You start in, you feel a bit like having a little puke, then it settles down, then everything gets really, really trippy.

so it’s against their journalistic interests to give a fair and balanced presentation of the ‘results’ of the a poll.

“Hmmmmmm, why is it so?” (with apologies to Julius Sumner-Miller)

Whilst it might confuse the general pubic for a time, it would also educate them on what the error margin actually means in relation to the poll results. But maybe they see that as a bad thing, as it might further erode their headline power.

it’s often stated in the fine print when a poll is published, but very rarely DISCUSSED in the accompanying news or opinion pieces. Which is a shame. Are the writers innumerate? I would have thought “one divided by the square root of the sample size” is not too difficult to explain in a paragraph or too. But then pages of sheer, dreary, tremulous speculation would be exposed for the nonsense they are.

Statistics rules! (plus or minus 3%)

Can anyone explain the association between the term “pundit” as used in Australia, and the honourific “Pandit”? I thought the latter was confined to very WISE men such as Jawaharlal Nehru, who had to do the hard yards in the early days of independence?

Well if the polls are on the money and Labor wins in a landslide, what are all these pundits going to do?

What will they do? Exactly what they do now. Suck up to those in power and their minders and write the same old stuff as usual. Dennis Shanahan will not – although he should – lose his job and be turfed out onto the streets, forced to eke out a meagre living selling cigarettes rolled out of tobacco gathered from butts left lying on the pavement. Glenn Milne will continue to take inappropriate mixtures of alcohol, anti-depressents, pain killers and stimulants. Peter Hartcher will go on pretending to be unbiased. Good old Matt Price will probably get a job in PM&C, even though his heart is small-L Liberal because he has been gamely predicting a Labor win for months.
And they will write lots of in-depth articles about how “serious thoughtful insightful journalism” is going to the dogs.
That is my prediction, anyway.
Cheers…

In a few months he’ll be telling people serving him in shops and restaurants that he used to be Prime Minister of Australia and they’ll play along with the crazy old man to humour him – just like Frank Forde use to do. I confidently predict Howard’s rapid physical and psychological decline into a pathetic right-wing Sandy Stone. For survivors of the Howard immigration gulag, there may be some justice in this.

Not so, he and janette are grandparents now, they just may want to enjoy their senior years as such.
He doesn’t want to be anywhere near the seat of power, and therefore responsibility, when the flock of nasty economic, and other, werechickens come home to roost.
It’s like in mid ’86, when “Australia was on its way to becoming a “banana republic”, the Australian currency had recently suffered a 40 per cent devaluation, the country had lost its Triple AAA credit rating and the current account deficit was reaching for the sky”, and JWH himself said ” The times will suit me”…..to not be in the driving seat, then as now.

He knows very well his has been one long lucky streak, (though PK will protest luck’s got nothing to do with it, at least on the economic front), and time’s up. He’s done his job on the party, kept Costello from having a turn, set it up so Malcolm can have his, after sitting this one out.
George and John and Janette will be be sorting out a suitable retirement post for him, say in Carlyle group… if it’s good enough for John Major…
Nucular power is looking good, Ron W’s already done the groundwork.