And I’m not just talking about the Brisbane weather (though it’s 31 degrees outside with a dry, hot wind)… Newspoll is out tonight, and its significance to the state of political play will be out of all proportion to its actual importance, given the meltdown that Howard suffered after the last one (not to forget the temporary rise and inevitable fall of that estimable duumvir, $weetie, or the Subprime Minister, as Annabel Crabb calls him…). In truth, it’s pointless predicting it (and the last one was probably a statistical outlier), though Tim Dunlop has a go:
As someone said on Insiders yesterday, it is almost impossible to expect Labor’s Newspoll lead to get any larger. So expect a shift back.
What’s actually important is the long term movement in the polls, illustrated by this graph from Peter Brent/Mumble [reproduced courtesy of Crikey]:
<img src="http://larvatusprodeo.net/wp-content/uploads/2007/09/mumblepoll-graph.jpg"
We’re going to end up with a lot of spin either way – most of which will have no relevance whatever to voting intentions (which are still probably at or above their now traditional level of 55/45 or 56/44 to Labor). If there’s movement back to the Coalition, what we’ll get is eminently predictable, and if it’s steady or in Labor’s favour, we’ll get another round of leadership speculation. It will be interesting to see where John Howard’s approval rating is, since he’s now trumpeting himself as more popular than his party (a ludicrous argument as the question doesn’t even measure “popularity” as such). So if LP readers want to, please use this thread to get your predictions about the spin in early. Or the result. Or chat about the weather, if you like!
More important as a barometer of what’s actually going on, I think, is the way that Kevin07 has effectively taken the timing of the election out of the hands of the government, which is on a par with the “steady as she goes, everyone’s used to thinking of Rudd as PM already and tired of the argy bargy from that carping opposition government” strategy.
In that vein, I’m surprised more hasn’t been made of what was effectively a campaign launch from Rudd on the weekend. As I’ve observed previously, it’s highly significant that discussion has moved on in many respects to how Rudd would deal with various issues, while the shambolic show that is the government is treated as yesterday’s news. The Mandarin Moment may, in retrospect, have a large symbolic weight in analyses of this extraordinary phenomenon, which as I’ve also argued, is a natural and self-destructive consequence of Howard’s year long hubris.
Today, this glossy newsletter from my local MP, Arch Bevis, landed in my mailbox.
Note the first sentence about election timing.
<img src="http://larvatusprodeo.net/wp-content/uploads/2007/09/electionad.JPG"
As is well known, the wording and the visual themes (note also the fresh ideas tag and the Kevin07 like beachy image) are centrally designed and fed to individual Labor MPs and candidates. So a lot of Australians will have received something very similar today.
Labor is avoiding any danger of their vote peaking by taking control of the election’s timing. The Libs are damned whether or not Howard calls it soon. If he brings it on, Labor sails in with a landslide lead. If he doesn’t, he risks further annoying the feck out of “all of us” with the nonending and shrill nonsense that is the permanent campaign, while Rudd stays largely under the radar, popping up only in carefully calculated soundbites looking all Prime Ministerial. It’s all of a piece – consider, for instance, Rudd’s habit of ignoring the government benches during Question Time. That Mr Rudd is an extremely clever politician.
Speaking of Howard, Rove last nigght Comared Howard to Herpes
Video is here via Crikey.
http://2007.crikey.com.au/Media/video/Rove-herpes-51a4e84f-e151-4603-bedd-3bcc9826f6e4.wmv
Well, re Rove’s comparison, Howard is ike some horrible disease that the Libs would like to keep the electorate in the dark about. Andrew Bolt in a column on the weekend (and Bolt is not some-one I’m any kind of fan of) compared him with Gollum clutching the Ring. Now that I like – the dark power eating away at Ratty’s soul – if he has one.Or is he some sick kind of Faust who won’t relent on his bargain with Mephistopholes, (With apolgies to both Goethe and Marlowe.)He fades awy more each week as the opinion polls continue to predict defeat.
Once more I loved Krudd’s cheek, with his pseudo election campaign opening.Maybe the MSM didn’t get the seriousness of it – or the joke.Howard must have had nightmares that night.
Anyone been keeping an eye on Ackerman,you will know the libs are terminal when he dumps Howard,on the polls we shall have to await the prognostications of Shamahan tomorrow on Newspoll,hi Frank I see Simon and 6PR are running both Bolta and Shamahan as their commentators on national political scene
From the chart it looks like labor was pulling away in the polls before Rudd became leader.
Anyway, onto the next newpoll. The coalition needs a minimum of 44% or else the leadership jungle drums will start bongo-ing again.
But why herpes? Why not a dose of the clap as per the Monty Python Oscar Wilde /Prince of Wales skit? http://www.phespirit.info/montypython/oscar_wilde.htm
Because you can cure the clap.
Telling people there’s going to be an election in the next few weeks is very clever. I’ve met plenty of people who think it’s already been called.
That, and Rudd’s tendency to behave as if the government isn’t even there, is a good combination.
Oh it’s beautiful. Every possible advantage for the government is being turned into disadvantage. Holding out on the election date in the hope Rudd muffs it is seen as timewasting. Government advertising is seen as a waste of taxpayer’s money. New policy is framed as too little and too late. Lauding the economy is seen as arrogantly taking credit for the mineral boom. Security reminds voters of Iraq. And generational change gives us Costello. Watch and learn.
Turnball Flyer leaves out Howard and Liberal Party. Is he embarrased or is he planning something else ??
http://www.smh.com.au/news/national/turnbull-flyer-leaves-out-pm-and-libs/2007/09/17/1189881418391.html
anthony, yes, I’m finding it uncommonly amusing. Talk about “messing with the PM’s mind!”…
Everyone:
The polls certainly do look bad for Howard and now he is obviously desperate.
I’ve said it before but in my own OPINION, I would not be surprised if some sort of a vague terrrorist or other threat was cooked up to stave off defeat by delaying the election. Nothing like a national emergency [real, imagined or manufactured] to get the whole nation behind the Ruler.
Unfortunately, we do live in trouble times and there are real threats out there; who knows but there might even be real terrrorists with real plots to cause us real harm during a peri-election period.
How would we ordinary Aussies initially distinguish a real threat or a real outrage from what many would assume is merely an election stunt? Such is the level of cynicism about politicians and the news media right now. It would have been far, far better if someone had tapped Howard on the shoulder a few days ago and then put up a dynamic new candidate for Bennelong. Too late now.
Then there is still all the fallout from the AWB which nobody seemed to remember too much about.
Yeah Mark it’s good politics and good comedy – anyone idiot can set someone’s suit sleeve on fire but to do it next to a tank of piranhas takes skill.
Take heart, Steve. AWB is still remembered, along with all the other scandals. It still rates a mention in a few NSW regional letters to the editor which discuss the Howard Government’s track record.
Precisely Mark. Of all the polls to date, this is the ballbreaker. This is the poll that may determine whether Howard goes early or late. This is the poll that could trigger utter self destruction on leadership within the Liberal party. If it’s status quo 58.5/41.5 or worse for the LNP, I predict early so that his “team” doesn’t forcibly retire him. If it’s a point or two below 58.5 to the ALP, I predict a much later election, as Howard and minions will regard this as some kind of clawback creating the proverbial spinning, clutching at straws and much pontificated GG wankery of weeks x the differential for “victory”.
It’s all a nonsense really as a point or two is well within the margin of error in my limited understanding of the average of polls in the last 6? months: such is the knife edge that Howard is poised on vis a vis his “loyal” band of gutless wonders and headless chooks–(loved that cartoon “buy a lame duck and get a goose for free”)
But anyway, my prediction is status quo since prising away more rusted on Howard supporters at that higher end is exponentially more difficult, unless of course there’s a rout, which I don’t believe is on for the moment.
(But bring on the rout and if 62/38 Howard is thoroughly ratshit.)
Grahame I’m not so sure a terrorist incident, even an American attack on Iran would necessarily help Howard. Iraq is on the nose for the majority, Iran would IMHO be an extension of that. A terrorist attack here may well trigger the idea that 1) the coincidence is suss 2) Howard has form on anti-terrorist fuckups, why didn’t he prevent it? 3) There would not necessarily be an available wedge against Labor.
Channel Seven News has reported that the poll will show a “significant shift back to the government”.
It was just reported on channel seven’s six o’clock news that tomorrows Newspoll will show a significant shift back to the Coalition. No figures were mentioned.
I too heard Channel 7 remarking on the “shift” in Newspoll as well as petulant remarks from Alexander Downer saying that presumably next weekend Mr Rudd will give his electoral victory speech.
I might add that on saturday I was among the public contacted by Newspoll (but not on voting) to answer questions for a survey being conducted on behalf of the Department of Employment and Workplace Relations. I had to interrupt the young person who put put the questions to me to say on several occasions that I found the very questions manipulative and aimed to elicit a response by forcing the respondant into a cul-de-sac. I indicated that I no longer listen to the TV advertising by using the mute button to silence the propaganda.
Significant shift means 3 or 4 points.
Less is not significant.
More would bring on a different description, such as huge.
Channel Seven News has reported that the poll will show a â??significant shift back to the governmentâ??.
Bewdy. More luck for Labor. He get’s to go down with ship.
“Captain Howard, we thought we saw an iceberg” said many of the crew.
“Nonsense”, said he.
” I am the ‘decider’ on the good ship Titanic and….
57:43 2PP I reckon. Above 60 for Labor would sure provide some laughs though.
I’ve never trusted Newspoll…& personally i don’t see what all the fuss is about. By building up Newspoll as the ‘font of all knowledge’ & ‘Soothsayer’ too many political pundits are walking straight into the Kingmaker’s trap.
Murdoch is the Master of Manipulation. And he has various ways of getting viewer’s/reader’s attention…from ‘faux’ debates to getting his staff to build up expectations regarding their poll. Ignore his Enabler’s hype long enuff & he might actually vanish into thin air…hopefully his kids will be less Machiavellian in their running of the Corporation & we, in Australia, can get down to being a real Democracy again.
I’m pleased you put up the Mumble graph Mark…gives a better overview of where this election is heading. A victory for Labor.
Check out my view of ‘The Team’:
comment # 7 at
http://www.roadtosurfdom.com/2007/09/16/by-their-throwaway-lines-shall-you-know-them/#comment-328145
and other marvellous postings from Ken L. & other commentors.
BTW, an excellent assessment of this strange period Mark. Keep up the good work Lav Prod Collective!
Peter:
Iran could be in play: it has been suggested the israeli ( 6 Sept) air strike against a syrian research establishment ( with nth korea supplied nuclear materials?) was a “dry run” for an iran operation. Neither Israel nor Syria are talking about it, so there was something spooky hit.
Rumours are abounding on the interweb tubes of a significant shift back to the coalition. Oh Well. Can’t win ‘em all (except for the election, hopefully).
ABC says 8 points.
BBB
Heh! It’ll be more fun watching the spin than worrying about the poll itself. This election is great fun so far. I’m glad Rudd called it so early.
Apparently it’s 55:45 2PP. Same old, same old.
Danny,
Iran is not in play. The level of internal tension against Amahdi-najad is suiting Israeli security forces just nicely thank you.
This election will be fought on purely domestic policy I think.
I also think it is quite foolish to write Howard off. As a Liberal, at the moment I have to say that on the campaign trial there is none of the big swing mood for change that I saw in 1996. Sure, the usual suspects hate Howard and the Liberal party but times are pretty good for many swinging middle class voters. And in a system where there is compulsive voting, these swinging voters are actually the crucial barometer.
In my view, Howard should call the election in early December in order to give him time to bed down (ie. smack down) some of the nervous nellies on the backbench and formulate a 5th term agenda.
Thanks, nasking!
Heh!
You’re so right, Phil. $weetie will be claiming that it’s a result of the new improved duumvirate and his “plans” while Howard will claim it as endorsement of his decision. We’ll get salivating from Shanahan etc. Maybe even the revival of rabbit and hat talk…
And all that’s happened is that Newspoll has returned the average result for the last six months – Labor by a mile.
Antonio, what’s he been doing for the fourth term since WorkChoices was passed? Oh, yeah, that’s right, the permanent campaign.
Mark, largely ignored demands to call the election sooner rather than later and a largely ignored de facto campaign launch doesn’t really add up to ‘[taking] the timing of the election out of the hands of the government’.
BBB
7:30 Report says 55-45 2PP, back to the future where the stuntsman messes with the PM’s head.
BBB, see the argument in the post from which I don’t resile.
Btw – I hear via Facebook Antony Green will be on Lateline tonight talking about Newspoll.
“I might add that on saturday I was among the public contacted by Newspoll (but not on voting) to answer questions for a survey being conducted on behalf of the Department of Employment and Workplace Relations.”
Most interesting PJ. Can you remember the questions?
The liberals shouldn’t be celebrating too much I think.
The earlier 59 to 41 Poll to Labor was a aberration, elections are generally much closer. 55-45 is around where the polls have been sitting all year.
10 Points is still a landslide. The government haven’t much inroads into the core support for Labor.
Correction: 10 Points is still a landslide. The government haven’t made much inroads into the core support for Labor.
ABC says 8 points.
Which is very misleading.
The ABC said a change of 8 points which means 4 people in 100 changed their minds.
The difference between them is 10 pts.
55% is 95 seats.
Hardly reason for the Coalition to celebrate. There is still a long, long, way for them to crawl back into contention.
Still bizarre how they gained ground.
They probably haven’t. The last Newspoll was almost certainly an outlier, and this one is a correction. It’s statistical noise. If anything it probably understates Labor’s support when you look at the weighted average for September which is 58% 2PP. You’d need to recalculate that, but basically as I said, we’re in the same territory – 55/45 where we’ve been for most of the year. I think it’s probably more like 56/44.
If the Coalition think this is brilliant news, they’re fools. But we already knew that.
Antonio @ 7.13 pm
… compulsive voting….
I do believe the voting is compulsORY, it seems the commentary and writing and viewing is compulsIVE
But even if the last Newspoll was an upper outlier, and this was a lower, I still think that big a change would imply they’ve gained a little ground. Which I find singularly bizarre, given what has happened this past week. Actually, I think it’s bizarre that they didn’t lose ground.
It’s not that big a shift – it’s 4%. Have a think about the margins of error in both polls.
Newspoll framed its questions to give Howard 4 extra points. Any more would have made it too unbelievable.
Howard will be well cheered by this tomorrow. If he has gained 4 points from his most miserable performance last week, who knows how many more points he can win back this week now that he is all buoyed up? At this rate of recovery, the next poll may even show Howard-Rudd at 50-50!
And if you look at the weighted average, as I’m suggesting, it brings it down from 58% to 57%.
Here’s my favourite comment on The Poll Bludger’s thread so far:
http://www.pollbludger.com/?p=580&cp=1#comment-38971
Or this one, from Geoff Lambert (note that’s also where I’m getting my 56/44 number from):
http://www.pollbludger.com/?p=580&cp=1#comments
Nothing to see here, folks, move on.
Like I said, the more interesting thing to discuss is Rudd’s tactics.
Huh? The questions are invariant, silkworm. Try sampling error rather than conspiracy theories as the more likely explanation.
Alan Greenspan says the Iraq war is “about oil.” Brendan Nelson has been vindicated.
Hopefully Howard, encouraged, will pull the trigger. The phony war is getting tedious.
Let the real hostilities begin.
Peter Martin is a good read today.
Interesting stuff
Peter Kemp [at 6:21pm]:
Thanks for your thoughts on a desperate stunt to delay the election; they give me glimmer of hope. I hope and pray you are right and that the futility of trying such a tempting stunt will dawn on Howard and his
accomplicescolleagues.Phil:
Can I book a front row seat near the middle, please.
Maybe Ratty got a little bit of the sympathy vote as Julia Gillard predicted…
“Like I said, the more interesting thing to discuss is Rudd’s tactics.”
The faux campaign start looked eerily reminiscent of Neil Kinnock’s last gasp at getting power.
The Tories won the election in 1992 due to a variety of tricks and strategems but the sense that Labour were already congratulating themselves before the election seemed to turn off some part of the electorate.
Kinnock had modernised the organisation and cleansed the party of Militant and apparent union influence but the presidential style of campaign launch just didn’t appeal to the voters. Their lead in the polls was however always small to non-existent.
Overconfidence can be damaging when some small event pops up and the veneer of control and composure disappears.
Labor will win, assuming no extraordinary event happens (eg. terrorist attack). But I think it’s important to publicly play that down, or you risk psychological oddities as voters will make a reverse protest vote or something, ie. people on the margin might swing liberal thinking Labor is a sure win anyway. This wouldn’t result in a Liberal victory, but it may reduce the margin.
Peter Martin sets out some of the hurdles yet to come.
oops, phil is already onto that. It will however be a particularly spiteful election campaign by the way it is shaping up. Never get between a Tory and ministerial leather is the advice for the faint hearted. For the rest it is a matter of strap yourself in and enjoy the journey.
Bored in HK: Goodpoint. KR hasn’t held up too well under pressure so far. The best hope of the Liberal Party is to get on his goat somehow, & see if he doesn’t turn all Latham-ey.
Don’t get your hopes up too high, satp. You think you’ve seen robotic discipline so far from Kevin07?
Mark: I don’t have any hopes of a slanging match or a decent scrap. But I won’t complain if there is a bit of verbal “to & fro” during the election campaign.
I just wish I knew for certain when the election would be, & who will win.
“KR hasn’t held up too well under pressure so far”
He hasn’t? He held up well when his wife got attacked and he held up well over the strip club affair.
He stole Howard’s limelight as APEC and has managed to get under the government’s skin at every turn.
If Rudd is anything, he is cool under pressure.
Er.. Spiros, don’t get your hopes up to high. KR didn’t handle the “Vietnam Dawn Service” fiasco with much of a cool head. He is noted for pressuring newspapers to not print “bad” stuff.
We could see a bit of smoke come out of his ears during the campaign. The Liberal Party will have one helluva crack at getting on his goat somehow.
I think KRudd is about as good a politician I’ve seen at smiling and acting nice when getting attacked.
Mark,
I think you should calm down a bit with Rudd’s strategy of trying to preasure the PM into calling an election.
Those with a long memory will remember it was also a Hewson Tactic.
This posturing is useless in my opinion, and may lead to people seeing Rudd as arrogant if he plays it the wrong way, or goes too hard on it.
“The Liberal Party will have one helluva crack at getting on his goat somehow.”
They’ve already thrown everything at Rudd.
Apart from his wife and the strip club, they accused him of making up stories about the family being kicked out of their home after his father’s death and there’s the non story about him being complicit in the cover up of a rape, or something.
Now it is true, they haven’t yet accused Rudd of being a member of Al Qaeda, or having porn on his lap top, or doing lines of coke in the Parliament House toilets, and I suppose they could make up a story about his buck’s night, like they did with Latham. They might say all these things in the election campaign. You never know.
All year long they’ve been waiting for Rudd to implode, Latham style. But, you see, Rudd isn’t Latham. Rudd is Rudd, a different beast altogether.
That is why Labor has led the polls 55:45 all year, give or take sampling error.
“We could see a bit of smoke come out of his ears during the campaign. My beloved born to rule,holier than thou,expert economic managers, and all round nice guys, Liberal Party, will have one helluva crack at getting on his goat somehow.”
STAP the closet liberal.
You don’t think people are sick of the never ending election campaign, Stephen? I am – thoroughly – and I’m supposed to be a political junkie. Get the bloody thing over with so we can get on with our lives!
“Get the bloody thing over with so we can get on with our lives!”
Amen to that.
Every poll, every sneeze, every step dissected and spun to death.
At least Howard has been taken off suicide watch.
Silkworm: It isn’t over until it is over. Howard was never on suicide watch with me. I won’t count him out until he concedes on election night.
Spiros: Everything has been thrown at KR? Well that’s all right then, he hasn’t anything to worry about from now on in has he?
Beware! Both you fellers are counting your chickens before they are hatched.
Howard is lying bleeding in the gutter, but at least he is looking up at the stars. Unfortunately, the stars spell out “Kevin07″.
“Get the bloody thing over with so we can get on with our lives!”
I agree Mark, i don’t think this drawn out campaign is healthy for business, Workers or the National psyche. Too much trickery, fear-mongering & stress to be putting on people who have been putting in so much effort all year. If it gets too close to Xmas i imagine many voters will be fed up & take it out on Howard’s lot. Our oldies are starting to get pretty annoyed.
And imagine what it’s done to poor old Peter Andren:
(The Age, September 14, 2007 – 12:44PM)
But that’s typical of King John…in the long run it’s all about him. Stuff the rest of the Country, including decent, compassionate & hard working politicians like Andren. This is the John Howard show. Full stop.
I don’t know if long campaigns are such a bad idea. I’d pay to have those gold poll “analyses” in the GG any time of the year.
The longer this takes, the better. I’ve so many decisions to make between now and the big night. What to drink and how much, who to call, where to be, what to wear – it’s a worse planning problem than your wedding.
And once the football is over in two weeks what else will there be to keep me amused anyway. No, let’s do him slowly- as the prophet advised.
Andren supported the High Court’s Wik decision. Good riddance to him from parliament. Apart from that his electoral office was as helpful as any other I have had occasion to beg help from as a constituent.
Our thoughts are with him and his family at this time, when he faces and endures an uncertain and unavoidable crisis as the man of character we know him to be.
yea, they’ve done wonders for America. the quality of that Democracy is something to yearn for. and we wouldn’t want to deny the companies involved in producing political ads & all those spinmeisters behind the politicians their pots of gold.
Ok phtoshop gurus, see what you can do with this pic
http://www.news.com.au/common/imagedata/0,,5659945,00.jpg
Frank Calabrese: OMG JH’s hands look 20 years older than his face.
Whoever is facing him (KR?) looks like a commercial travelling phoning in an order to head office.
Newspoll Table.
http://www.theaustralian.news.com.au/files/newspoll-18-sep.pdf
Some perspective: If 55/45 2PP to the ALP was actually reflected on election day, it would be the greatest election loss for the coalition since WWII.
Wouldn’t that be a wonderful addition to the Howard legacy?
The spin this morning is quite predictable. It doesn’t matter that people like Mark and the expert psephologists and poll pundits all said the last poll result so heavily favouring Rudd was a statistical outlier, the “improved” result for JWH is being spun as a message from the ouija board.
looks like it is getting closer to end game to me. The much awaited bounce, the release of the climate change material. A false emergency on Howard’s leadership – primed by him personally – and now the Liberal party reconfirming their leader. He’s no longer tricky (must have been hurting them) as he has consulted with his party and now appears more human to the punters.
THey have basically mitigated risks & issues associated with Howard and the campaign: he is not so tricky, old but experienced and ready to handover (sort of).
Now the on message plays by the ministers:
Its a strong team with great teamwork; Australia leads the world on climate change, we need more economic security; use the police and army save indigenous Australians from themselves; beat up on the Labor states at any available opportunity and try and grab their powers; selective pork barelling in key marginals, combined with wedging; coming from behind (again) as the underdog – no certainty about getting re-elected, so no protest votes please; the polls are drifting back our way (real or manufactured) so everyone is now recognising Rudd is dud. etc.
I think they will call it soon. All the lame ducks are nearly lined up.
Antony Green puts it in perspective. Shorter Green is nothing has changed.
Labor has blown right out in the betting markets, reflecting the undoubted fact that Howard is back in the game.
Yesterday, Labor was at $1.28 at Centrebet; today, $1.33.
On these figures, Labor is only a 72% chance of winning the election.
I don’t know if I can stand the tension much longer.
Graham,
You may recall the one-day wonder of a terrorist plot to blow up King’s Cross Railway Station in Sydney beat up by the Daily Telegraph some months, presumably because the Cross is the apogee of Western decadence in Australia -or one of them anyway. It was, of course, all lies, but so far as I know no retraction was ever made. Not thaqt I ever read the DT, unless I find it lying around in coffee shops. Expect more of this type of hype.
Mark,
I agree with you. I just wish they’d get this election over. The tension of waiting for Howard to concede defeat on election night is turning me into a nervous wreck. And on today’s Newspoll figures, he will be conceding defeat. And it looks like Maxine could still take his seat.
Howard needs to delay the election announcement long enough to allow the proposed attack against Iran to fall in the week or two before the election date, in order to transform the election into a war election. He got the information on the proposed attack from Rice when she was here with Bush at APEC.
Tell us more. Were you eavesdropping?
“Frank Calabrese: OMG JH’s hands look 20 years older than his face”
Doesn’t matter how much cosmetic surgery you have done to the face the hands will usually reveal your true age.
Mark
While I am delighted you are showing some flexibility in your psephological shtick, I am disappointed you have not spun this with your usual “margin of error” performance.
Despite GregM’s facile comment, what silkworm is suggesting makes perfect sense, and I fear that events will confirm his grim prophesy.
I’m not sure that an attack on Iranian nuclear installations would provide a Khaki Election in Australia.
Compare the Israeli attack on Saddam’s “research” reactor (early 1980′s?) and the Israeli attack on Syria recently (scarcely a murmur).
No Aussie troops requiredon the desert sands? possible Aussie naval support in the Gulf?
IMHO, if most of the European Union, the UN, and the IAEA support strong action to block Iran’s steady progress towards nuclear weapons, why should multilateral adoption of stronger trade sanctions or a pre-emptive military strike affect our election? I can’t see swinging voters flocking to JWH in such an event.
Or do you think pro-Iranian groups in Australia would take drastic action?
Personally, I put effective non-proliferation VERY HIGH on my wish list for foreign policy. And if that means removing Iranian facilities, as a last resort, then so be it. Not as if this issue has come out of the blue: it’s been bubbling along for YEARS. If diplomacy fails, then “practical non-proliferation” may have to take a different form.
cheerio
Then there is the question of what the Coalition is saying and intends to say about Julia Gillard.
Last week’s Sydney Morning Herald had The Mad Monk highlighting her role as organiser of the Socialist Forum organisation in the 1980s, which he described as a conduit for ex-communists to join the Victorian ALP. This morning on ABC News Radio Costello was alluding obscurely to the dire fate which would befall Australia if Julia Gillard was running the country. At some stage something is bound to be said about her two years as President and Vice-President of the Australian Union of Students, one of which was as part of a coalition with the commos.
Personally I think kicking the commo can at Julia is not likely to move many votes, especially because people like me who know something of these matters know that Julia’s role in her AUS and Socialist Forum capacities was anything but that of r-r-revolutionary scourge of the suburban masses.
Paul Norton
Personally I am heartened that there is still some blood pumping through the ALP’s veins. I adore la Gillard. However, my people tell me that the REAL enemies with dirt on Julia’s past are not the dreaded right or the Liberals, they are her former fellow-revolutionaries.
Paul Norton
Also, if you really do want to play a positive role in effecting left-wing policies in this country, you would do well to drop “the socurge of the suburban masses” shtick. It is a REALLY ugly look.
“I’m hoping that people might now start to apply the same introspection to their choice of government as they would to inviting a stranger into their home to babysit the kids.” Wilson Tuckey.
http://abc.net.au/news/stories/2007/09/18/2036164.htm?section=justin
Oh hell. The polls are going to go well for the Libs now. None of us realised that Labor were actually prospective kiddie fiddlers. Thanks Wilson we would never have known.
Read the thread.
Ambigulous since you’re so concerned about nuclear proliferation I assume you’re horrified by the abrogation of the NPT represented by the US-India treaty, you’re horrified by our sales of uranium to Russia and you’re deeply worried by the destabilising effects of the Israeli nuclear arsenal.
Or is it just Dick Cheney’s latest bombing targets who concern you? This stuff about Iran is looking very much like the disgraceful propaganda campaign we were fed in the buildup to the Iraq war. Especially the complete crap about Iran being behind the Iraq insurgency – that’s a lie comparable to the stuff about Saddam and 9/11.
We have the sad situation where the Iranian president’s word on matters of war and peace is more credible than than the US president’s.
Mark
Oh OK. I was responding just to your OP. My apologies.
“my people tell me that the REAL enemies with dirt on Julia’s past are not the dreaded right or the Liberals, they are her former fellow-revolutionaries.”
Your people?
Let’s do lunch. I’ll have my people talk to your people.
“her former fellow-revolutionaries”
Middle aged Trots and Maoists recollecting events from student politics 25 years ago are not usually the most reliable of witnesses, but I for one am dieing to hear all about it.
Laurie Oakes:
http://news.ninemsn.com.au/article.aspx?id=296819
derrida derider
Yes, as it happens, all of those three matters do concern me.
Et vous?
Spiros, Julia was emphatically not in with the Trots or the Maoists. The CPA was the main organised force nominally to the left of Labor when Julia was involved in student politics. I say nominally because the CPA student caucus, under the influence of the CPA’s Right faction led by the Taft family in Melbourne and Lee Bermingham’s people in Brisbane, was a force for political moderation and organisational bureaucratism in AUS in 1980-82. When the ALP Left caucus first got going in 1981 it was to the left of the CPA students on some key policy debates.
As for Socialist Forum, it was essentially an amalgam of two groupings (the Taft group from the CPA and the soft left ALP students who controlled AUS from 1982 until its demise in 1984) who thought that the established ALP Left was too left-wing, that the feminist, environmental and queer movements were cauldrons of baleful “ultra-leftist” influence, and that all of AUS’s image problems would be solved by abolishing its Women’s Department, and who were deeply hostile to everything to the left of themselves and deeply conciliatory towards the centre-right of the labour movement. One of this group’s earliest intervention in ALP factional affairs was to vote for the readmission of four ertswhile DLP-aligned unions in 1985, one of which (the Shop Assistants’ Union) has since been the mainstay of the hard right in Victorian Labor.
Yes, and it gave the world that well known radical, Evan Thornley.
Paul, for all I care, she could have been with the Spartacists.
This is a little off topic, but, with a quarter of a century’s reflection, do you think that you and your fellow student activitists achieved anything at all? By this I mean politically. I know a lot of people active in those circles at the time achieved a lot socially — great sex, great drugs, great friends for life , even greater enemies for life. But what actually resulted from: “the ALP Left caucus first got going in 1981 it was to the left of the CPA students on some key policy debates.”.
“Spiros, Julia was emphatically not in with the Trots or the Maoists. ”
Paul Norton thanks for ruling that out.
Now what’s the mail on our local neo-cons in government?
Any moles in the ranks?
They sure act like commie ‘bully boys’.
Spiros, the answer is Julia Gillard!
Howard’s deal to sell Autralia’s uranium to India & Russia is Pig Iron Bob all over again. Downer’s protestatiions about “them not using it for nuclear weapons” are puerile and lame.
This is one of the worst foreign policy decisions I have seen from any Australian Government (including Labor’s dismal effort supporting Indonesia’s East Timor invasion and annexation).
Of course Labor is basically happy to flog uranium to anyone too.
That leaves us with the Democrats and the Greens.
“the answer is Julia Gillard”
Best to reserve judgement on that until we see what she achieves in government.
I think I know the problem with the Libs view on the poll results.
They seem to think the situation is all the polls’ fault, ie. poor poll results make people think the Govt is doing a bad job, and if the results get better, people will began to think better of the Govt.
Who’s gonna break it to them?
Peterc, one of the few things Rudd has taken a stand against is the decision to sell uranium to India. Not sure about Russia.
Spiros, that’s an interesting question. To be honest I would have to say that AUS (especially in its last 3 years) absorbed a great deal of activist energy for a meagre return in terms of impact on public policy and public debate. During my time there were some defensive victories in the early 1980s in relation to Fraser Government proposals for up-front university fees and debt-funded student income support. However it must be said that some of the most important campaigns in which students were involved in that period occurred largely outside of formal student union structures (a notable case being the Franklin Dam campaign, to which AUS and many, if not most, of its affiliates contributed very little).
On the other hand, as the years have passed I have often been struck by the extent to which political behaviour which I once thought was peculiar to highly factionalised gatherings of over-wrought young sleep-deprived and substance-ingesting students repeats itself in various forms in mainstream “adult” politics. For example, the infamous Final Finance and Administration session at AUS Annual Council can now be seen as a template for how international policy on global warming is made. This will be explained on another thread.
Peterc, Mark, derrida fils
Do you rate non-proliferation as an election issue worth pursuing seriously? It’s 6 syllables, which is a bugger [or 9 if you insert 'nucular']. But I reckon if the public have cottoned on to the general idea of global warming, proliferation’s a chance to be a BBQ-stopper too.
cheerio
It’s gotta be in the mix, I reckon. Ties in with Howard’s nucular future too!
Mark: Duumvir ?
I think you’ll have to plump for
(Dew-umm-vir-ate) Duumvirate $weetie
as a label, unless you wanted it to rhyme with dumber…
Duumvir & Dumber
SubPrime Minister is *excellent*!
Good to hear that Kevin has ruled out the U-for-India deal, then.
Props to Annabel Crabb for Subprime Minister!
Paul Norton on 18 September 2007 at 12:32 pm
LOL! I was at that ALP conference (as an humble observer, as I never have been a delegate) at the Coburg Town Hall when the hard left threw tomatoes at the newly admitted Unions, thus starting the ‘Tomato Left’ faction.
Mark, Anna Bligh got her start in student politics, did she not?
I’ll beat Mark to it and confirm that Anna Bligh was active in the University of Queensland Union in the early 1980s and once ran for Union President on a broad left ticket which included Rod Welford (current Queensland Education Minister) in opposition to a Labor Right ticket headed by David Barbagallo who was Wayne Goss’s Principal Private Secretary at the same time that Rudd Head of the Premier’s Office. Others in Barbagallo’s circle to have gone on to bigger things included Paul Lucas (newly elected Queensland Deputy Premier), Mike Kaiser (Iemma’s right-hand man) and Fleur Kingham (noted feminist lawyer).
The media is almost always in favour of JH and the Liberal Party. The response to yesterday’s Newspoll is really amazing. If you read the websites of the MSS it appears as if JH has won the election. The Ministers get away with sneering at Rudd. See Downer and his ‘phoney’ comment.
Why are the papers only supporting JH? Even the editorial in the SMH a few days ago was so supportive of JH. What is with the media. It appears that the media only want only one party to form government and that is the Liberals.
The coverage is so partisan. Very disappointing in a supposed democracy.
David Barbagallo has since suffered the triple indignity of:
* being thrashed by Karen Struthers from the Left in the 1997 preselection for the State seat of Archerfield;
* being adversely named in the Shepherdson Inquiry into electoral rorts;
* having his daughter become the leading Trot in her generation of student activists.
Rudd is right in saying the election will be close. I don’t think there will necessarily be any “threat” cooked up, it just doesn’t make sense that people tired of a government with a huge majority will give an equally large majority to the opposition, especially when said opposition is not promising much that’s radically different, bbut the very prospect of change will allow lots of subtle shifts to happen upon which all sorts of promising futures can be built. In this sense, he’ll follow the pattern set by other Labor governments in the states and territories.
Yes I have seen the future. And it’s called a Bracks government.
And a Beattie/Bligh government! A lot of the policy comes from what’s been done by the State Labor Party in these parts…
I meant in terms of electoral outcomes, this being a polling thread and all. Namely, that he’ll squeak in at first, the Coalition will fall apart and the election after this will see a Labor landslide.
That said, I do agree with the idea that all the Labor state governments except NSW, Tasmania and WA have done the intellectual heavy lifting that Rudd will build on federally. The very movement of capable public servants from Melbourne, Brisbane and Adelaide to Canberra will have interesting impacts on the whole federalism debate.
peterc,
Menzies was being branded Pig Iron Bob in 1938 at the time our military were telling the Gov. that Japan was our biggest military threat, and they’d been telling the gov. that since 1928, andf very strongly from 1931. No comparison. Neither Russia nor India are interested in dropping bombs on us.(I hope, but you never know with Howard.)
Me, I reckon that we should all take advantage of the blowout in the etting market odds for Labor in the wake of this poll. Nothing has changed – Labour’s still way out in front and this is a dead government walking.
I would like to think nuclear proliferation would be a major concern for the election – given that uranium sales are probably Howard’s real motive for promoting the “debate on nuclear power”.
Mark & Ambigulous, it is good to see Rudd opposing the sale of uranium to India, but it he hasn’t ruled out flogging it to Russia, which in real terms is probably just as bad. [link]
The irony is that Howard puts so much emphasis on “the war against terror” then he goes and flogs uranium to all and sundry with meaningless “safeguards”. He should get hammered for being a hypocrit and a major contributor to global instability & nuclear proliferation
Thanks, dd. I won a packet on the Qld election so maybe you’re right.
Mark B. pontificates:
If there is “movement back to the Coalition” that is “eminently predictable” then why didnt Mark predict it?!!! He keeps posing as an expert but never adds value by framing a testable and falsifiable hypothesis about electoral fortunes.
This is not the method of science, it is the method of pontificating pundits. Good scientists such as Mumbles, Pr Quiggin and possum politics put out conditional predictions with associated probabilities.
I predicted that the massive ALP advantage would dwindle. I also predicted Howard’s sucessful fending off of the Costello non-challenge. Click on this link for my unseemly bout of gloating.
I am going to stick to my prediction, made earlier this year, that the Opposition will win the election resoundlingly, not in a landlide: ALP 53 – LNP 47.
Mark’s endless stirring of the tea-leaves is useles unless he is prepared to offer explanatory assumptions and a predictive theory about the probably electoral outcomes.
My reasoning behind a resounding ALP victory is that the economy is still ticking over quite nicely. When polling time comes median voters will be not all that likely to make a wholesale rejection of the responsible party.
Howard is also likely to make a somewhat belated recovery as his campaign gathers momentum. He will certainly make voters uneasy about coast-to-coast and house-on-house ALP dominance of the AUS polity.
And the ALP front-bench seems pretty thin on talent. The back-bench looks like a sinecure for union hacks. I can see voters soon tiring of Julie Gillard’s sour puss, nasally whine and deadly earnest ideological grind.
I can see voters soon tiring of Julie Gillard’s sour puss, nasally whine and deadly earnest ideological grind.
Seems to have taken them 11 years to tire of John Howard’s sour puss, nasally whine and deadly ideological grind.
Silkworm and Ambigulous:
Despite getting the dog-pack infesting and degrading the ADF, the usual garrison-gossipers in ex-service organizations and anyone aspiring to be seen in a photo-opportunity with the Dearest Leader to give Howard their complete and unquestioning support …. a war election now would annihilate the Liberal-Nationals Coalition.
Funny thought – can you imagine the Greens in a War Cabinet with quite a few former Young Labor activists? Historians, uncap your pens – we’re in for a very interesting time
Gillard tests very well in Labor focus group research. The “Gillard is unpopular” crap is just the Howardistas talking themselves into believing their own misogynist jive.
Jack, I’ve pointed out to you many times that an election is an unrepeatable event and not one for which you can frame a “testable hypothesis”. Go ask “Pr Quiggin” if you please. I’m sorry to say you really don’t understand social science methodology.
Mark on 18 September 2007 at 10:38 pm
You can point out the truism about elections being unrepeatable event till you are blue in the face. And I will point out that the same can be said for any event, natural or social. So your methodological principle is a recipe for total scientific paralysis.
To be sure there are real problems with framing and testing social scientific predictions, preeminently their self-reflexive character. They can feedback and influence the predicted path of a variable. There is also the inherent unpredictability of new knowledge: what is discovered tomorrow cannot be factored into knowledge today.
But these problems are not grounds for a claim of complete intellectual disability.
In fact federal elections are members of somewhat repeatable event classes. We have electoral cycles of regular three year period. And electoral pendulums which tend to go through procession and recession. We also have a fairly stable political party sytem, long-standing constitution and fairly rational voting populus.
Finally we have tons of data to play with and a fairly good idea of what makes voters tick. The main problem is weighting variable.
Your reference to other social scientists is unfortunate. Pr Q makes predictions about events that are far less repeatable than elections eg the asset price cycle. Andrew Leigh, mumbles and possum pollytics have put out electoral predictive models and crow or eating crow on that basis.
Ray Fair has produced a pretty good macro-economic model of the US electoral system, which has successfully predicted recent elections. And Cameron-Crosby have replicatd it for AUS elections. These models have a better than 50% predictive record. That is good enough to pass scientific muster. (Einstein’s theory of relativity is not 100% true – are you saying it is unscientific?)
Mark should get some published correct electoral predictions under your belt before you lecture others, with some psephological runs on the board, about “understanding social science methodology”. Otherwise his excuses for non-performance in this area look rather lame and self-serving – like failing students who decry the exam system.
There are observable regularities – that’s why it’s a cycle. To claim a model has predictive validity when its record is 50% is just nonsense. I’m sorry. It is.
You can’t even adequately specify what your hypothesis is, or what data you’re using. That’s why it’s pointless having these discussions. Assuming the election result is the dependent variable, what are the independent variables? “Cultural populism”?
This is nothing but stuff conjured up out of your own ideological predilections and party talking points. You’re suffering from a case of projection here, Jack, I’m afraid.
I disagree with what possum is doing, but at least he understands what he’s doing.