Comments on: The great by-elections sideshow

By: Mark

Mark — Fri, 11 Dec 2009 13:32:51 +0000

Antony @42 – no, I don’t think I was going too far, though I’m happy to accept what you say about what was in your mind when you wrote the post. What we think others will take from a piece of writing is not always congruent with what they do, and I can justify that as easily from my own experience as a writer whose work is constantly subject to comments as I could from communications or literary theory.

It’s the way I read your post, and I think it’s a justifiable reading. It may not be the one you intended, but all we ever have is the words, not the intent behind them.

By: Mark

Mark — Fri, 11 Dec 2009 13:29:24 +0000

I don’t get how this kerfuffle about not being able to link to GM’s Oz article came about

Danny, this isn’t my job. I read the dead tree paper, and later I wrote a very quick post in a break from doing other things. It used to be easier to find stuff on the Oz’ website. Sometimes I don’t have time to go hunting around google news or wherever. Just the way it is.

By: Mark

Mark — Fri, 11 Dec 2009 13:27:13 +0000

How is there a large block of anti-ETS Labor-leaning voters out there just willing to vote for a Workchoices warrior like Abbott, just to teach the hippies a lesson?

There isn’t.

And a lot of the tradies and labourers and factory workers Abbott would like to enlist in his ‘army’ know very well that their continued employment has been a function of the Rudd stimulus.

By: KeIThY

KeIThY — Fri, 11 Dec 2009 07:49:04 +0000

These guys and gals get another chance in under two years don’t they?!!?

By: Nickws

Nickws — Thu, 10 Dec 2009 07:29:37 +0000

Abbott might be in danger of arousing the lesser of two bases on the ETS?

I reckon there is a fairly dedicated reform base for doing something about AGW, even if it is divided on the current ETS policy—and until the demise of Turnbull all parties save for the Nats were playing for a share of that vote. (I supose I shouldn’t be referring to a cross-partisan phenomenon as a ‘base’.)

Yet that other voting tendency Abbott is now pandering to is, well, just not a very winning group of people for a Coalition Opposition. And cross party? How is there a large block of anti-ETS Labor-leaning voters out there just willing to vote for a Workchoices warrior like Abbott, just to teach the hippies a lesson?

I don’t want to get George Megalogenis in trouble for being on this thread, but I predict the likes of Collis and Sutchbury to (a.) run hard until election day on the notion that there is an army of blue collar people out there who’ll vote anti-ALP for the first time in their lives because of the ETS, and (b.) declare that the whole political system is fucked the day after the landslide re-election of the Rudd government, partly because those stupid bloody bogans decided to act like the turkeys they are and vote for Christmas. Stupid bloody bogans.

By: joe2

joe2 — Thu, 10 Dec 2009 07:10:28 +0000

“That’s why I am wary of reading too much into the result.”

And that, George, is an example of why you get a great deal more respect, here, than the others you work with. Their spin on these results, and the recent Newspoll, to the effect that Abbott was somehow ‘now in business’, has been typically laughable and obviously partisan. He and his party continue to be well behind just as Turnbull was.

By: hannah's dad

hannah's dad — Thu, 10 Dec 2009 07:05:29 +0000

Thank you George.
This response replaces the one that I was about to send, partly as a response to FDB [I substantially agree with your assessment FDB] and partly to continue to ask why such an anomalous duet of interviews that so luckily made it into print came about.
You would, of course, understand why many people, Greens and ALP supporters in particular, would be reluctant to be quoted by “The Australian”.

See,I have actually quoted you in depth around the place on a particular issue, [and got hammered for it I might add, politely tho'] and would like to do so again in general.
Thanks for the response.

By: danny

danny — Thu, 10 Dec 2009 06:58:05 +0000

I don’t get how this kerfuffle about not being able to link to GM’s Oz article came about: a google news search with any of the three quotes George provided finds it no problem at all, now at least, as it would by using any number of other literal strings Mark could have used from the article he read in the paper.

Since it was a front page article, it’s freely accessible via the http://www.pressdisplay.com/ service where you get free unlimited access to the front page of over 1000+ newspapers and magazines and also able to read 2 articles of each current issue per email registration. George’s article was split over two pages, so that routine would have needed to be invoked, but how hard is that?

Is it the case that it wasn’t so easily findable with news google yesterday, when people did such a search? Has Rupert started selectively withholding articles from the browser-space, and this particular one only became available online after an unseemly and unexplained delay?

As long as he doesn’t mess with the google alert ability to search for, find and email personally defined info-morsels I’m happy. Not much point making archives of every occurrence of “whatever your special topic is” from news , web, and blog domains if google only sees some news articles.

By: GM

GM — Thu, 10 Dec 2009 06:57:02 +0000

Agreed Antony,
And long-term governments tend to pick up more of the mortgage belt as they move through the cycle (from memory Hawke in ’87, certainly Howard in ’04).
I agree, the AEC classifications do my head in. Though under pressure of deadline they sometimes come in handy.
I’d watch Wentworth if Turnbull doesn’t contest. Its demography is creeping Labor’s way.

By: GM

GM — Thu, 10 Dec 2009 06:48:36 +0000

hannah’s dad,
Apologies. I didn’t even select the interviews, that’s why I couldn’t answer your questions.
But I can say the reporters who did the work spent the day in the field in Bradfield and in Higgins looking for examples across all voter types.
Most people are reluctant to be quoted, so you take what you can get, subject to the usual constraint that the case study should reflects something that did happen in the by-election. In the examples we cited, we have Labor voters who voted Liberal ahead of Green. You take them all with a grain of salt, just as the main parties take their focus groups with a grain of salt.
Incidentally, many Labor voters told us they cast informal ballots, but wouldn’t agree to quoted along those lines. I did feed that thought into the main piece. That’s why I am wary of reading too much into the result.