The latest Nielsen poll has Labor’s two-party lead at 54-46, down from 56-44 in November. The Coalition is up four points on the primary vote to 41 per cent, with Labor steady on 42 per cent (no figure is provided for the Greens as far as I can see). The Prime Minister’s personal ratings have taken a hit, his approval rating down six to 60 per cent and disapproval up four to 33 per cent. The poll is the first since Tony Abbott became Liberal leader, and finds him with 44 per cent approval and 41 per cent disapproval. Kevin Rudd’s lead as preferred prime minister is 58-31, compared with 67-21 in the twilight of Turnbull’s leadership. The sample size was 1400. Elsewhere:
• Imre Salusinszky of The Australian reports Paul Nicolaou, the Liberal Party fundraiser who failed to retain John Brogden’s old seat of Pittwater at a 2006 by-election, will seek preselection for the state upper house. Also in the hunt for the three “at large” positions on the Liberal ticket (the remaining places are selected on a regional basis) are moderate incumbent Catherine Cusack; Peter Phelps, former chief-of-staff to defeated Eden-Monaro MP Gary Nairn (whose alleged political smarts once led him to compare Nairn’s Labor opponent, war hero Mike Kelly, to a Nazi concentration camp guard); Natasha MacLaren-Jones, Right faction state party vice-president and former staffer to Senator Helen Coonan; Dai Le, a former Radio National producer who ran in Cabramatta at the 2008 by-election held after the departure of Reba Meagher; Pat Daley, a former Salvation Army spokesman; and Frank Oliveri, a Fairfield councillor said to be backed by David Clarke. They might yet be joined by Clarke himself if he proves unable to retain his existing position as the candidate representing north-western Sydney. Clarke hopes to retain that position through a deal in which he will back Cusack in exchange for support from moderates. The Sydney Morning Herald reports Clarke’s foes in the Alex Hawke camp claim he could secure as few as 30 of the available 90 votes, with many moderates allegedly refusing to fall in as directed behind Clarke. As well as the Hawke-backed David Elliott, the position will be contested by “Robyn Preston, a Hills councillor, Tony Issa, a Parramatta councillor, and Nick Tyrrell, a Blacktown councillor”.
• Andrew Clennell of the Sydney Morning Herald reports Robyn Parker, Liberal state upper house member and factional moderate, will contest preselection for the Labor-held lower house seat of Maitland after recognising she will be unable to retain her existing position. While it was reported last year that the way had been smoothed for her to win the Maitland nomination through the amendment of the preselection timetable, Ian Kirkwood of the Newcastle Herald reports she faces rival contenders in Maitland councillors Bob Geoghegan and Stephen Mudd and Newcastle councillor Brad Luke. The issue will be decided by 30 local branch members and eight head office representatives on Saturday, February 21.
• Phillip Coorey of the Sydney Morning Herald reports three candidates have confirmed they will put their names forward for Labor preselection in Macarthur: Nick Bleasdale, the candidate in 2007, Paul Nunnari, former wheelchair athlete and adviser to state MP Graham West, and Greg Warren, the deputy mayor of Camden. Hughes is said by Coorey to be claimed by the Right, factional home to candidates Greg Holland and Brent Thomas, but the Left might yet seek to upset the Right’s applecart by putting forward Liverpool mayor Wendy Waller. Both have been made winnable by redistribution and the impending departure of their Liberal members, Danna Vale and Pat Farmer.
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The post rate has most probably slowed because since early this morning there has been probably the biggest number of “baiting” and “tr*lling” posts that I have seen for quite a while.
I bet the viewing rate has gone down as well because I can’t imagine too many viewers sticking around to witness this exhibition of moronic, childish, imbecility for too long.
They surely have much better things to do with their time!
Did Rudd come on to talk about Rudd’s plans or Abbott’s lack of plans?
I’m not going to condone something that I hated about Howard.
But I will give credit to Rudd for that little bit there about how Rudd and Labor learnt from the 80s and 90s and invested to protect Australian jobs. So basically here we have a more interventionist (left) government than Hawke/Keating economically (in some respects), yet more socially conservative than the past few Labor governments.
Is Labor going back to the Calwell days? Oh god.
If you had it installed Gary, there would be barely a post left to read!
Probably a good thing at present IMHO!
Aww, end of the presser.
What’s your evidence for this assertion?
He was asked a bloody question about it. Should he have not answered it? Sheesh.
Apparently Abbott said: “Yes, we can” (for winning the next election) on the ETS issue.
How delusional can you get. It’s the economy, stupid. Always has been and always will be.
Judging from what Abbott and Barnyard have said about the Australian economy. They have no credibility at all on economic management, and Sloppy AWOL with Turnbull. There is more than NONE.
Economic Management for Australia will be always better and trusted under Labor.
For most of the presser, Rudd was talking about Abbott. Who is running the government? Why isn’t he talking about his government’s plans and progress? Are they that vacuous…?
And it continues Scorpio. You can see it now.
LOL! Did you even watch all of it? The first half was the government announcing new air port security.
Psephos,
Don’t be so naive, Adam!
For a number of commenters here “assertions” are all they can offer.
Assertions are easy and don’t require “evidence” and are a common tactic in “baiting” and “tr*lling” which has been rampant today!
But now Abbott is stuck, if he shifts Barnyard to another portfolio, then he will look like a bad decision maker.
I watched it too you know and what you are saying is crap. Ley me ask again -
He was asked a question about it. Should he have not answered it?
AdelaideNow:
Politics is about impressions. Like with net filtering and comment crackdowns, the increasing perception is that Labor cracks down on things young people enjoy. Very regressive. The Green vote continues to reach new heights.
If you want to see what the Green vote does when people tire of Labor, just look at the basketcase of NSW – 17%. Sounds more like what you’d see in Tasmania.
Ley = let
People keep saying we’re due for it, but I really hope another 60s/70s wave of mainstream progressive thought comes along soon. With each regressive decision Labor makes, the more the people will be enraged enough to rebel…
There’s an MPI on today’s program:
“The failure of the Government to honour its explicit commitment to act with ‘integrity’” proposed by Mr A. D. H. Smith (Casey).
Similar theme to yesterday’s.
briefly
That the ALP have moved to the right in recent years is beyond dispute. As they did so, the Greens have started to fill the room on the left. Yes the Liberals are more right than the ALP, irrelevant to the point being made.
No I didn’t see that. I watched the last 5 minutes and it was all about Abbott.
Yesterday’s censure motion I mean.
I was not paying attention when the “every kid gets a laptop” myth began, but I was present at the beginning of the “Kevin Rudd said he wanted to raise the drinking age to 21” myth began. I saw it on TV and now have the transcript, which I reproduce below:
‘TONY JONES: Right. Let’s get an answer – a specific answer – to Linna Wei’s question about raising the drinking age – the legal drinking age – to 21. Would you consider it?
‘KEVIN RUDD: I don’t have the evidence in front of me to say whether we can or whether we can’t. I’d just rather be straight up with you and say…
‘TONY JONES: Would you like to?
‘KEVIN RUDD: Of course. I mean – you mean would I like to?
‘TONY JONES: Would you like to raise the drinking age to 21? Of course.
‘KEVIN RUDD: I believe in something called evidence-based policy, which is if the evidence is there and it’s capable of being proven that it works, then we look at these things and make a decision. But you’re asking me for a personal impression. You don’t run policy that way, Tony.’
(http://www.abc.net.au/tv/qanda/txt/s2811552.htm?show=transcript)
Tony Jones asked, “Would you consider it?” Note the “consider”.
Kevin Rudd answered by saying the evidence wasn’t in.
Tony Jones then said,
“Would you like to?’, as in “Would you like to consider it?”
Kevin Rudd answered “Of course” to that question, not to the one about whether he would like to raise the drinking age. This is clear from the comments he made both before and after the “Of course” about the need for evidence etc.
Of course, none of these particulars will stop the claim that he said he wanted to raise the drinking age, just as no recitation of ALP election policy has stopped the claims that he promised every kid a laptop.
I thought Mr Rudd performed terribly poorly for the start of the program but finished strongly. I could not help but wonder how Paul Keating would have handled it. The Liberal narrative of broken promises and a ‘do nothing’ government is biting now. That does not change my view that Labor will win the next two elections. It has broken promises, but it is not a “do nothing” government. But Labor insiders had better start lifting their game on delivery. One of the holes Labor has dug for itself is to involve itself in every area of policy, instead of saying, as in a true federal system, that an issue is the responsibility of the states and if people don’t like what is happening they can vote in a new state government to fix it.
Guess what argument this is trying to fire up?
Gary Bruce,
Yeah, it’s not far removed from being “pitiful”!
I’m out of here! The drongos’ are welcome to it!
Say no more. This is just BS. I’m sorry but this is trolling at its finest.
http://www.adelaidenow.com.au/kevin-foley-accuses-liberals-isobel-redmond-over-chantelois-issue/story-e6frea6u-1225828182255
Yes Adam, there’s nothing to see is there Adam, bob is making a mountain out of nothing isn’t he Adam.
It’s Labor staffers like yourself that breed the complacency capable of losing elections.
gary bruce
I would have through you would have called anyone who say Barnyard childish
Chris Curtis
I think what Rudd was saying was, I do not want to lose any votes, can I sit on the fence ….. I really want to sit on the fence ….. I really want to sit on the fence …… ok you have forced my hand, well kids are dying, the populist thing to say would be that we want no more kids death …… wait do I have a position on this, who cares, it is just about maximising votes
What? I’m being honest. I did only see the last 5 minutes of the presser, but from what I did see, Rudd couldn’t stop talking about Abbott. He was using his opponent’s weakness as his tool for re-election just like Howard did. The way I see it, a government doesn’t need to do this if their policies are sound and successful.
Where’s the proof of that?
Goodie, my first question time of the year.
Wow, this is what QT has been reduced too? This is just pathetic.
*to
“I’m like Howard therefore i’m good” doesn’t wash with me.
Pass. *switches off*
So you made this comment not knowing how long the presser had gone for? That’s either a foolhardy thing to do or you were being intentionally mischevious. I have better things to do. Ba
Well that explains why you are wrong.
Gary,
I have feel for these things. The opinion polls have already settled below the stratosphere. Don’t accept my word – just watch as more and more media space is devoted to the “broken promises” and “do nothing” themes.
According to Alexa.com, MySchool is now the 197th most popular Australian (.au) website:
http://www.alexa.com/siteinfo/myschool.edu.au
I heard KK say that she wouldn’t be looking at changing the alcohol laws in NSW as she hadn’t seen anything to indicate that she should. A Young Libs guy say the same.
hyp?o?crite??/?h?p?kr?t/ Show Spelled Pronunciation [hip-uh-krit] Show IPA
–noun
1. a person who pretends to have virtues, moral or religious beliefs, principles, etc., that he or she does not actually possess, esp. a person whose actions belie stated beliefs.
2. a person who feigns some desirable or publicly approved attitude, esp. one whose private life, opinions, or statements belie his or her public statements.
Hypocrite – Someone who pretends that they have problem with people making fun of other people’s name, when in fact they have no problems with other people’s name being redicule, only those from the Labor party – hypocrite
Oh Goody someone hit the Crikey server with a big hammer.
lol
probably Michael Atkinson latest attempt to shut down the net?
http://www.adelaidenow.com.au/iron-man-tony-abbott-defends-remarks-about-housewives/story-e6frea6u-1225828307975
What Abbott is saying is
Feminists – go back into the kitchen and iron my shirt
In early hours this morn , Briefly posted this excelent objective post on Greens
Briefly
#591
“In any case, I am not taken by the Greens on anything much, including CC. As a person with a trivial carbon footprint, to me they just come across as sort of parasitic. Strong words, I know. But they get their support by shaving supporters from Labor. They are as curious a bunch as ever sat in the Parliament, I would say. They are quick to claim to have high purposes, and yet they have no better political morals than Wilson Tuckey. More strong words.
I would feel a lot better about them if they hammered the Liberals, along the lines of “My enemy’s enemy is my friend.” But no, they make their political living by chipping away at Labor. It makes them my enemy’s casual ally, present at the battle in case there are bodies to rob. It is hard to respect the Greener-than-thous for just this reason.”
http://www.smh.com.au/opinion/politics/how-to-get-a-450000-job-no-ads-required–just-a-nice-word-from-the-minister-20100209-no66.html
Now I get the NBN
Firstly we will give a $450k job to someone, What can CONroy do? Kaiser would be ideal, 15 years of union experience and 10 as an ALP head quarter man, once the NBN hire him, they cannot complain that he have no real world experience anymore.
with $43 billion we can hire at least 3,000 labor hacks, everyone in this blog except the Greens and Liberals will get a job. They will all belong to the public sector union
More donation to the ALP, more votes for the ALP
now I know why we need the NBN
Oh dear, the Coalition is so short of “talent” that they cant find another decent looking female MP to sit along side the new member for Higgins. Put Bronnie there!!
And Julia Baby, stop playing with your lips.
ron
define objective?
dovif
Did Mike Kaiser ever work for a telecommunications company? – Do some research before you reply.
OT on the latest opinion polls (but then again so are about 95% of the comments here – that’s why it’s so interesting to read) but I just received an email from Twitter saying that Godwin Gretch had asked to join as a “friend”. Given that I don’t have a Twitter Account (wouldn’t bother even if I knew how to open one) but, as a matter of interest, has this happened to anyone else?
I’m now wondering what is so fascinating about me that Mr Gretch wants to be a follower or friend or whatever it’s called. I did work in the federal AG’s department but that was so long ago that I doubt if I’d have any interesting information for him! On the topic of Mr G., is the poor lad still in hospital or has he been transferred to Goulburn Gaol yet?
The story about NSW over taking S.A. in wine production was wrong. The ABS published the wrong figures:
http://www.adelaidenow.com.au/abs-to-apologise-for-wrong-wine-production-statistics/story-e6frea6u-1225828311173
HINT: It isn’t actually Godwin Grech, it is someone who impersonates him as a joke:
http://twitter.com/godwingrech
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