who’s now the nattiest dresser you’d ever want to see.
But the hotbeddery came from the number of Labor ministers the place produced. The Ferguson brothers, for one (or is that two?), Tony Burke’s another, and Craig Emerson to name four (and let’s not forget John Brown, plus of course John Brogden who batted for the other side, contrary to his Balmain background).
The point is that despite the Gilroy Letters from the pulpit, despite many of the kids I went to school with being not quite the idiot sons but at least the sons of the Strathfield small business gentry, old St. Pat’s produced much more than its fair share of stick-it-up-to-the-Libs politicians, for which I am truly grateful. After all, Eddie Rice made his bone among the slums of Dublin (or so the legend goes).
My conclusion? The DLP was waste of time, didn’t really affect anything but caused a lot of trouble doing precisely zip.
So why are we dreding all this up… again?
I don’t think that the ALP feels anyway near as threatened by the Greens an the Libs and Nats did by the rise of One Nation.
Especially the Nats as that is where most of the ON votes came from.
Besides that the ON preferences went everywhere and didn’t return to the Coalition in the same levels as does Greens preferences to Labor.
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