Despite Labor’s attempts to play down the polls yesterday, including a public warning from ALP secretary Tim Gartrell to MPs that the figures represented an intention to vote rather than rusted-on support, internal Liberal Party polling is also ringing alarm bells.

Emerging from a partyroom meeting that participants described as “depressing”, Liberal MP Pat Farmer echoed his colleagues’ concerns that voters no longer believed the Government on the important issue of the environment.

Another Liberal MP mentioned the Government’s failure to ratify the Kyoto Protocol on climate change as hurting support among young people.

Coalition MPs fear Mr Rudd’s refrain – that a government of climate-change sceptics cannot find a climate-change solution – is resonating with voters. And Labor’s promise to use public funds to build a broadband network is also winning support.

“My point is that people in the real world outside of Canberra in western Sydney are back to the basics,” Mr Farmer told The Australian. “It’s basic things like roads, mortgages. A lot of young people are interested in the issue of the environment.

“Broadband is also a huge issue out there. As far as the young people are concerned, they want the latest technology and they want it now, and for that reason we need to show some vision.”

http://www.theaustralian.news.com.au/story/0,20867,21818045-601,00.html

Talkback tactic wins PM his voters
David Uren, Economics correspondent
May 30, 2007

THE elderly and poorly educated have secured the Coalition its hold on government in an electorate increasingly influenced by issues thrown up in the course of the election campaign.

Macquarie University researchers attribute the Coalition’s success with these groups to John Howard’s strategy of centralising his media strategy on talkback radio.

“We think this tells you a story about the policies that the Government has run, with an appeal to more populist issues directed through the talkback media,” Macquarie University professor Murray Goot said yesterday.

When Labor was last in power, people with no post-school qualifications were one-third more likely to vote for Labor than for the Coalition. Since 1996, they have been almost evenly split.

The Government’s survival may turn upon whether its industrial relations laws cost the support of the “Howard battlers” – the blue-collar workers in industrial suburbs where the Coalition has won seats from Labor.

The research shows education, rather than income or occupation, is the main factor behind what makes blue-collar workers more likely to vote for the Coalition.

The Government’s support from people in blue-collar occupations has been volatile, almost matching Labor in 1996, falling in 1998 and recovering in 2004.

The Coalition has also cemented its lead among older voters.

http://www.theaustralian.news.com.au/story/0,20867,21818093-601,00.html

Where was the judge he’d never seen? Where was the high court he had never reached? He raised both hands and spread out all his fingers. But the hands of one of the gentleman were laid on K.’s throat, while the other pushed the knife deep into his heart and twisted it there, twice. As his eyesight failed, K. saw the two gentlemen cheek by cheek, close in front of his face, watching the result. “Like a dog!â€? he said…

- Franz Kafka, The Trial

But it won’t surprise when their vote falls in 07 from 04:
1. When change is afoot, the electorate polarises somewhat.
2. The Greens rise was a mix of frustration on global warming collapse of Democrats. Labor first (and now in catchup the govt) have put climate policy in the mainstream. A policy victory but political poison for the Greens (similarly, ‘border security’ was Hanson’s pyrrhic victory).
3. Rudd is slippery and no leftie. But he exudes urbane intelligence. A large slice of Green support has been intellectuals, who trust his brains and hate Howard enough to forgive (for now) Rudd’s lack of ideological anchoring.

The Greens will roll with the punches, but short of ecological catastrophe of the kind that hurts suburbia, they won’t break through the minor party barrier.

Wow, did Rudd do and say all that? How cruel and silly.
All those issues that the general public just accept as normal rodent behaviour.

Hang on? Not damning John boy with faint praise is he?
Maybe Tipus Brutus will take a tilt at the top job yet.

“But let me just remind the leader of the opposition that there is a long way to go before a decision is made by your master and mine – and that is the Australian people.”

Wait… Is he claiming to be the personification of the Australian People here? ‘Cause it’s actually you who decides when the people decide, Mr. Eyebrows, or at least up until the first week in January.

Maybe they’re just not up to the top job!

Its pure denial too. At some point, Rodent made the mistake of believing the Govt Gazette hype.

May I, at this point, suggest that the LIberal Party Campaign Song should be “Listening” by Pseudo Echo.

Listening
Like you did before
Now you’re
Listening no more
See the girl
She’s the one I want
To be holding
Holding me close

I say You say
Weren’t you listening
Now it’s too late
You’re not listening
I say You say
Weren’t you listening
Now it’s too late
You’re not listening

I’ve heard it all before
So many words
That you’ve just closed the door
If you notice
The changes that you fear
But now it’s too late to see

I say You say
Weren’t you listening
Now it’s too late
You’re not listening
I say You say
Weren’t you listening
Now it’s too late
You’re not listening

I hope you understand
The feeling
The freedom I command

I say You say
Weren’t you listening
Now it’s too late
You’re not listening
I say You say
Weren’t you listening
Now it’s too late
You’re not listening

http://www.lyricsandsongs.com/song/562848.html

AN angry John Howard has accused Labor leader Kevin Rudd of being “puffed up” and cocky after opinion polls showed the opposition heading for a landslide win later this year.

With the latest Newspoll showing Labor back at record levels of support despite the crisis over Mr Rudd’s wife’s business dealings, the Prime Minister urged Coalition MPs to maintain the faith before going on the attack in Parliament.

During a bitter debate, Mr Howard and Treasurer Peter Costello launched personal tirades against Mr Rudd as he unsuccessfully attempted to censure the Prime Minister over climate change.

Mr Howard angrily dismissed Mr Rudd as being full of “puffed-up hubris” and of having the “most fragile glass jaw in Australian politics”.

“The leader of the opposition has come into this place feeling very, very much the cock of the walk, he feels full of himself, he feels very much on top of everything, he thinks everything is going swimmingly his way and he’s entitled to behave like that and I understand why he might behave like that,” Mr Howard told Parliament.

“But let me just remind the leader of the opposition that there is a long way to go before a decision is made by your master and mine – and that is the Australian people.

“There is a long way to go before the Australian people make a decision about who is better able to handle the most vital economic decision to be taken in this country’s experience over the next 10 years.”

http://www.news.com.au/perthnow/story/0,21598,21816713-5005361,00.html

Nobody takes any notice of what is said in parliament. It’s a waste of time. People read their payslips and draw their own conclusions and have done so since 2005.

See LINK .

It’s the bloody IR stupid!

On IR Gillard 50 per cent , Jokin Joe 31 (Roy Morgan May 17 poll).

To cut to the chase: IR legislation has sealed Ratty’s fate. And he is promising more where that came from. Frank, you’re right. It’s a death wish.

Don’t be surprised if these poll fugures are as good as it gets for the Libs.

FEDERAL Treasurer Peter Costello has elevated Kevin Rudd’s character to the centre of the election campaign with a wide-ranging and aggressive parliamentary attack.
Mr Costello accused Mr Rudd of not telling the truth, of using crude language and of benefiting from his wife’s business even though Labor opposed the use of private job placement networks and individual contracts.

He described the Labor leader, who is riding high in the polls, of lacking the conviction and the ability to make hard decisions which were necessary to being prime minister.

The Treasurer used a censure motion, moved by Mr Rudd today against Prime Minister John Howard over his refusal to say how much a government advertising campaign on climate change would cost, to launch his onslaught.

Mr Rudd, as Mr Costello scornfully noted, left the chamber as soon as the Treasurer started speaking.

Mr Costello justified his attack because Mr Rudd, during his speech, had criticised Mr Howard’s character over the so-called “children overboard” affair, the Iraq war and the AWB wheat scandal.

“Let us remember that it was the Leader of the Opposition who began character attacks,” Mr Costello said.

“The Government is quite entitled, in repudiating those character attacks, to ask how reliable, how honest and how candid the Leader of the Opposition has been when he’s been under attack.”

http://www.theaustralian.news.com.au/story/0,20867,21815950-1702,00.html

Are the Libs on a Death Wish or what ?

Right on, Lefty.
This is how Oliver Goldsmith (1728-1774) in “The Village Schoolmaster” perceived a vainglorious poseur who’d passed his “Use-By” date.

“….For e’en though vanquish’d he could argue still;
While words of learned length and thund’ring sound
Amazed the gazing rustics rang’d around;
And still they gaz’d and still the wonder grew,
That one small head could carry all he knew.
But past is all his fame. The very spot
Where many a time he triumph’d is forgot. ”

Comes a time when even “the gazing rustics rang’d around” wise-up to perpetual humbuggery.
Mind you, I’d like a couple of “Climate Clever” fridge magnets for the amusement of friends in the kitchen at parties. Novemberish.

Love it, now where’s Christine Keeler when you need a poster artist?

Is this more “turn your negs into a pos” type thinking, a la “this election is about trust”?

Or will punters read and think “Ok, look: Rodent is Climate Mean and Tricky now. Another reason to bin the old tool.”

If the Labor TPP vote is really steady at about 57-58% (i.e. the population), then the probability of obtaining consecutive samples of 55% then 60% is VERY low (less than 1%, if my stats lessons from years ago haven’t started peeling away from Guinness consumption).

The alternatives are: a genuine positive trend to the ALP (suggested by the jump in primary vote), or a bias was introduced by the special mid-week NewsPoll.

Possible bias sources are purely speculative, hence ripe for blog discussion/ranting. They could be:

- Time of the week.

- The ordering of the questions. The mid-week 55% poll focussed mainly on “who do you think will win”, which NewsPoll don’t normally do. Maybe some respondents get coy about saying “ALP” for too many questions

- The special poll was outsourced by NewsPoll and there were differences in execution, or churning through another 1100 phone calls has led to sloppiness (how this leads to bias I’m not sure).

I’m sure the research is conducted with maximum integrity etc. etc., but then the NewsPoll nabobs or Crosby-Textor know a lot more about the psychology of polling then us plebes.

(Cue X-Files music) … was the special poll an attempt by The Daily Howard to smack down leadership rumblings, or a desperate attempt to get some sort of return on all the coin spent by the Liberals over the last month, knowing in advance that crabby work-slaves might slightly favour the devil you know during mid-week?

The truth is out there, subject to 95% statistical confidence

The fact that the Greens are in the Newspoll results is because enough people indicate they would vote for them despite the greens not being presented as a specific answer option.

Newspoll’s public presentation of its results states that the question is “which of the following would you vote for” but doesn’t list what are “the following” . That is not good enough.