In this guest post, LP reader JohnL (who you might remember contributed this excellent takedown of BER myths) examines how sources can manipulate media coverage – in this case, with uncritical acceptance of “secret polling” data that presents those who plotted to remove Kevin Rudd in a favourable light. –Robert Merkel
Gough Whitlam had his “nervous Nellies” when he cut tariffs in 1973 by 25 per cent and Kevin Rudd had his “panicking Pollies” when he sought to extract more tax from wealthy miners in 2010.
The difference was that the “nervous Nellies” remained loyal to a leader who brought Federal Labor to power after 23 years in opposition. Loyalty, and political nous, were lacking in the “panicking Pollies” who used the mining tax and questionable internal polling as their excuses to replace the leader who ended almost 12 years of rule by John Howard.
The plotters are lauded in an article in the Australian Financial Review (AFR) on July 16 2010 by Pamela Williams headed “Killing Kevin: the untold story of a coup”, that details “secret polling” conducted in four NSW “bellwether” seats by long-time Labor pollster UMR on June 16-17, or about a week before Rudd was ousted.
The article demonstrates a continuing weakness of Australian mainstream journalism: the failure to look a gift horse (such as “secret polling”) in the mouth, let alone to check if the nag has any legs. In addition, as is the wont when so-called “inside information” is supplied, there is an uncritical acceptance of the line the source, or sources, want to push.
Praise for the plotters
The third paragraph of the AFR article sets the tone of uncritical acceptance in saying: “Gillard’s ascent to the prime ministership followed an almost flawless campaign ignited by a small handful of Labor MPs just freshly elected in 2007. But it involved some seasoned players too, as well as an explosive campaign by wealthy mining titans, and some subtle manouevring by old Labor hands who traced their lineage back to the days of Hawke’s government.”
Those elected in 2007 and mentioned prominently in the article include: Right-wing Victorian MP Bill Shorten, who holds the seat of Maribyrnong; Gary Gray, MHR for the West Australian seat of Brand and a former ALP national secretary; Senator Mark Arbib, NSW State ALP Secretary from 2004-2007; Victorian Senator David Feeney, former Victorian ALP Secretary; and South Australian Senator Don Farrell, former South Australian ALP President.
The AFR article attributes the “key factor in Rudd’s demise” to the fact that he “had foes everywhere”. It says: “Once his support collapsed in the polls there was nowhere to turn. He had centred all government decision-making in his own office. Nothing could be delegated, no issue was too small for prime ministerial oversight.”
These statements are misleading. Newspoll for June 18-20 (published on June 21, three days before Rudd was ousted and 25 days before the AFR piece appeared) showed Labor leading the two-party preferred vote 52 to 48, its third successive improvement.
While it’s lower than some of the huge leads during 2008 and 2009, it is exactly the margin in the Newspoll for November 20-22, 2007 – the last before the election that brought Labor back to power. In that election Labor did a little better, recording a two-party preferred vote of 52.7 per cent against 47.3 per cent for the Coalition.
Gang of four or one-man band?
The mainstream media made much of the “gang of four” comprising Rudd, then Deputy Prime Minister Julia Gillard, Treasurer Wayne Swan and Finance Minister Lindsay Tanner. For example, as early as 11 April 2009, Peter Hartcher was writing in The Sydney Morning Herald about Rudd convening the “gang of four” that runs the Federal Government. At the very least the existence of a “gang of four” questions the claim that Rudd “had centred all government decision-making in his own office.”
The suspension of the Emissions Trading Scheme (ETS) until 2012 was reportedly decided on a tied vote in late April 2010 with Gillard and Swan for the suspension and Rudd and Tanner against. In “How Abbott won an unexpected climate change in the Gang of Four” in The Sydney Morning Herald, June 26, 2010) Peter Hartcher says Cabinet backed Gillard. If the Prime Minister could be “rolled” by Cabinet it contradicts the AFR claim that “in his bid to eradicate factional control over ministries, Rudd had accorded to himself untrammelled power”.
The article is wrong when it says: “But it was the resources tax that had aroused the most powerful of Rudd’s antagonists. In a campaign on behalf of major miners, BHP Billiton, Rio Tinto, Xstrata and others, their lobby group the Minerals Council fought the government to a standstill on the tax. They commissioned nationwide, weekly polling to assess the impact of their campaign on the government and the electorate. The findings showed focus groups questioning Rudd’s motives for the tax, amid fears of both the short and long-term impact on the economy. It mirrored the public polls and the ALP’s own private polling, as would soon be clear to all.”
ALP vote up in 3 polls after RSPT: The Resources Super Profit Tax (RSPT) was announced on May 2. The Newspoll taken immediately before this, over April 30-May 2, showed Labor’s primary vote at 35 per cent, 43 for the combined Coalition, 10 for Greens and 12 for Others, giving a two-party preferred vote of 51-49 to the Coalition.
The next Newspoll on May 14-16 put Labor’s primary vote at 37 per cent, the combined Coalition at 43, the Greens at 12, and 8 for Others, giving a two-party preferred vote of 50-50. The May 28-30 Newspoll put Labor’s primary vote at 35 the combined Coalition at 41, the Greens at 16 and Others at 8 for a two-party preferred vote of 51-49 for Labor. The June 18-20 Newspoll (the last before Rudd was deposed) showed Labor’s primary vote at 35, the combined Coalition at 40, the Greens at 15 and Others at 10 for a two-party preferred vote of 52-48 for Labor.
Labor’s two-part preferred vote in the three Newspolls after the RSPT was announced went up 3 per cent to 52 per cent, the combined Coalition primary and two-party-preferred vote were both down 3 per cent to 40 and 48 respectively and the Greens (who supported the RSPT) were up 5 per cent on their primary vote.
Mining polls not disclosed
The article states that “in early June” Karl Bitar, then ALP national secretary, met Geoff Walsh, a former ALP general secretary and in charge of public affairs at BHP-Billion, to discuss politics and the mining tax. It says the meeting left unanswered questions of whether the Minerals Council polling results were on the table too. The article says: “Asked about the meeting, Bitar yesterday (July 15) declined any comment beyond saying: ‘Private discussions between me and a former national secretary of the party are private’.”
The AFR article does not enlighten readers as to whether Bitar informed the Prime Minister of his meeting with a BHP-Billiton executive and former ALP national secretary (either before or after it occurred), or whether that meeting fell into the category of “some subtle manouevring by old Labor hands who traced their lineage back to the days of Hawke’s government”.
Anomalies involving Bill Shorten are ignored. The article says: “Bill Shorten, the former national secretary of the Australian Workers Union, Victorian right-wing powerbroker and now Parliamentary Secretary for Disabilities, feared Labor would lose the election and lose it badly. It might be only two or three months of bad polls, but the electoral mood seemed to be setting in.” It says that Victoria had been a Labor stronghold federally, but now seats like Deakin and Corangamite were under threat and others Labor hoped to win looked unreachable. (The main Victorian seats Labor hoped to win were La Trobe and McEwen).
Two paragraphs later the article says that on June 16, after the Queen’s birthday weekend, Shorten went to see Gillard in Canberra and told her there was a real chance that Labor faced a “wipeout”.
Shorten’s conflicting accounts: What is puzzling about this is the lack of any attempt to explain why the first thought of a Parliamentary Secretary with such concerns is to approach the Deputy Prime Minister and not the Prime Minister. Equally as puzzling is the basis on which Shorten came to the conclusion that Labor faced a “wipeout”.
It could not have been the “secret polling” in NSW because that was conducted on June 16-17.
So, let us go to the reasons advanced by Shorten when he appeared on Q&A on Monday, June 28, 2010 and which was reported by The Sydney Morning Herald (the stablemate of the AFR) on June 29 (17 days before the AFR article appeared) under the heading: “I urged Gillard to challenge Rudd: Bill Shorten”.
According to this report Shorten said he approached Julia Gillard on Wednesday, June 23 and told her she should think about challenging Rudd.
That report quotes Shorten as saying he became pessimistic about Labor’s re-election chances during the past fortnight after speaking with voters in his Melbourne electorate of Maribyrnong. It quotes him as saying: “In terms of when, in the last two weeks I became very despondent about our chances of re-election”. (Taking Shorten at his word this means he became very despondent around June 9 – which was after the latest Newspoll showed Labor leading the two-party preferred vote at 51-49).
The other question that arises was that if Shorten became “pessimistic and despondent” after speaking with voters in Maribyrnong some time early in June, he was quick off the mark in telling Julia Gillard that Labor faced a “wipeout” on June 16.
What caused the panic
So what were the horrendous views that voters in Maribyrnong expressed to Shorten that induced such panic?
The first thing Shorten is quoted as saying is: “Going around talking to voters in Maribyrnong, in the disability sector – people said: ‘You can’t just change your mind on climate change and leave a vacuum’.”
Yet, Shorten would have known that Gillard and Swan were instrumental in the decision to defer the ETS which was announced in the last week of April. She seems an odd choice to express fears of an electoral “wipeout” when her ETS decision was one of the factors that he claims led to this perception by voters.
He would also be expected to know that this course was advocated by his factional allies Senator Mark Arbib and national secretary Karl Bitar.
Shorten is also quoted as saying the Rudd Government had failed to sell the RSPT. He said: “They (the voters) were saying: ‘We can see why mining companies should pay more money, but you haven’t explained to us in detail of how it would work.’”
Shorten continued: “We certainly hadn’t explained it well, In terms of implementation, we hadn’t engaged sufficiently with the business section – that was crowding out all our other messages. So I think we had to do something.”
Then, Shorten goes on to say the decision to oust Rudd “wasn’t done on the basis of an opinion poll”. That would mean his decision was apparently based on talking to voters in the disability sector in Maribyrnong, whose concerns (according to him) can be summarised as the Government’s change of mind about an ETS and able to see why mining companies should pay more in tax but wanting more detailed explanation of how it would work.
The final paragraph of that story also contains the ultimate insult: “Mr Shorten said Mr Rudd had been a very good Prime Minister”. Yet, Shorten advocated Rudd’s ousting over some inconclusive conversations with voters in his electorate.
“Internal polling” bandied around
There is another explanation about how Shorten came to the conclusion on June 16 that Labor faced a “wipeout”.
In a June 28 article (18 days before the AFR piece appeared) Possum Comitatus at Pollytics refers to ALP “internal polling” being bandied around before the spill.
Later, Possum Comitatus goes on to say: “This begs the question of whether the recent turn in the polling forced the hand of those in the Labor Party wanting to remove Rudd – putting them in the position where if they did not strike last week, any further improvement in the polls, any further improvement in the polling trends, would effectively close any window of opportunity to replace Rudd with Gillard until well into the next term of government. Especially as any further improvement in the two-party preferred would make many people start to question the authenticity and age of internal polling suggesting a wipeout.”
People can draw their own conclusions from a report that there was “internal polling” being bandied around suggesting a “wipeout” and the use of the term “wipeout” by Shorten on June 16, which was when the “secret polling’ in NSW began.
Reading the teacups wrongly
The July 16 AFR article says: “On Tuesday afternoon (June 22), two key numbers men – Mark Arbib and David Feeney – respectively from NSW and Victoria – met quietly to discuss the situation and to read over the dire polling numbers from their states”.
The article also says South Australian power-broker Senator Don Farrell knew “the situation was not as bad as elsewhere. But Labor would struggle in the southern seats of Kingston (a seat that tends to go with the government of the day), and Hindmarsh, the oldest electorate in the country. In SA, voters were concerned that the new resources tax could affect the big BHP project, Olympic Dam – regarded as the golden goose in a rust-belt state.”
These claims are worth examining.
A different analysis: To claim “dire” polling numbers from Victoria seems to be stretching things. Some elementary research, such as reading Possum Comitatus at Pollytics on June 28, 2010 which analysed polls (with a combined sample of 11,466) over the three months between April and June by Newspoll (a sample of 5766) and Nielsen (a sample of 4200) and an unpublished poll (a sample of 1500), would have shown a different scenario for Victoria.
This analysis showed the Victorian primary vote at 39.3 per cent for Labor, 39.6 per cent for the Coalition and 14.7 per cent for the Greens, and a two-party preferred result in Victoria of 54.8 per cent for Labor, which was 0.5 per cent better than in the 2007 election.
Here is what Possum Comitatus estimated for the ALP two-party preferred vote on June 28 (less than eight weeks before the early election) for States where it was possible to use sufficient polling figures compared to the actual election result and the difference between the Pollytics estimate and the actual result:
| State | Possum’s ALP 2PP estimate | ALP 2PP at election | Difference |
|---|---|---|---|
| NSW (incuding ACT) | 50.9 | 49.52 | -1.38 |
| Victoria | 54.8 | 55.31 | +0.31 |
| Queensland | 48.7 | 44.85 | -3.85 |
| South Australia | 50.9 | 53.18 | +2.28 |
| Western Australia | 44.9 | 43.59 | -1.31 |
* This is the combined percentage of the ALP two-party preferred vote in NSW and Canberra on the combined total formal votes cast in both.
Obviously Possum Comitatus is a better analyst of polling figures than Arbib, Feeney, or Farrell.
Why “secret polling” was questionable
Now let’s have a look at this questionable “secret polling” for four NSW seats.
The article says: “Party polling undertaken on June 16 and 17 in four key NSW marginal seats by long-term Labor pollster UMR highlighted the storm clouds (for Federal Labor). The four seats were the bellwether Eden-Monaro, Greenway, Hughes and Page. Across the four seats Labor’s primary vote was 35 per cent against the Coalition on 47 per cent. The Coalition’s two-party preferred vote across these seats was 55 per cent with a seven per cent swing against Labor.”
If the primary votes for the two major parties averaged 82 per cent across the four seats, 18 per cent would be distributed in preferences. For the Coalition to have an average two-party preferred vote of 55 per cent across the four seats, this meant attracting an average of 8 per cent (44.44 per cent) of the 18 per cent of the primary votes that would be distributed as preferences.
Well, the Coalition share of preferences across these four seats in 2007 was: Hughes 39.90 per cent of 9.7 per cent of primary votes distributed; Greenway 38.50 per cent of 11.43 per cent of primary votes distributed; Page 30.04 per cent of 15.28 per cent of primary votes distributed; and Eden-Monaro 25.65 per cent of 11.89 per cent of primary votes distributed.
Lack of curiosity
The article is also remarkably incurious about why these particular four seats were chosen to be polled. Based on 2007 results, Robertson (held by 0.1 per cent) and Bennelong (held by 1.4 per cent) were more marginal for Labor. And both of these were of high interest – Robertson because incumbent Belinda Neal lost Labor preselection and Bennelong because the ALP’s Maxine McKew, who defeated John Howard, was being opposed by high-profile former Davis Cup player John Alexander.
The selection of the Coalition-held seat of Hughes also raises some questions. A breakout in the article describes it as “an outer metropolitan seat whose 2009 boundary adjustment favoured Labor”. The ABC expert Anthony Green observed that “new boundaries and the retirement of Dana Vale give Labor a prospect of gaining this seat”.
Breaking down this “secret polling”, the article shows Labor would lose Eden- Monaro 48-52 on a primary vote of 35, Page 46-54 on a primary vote of 35 and Greenway 48-52 on a primary vote of 39 as well as Coalition-held Hughes 38-62 on a primary vote of 31 per cent. (Note: The article did not actually give the primary vote or two-party preferred polling for Greenway, but it is worked out by using the statement that Labor’s primary vote across the four seats averaged 35 per cent and its two-party preferred vote averaged 45 cent.)
ALP pollster was way out
Now, let us see how accurate the UMR poll, taken about nine weeks before the election, turned out:
- Eden-Monaro: Primary vote 43.61 (up 0.30 per cent on 2007) or 8.61 better than UMR predicted. Two-party preferred 54.24 per cent (up 1.95 per cent) or 6.24 per cent better than UMR predicted. One of only two Labor-held seats in NSW to record both primary and two-party preferred swings to Labor.
- Page: Primary vote 45.73 per cent (up 4.05 per cent on 2007) or 10.73 per cent better than UMR predicted. Two-party preferred vote 54.19 per cent (up 1.83 per cent) or 8.19 per cent better than UMR predicted. The other Labor seat that recorded both primary and two-party preferred swings.
- Greenway: Primary vote of 42.32 per cent (down 7.36 per cent on 2007 ) but 3.32 per cent better than UMR predicted. Two-party preferred 50.88 per cent (down 4.79 per cent) but 2.88 per cent better than UMR predicted.
- Hughes: Primary vote 37.78 per cent (down 5.96 per cent on 2007) but 6.78 per cent better than UMR predicted. Two-party preferred 44.83 per cent (down 4.63 per cent) but 6.83 per cent better than UMR predicted.
A recap on the averages reported in the AFR article. The actual ALP primary vote average over these four seats was 42.36 per cent (or 7.26 per cent better than the UMR average) and the ALP two-party preferred average over these four seats was 51.03 per cent (6.03 per cent better than the UMR average).
Vic “threatened” seats held easily: Now, let us look at the Victorian Labor-held seats of Deakin and Corangamite which were “under threat” , plus the two Victorian Coalition-held seats of La Trobe and McEwen which were thought to be unreachable.
- Deakin: Labor won with a 1.0 per cent increase in its two-party preferred vote to 52.41 per cent – the first time since the seat’s creation in 1937 that Labor had won it in two successive elections. Before 2007, the only time Labor held it was in the election of the Hawke Government in 1983.
- Corangamite: A conservative seat for 76 years from 1931 until Labor’s victory in 2007, was narrowly retained, with a two-party preferred vote of 50.41 per cent, a fall of 0.44 per cent.
- La Trobe: Despite a 2.2 per cent drop in primary vote to 38.2 per cent, there was a 1.42 per cent swing to Labor on the two-party preferred vote to a narrow win, with 50.91% of the two-party preferred vote..
- McEwen: Retained by retiring Liberal Fran Bailey in 2007 by 31 votes. A 2.97 per cent swing to Labor on the primary vote to 43.17 and a 5.34 per cent swing on the two-party preferred vote to 55.32.
SA power-broker way off the mark
Then, there were the fears of “South Australian power-broker Senator Don Farrell” that Labor would struggle in Kingston and Hindmarsh. Here is what happened:
- Kingston: A 4.40 per cent swing on the primary vote to 51.05 per cent and a two-party preferred swing of 9.49 per cent to 63.91 per cent
- Hindmarsh: Despite a 2.67 per cent drop in the primary vote, a 0.65 per cent swing in its two-party preferred vote to 55.70 per cent.
So, of the seven Labor seats retained, five were with an increased majority. Two of the three Coalition-held seats mentioned, directly or by inference, fell to Labor.
Results mock ‘dire polling” and “wipeouts”
These results mock the claims of “dire” polling and “wipeouts” that the numbers men from Labor’s right used to convince Rudd’s “panicking Pollies” that sacking a Prime Minister was a brilliant tactical move less than five months before the three-year term was up in November.
Those in such a hurry to get rid of Rudd overlooked some important facts that could have led to a Labor victory, although with a reduced majority.
Rudd showed in the 2007 campaign that he was a good campaigner, more than holding his own with Howard, a four-time election winner, on the hustings. Gillard, though a good performer in the set pieces of Parliament, was an unknown factor in an election campaign.
Rudd debated Opposition Leader Tony Abbott on health issues on March 23, 2010. The Newspoll of March 14-16 (before the debate) showed Rudd leading Abbott 55-30 in the Better Prime Minister category. The March 26-28 Newspoll after the debate showed Rudd leading Abbott 59-27.
Those responsible for the almost “flawless campaign to oust Rudd” did not factor in whether any bounce for Gillard would be offset by a negative reaction to the manner in which Rudd was dismissed.
Anti-ALP swing biggest in Qld
Nor did it seem to occur to them, that disowning Rudd meant they could not, in the words of the song, accentuate the positive – Labor’s handling of the global financial crisis.
They also did not seem to realise that humiliating the Queenslander Rudd could have a negative effect on voters in that State.
And so it came to to pass. The biggest swing against Labor on a two-party preferred vote in 2010 was 5.58 per cent in Queensland, where Labor lost seven seats – four of them in urban areas around Brisbane (not areas that one would expect the mining tax to have such an impact, especially as the anti-Labor swings in two of these seats (Bonner at 7.53 per cent and Brisbane at 5.73 per cent) were higher than the State-wide average.
This analysis was supported by a Queensland Labor Senator at a discussion I attended the weekend after the election – they used the term “State of Origin factor”.
I’ll read this post again slowly and with care later because it presents so much detail that needs unpacking.
At this stage I just want to say thanks to JohnL, and LP, for this effort cos this is why I come here to LP.
For thoughtful in depth articles like this that are conspicuous for their absence elsewhere.
Good one people.
In short, the big miners ‘bought’ the end of Rudd through their money for an ad campaign and their influential contacts within the ALP past and present. Recent losses ($60 billion) revealed in the Gillard version of the proposed minerals supertax further show how the voters were dudded. Shorten’s concerned Marybirnong citizens were probably from the Collins St end. Today’s Australian front page suggests the ‘conspiracy’ may be unravelling.
I second that, hannah’s dad. Will read carefully when I have more time, but this seems to confirm what many of us were thinking when it happened.
It’s also revealing that nobody in the MSM is able or willing to provide this kind of detailed, insightful analysis.
yeah, excellent in depth analysis.
Who needs journos these days?
Given the election results were not under Rudd, is it fair to compare the observed results (under Gillard) with the results predicted by UMR? Do we know whether there were polls available at or near that time from those seats that indicated UMR was wrong?
It could be that the election results in those seats vindicate the ALP “power brokers” claims – we don’t know because we don’t have the counter-factual.
That’s a valid question sg [#6].
Which I think is as answerable as it can be by 4 things in the post.
1. Possum’s analysis of the polls based on before the election and how close he was compared to the UMR polls which were way out.
“Obviously Possum Comitatus is a better analyst of polling figures than Arbib, Feeney, or Farrell.”
2.The Newspoll figures that put Rudd in much better shape and on the improve than presented by the AFR article JohnL is criticising.
3.Rudd’s improved Preferred PM numbers cf Abbott after the health debate.
4.The PR disaster that was the result of sacking Rudd.
Don’t get me wrong, I’m a [muted and not abject] fan of Gillard, but I still reckon the coup was downright bloody stupid, not conducted for the professed reasons and harmful to the government in the short and long terms.
I think the msn and the miners got what they wanted.
Well almost. I think they wanted a Coalition government restored. It’s sad that history will judge Rudd so harshly and sadder still that his time was cut short.
I don’t think that history will judge Rudd as harshly as you think. Certainly not as harshly as the fools who conspired against him.
“And so it came to to pass. The biggest swing against Labor on a two-party preferred vote in 2010 was 5.58 per cent in Queensland, where Labor lost seven seats – four of them in urban areas around Brisbane (not areas that one would expect the mining tax to have such an impact, especially as the anti-Labor swings in two of these seats (Bonner at 7.53 per cent and Brisbane at 5.73 per cent) were higher than the State-wide average.”
Yep. And Rudd got a 9% swing against him in his owm seat of Griffith. How do we read that, I wonder?
At 6, sg asks “is it fair to compare the observed results (under Gillard) with the results predicted by UMR? Do we know whether there were polls available at or near that time from those seats that indicated UMR was wrong?”
I think Hannah’s Dad at 7answers you completely.
To Geoff Honnor at 10 – it is wise to compare like with like. For Queensland and the two seats I mentioned, I was using the two-party preferred vote. The two-party preferred swing against Rudd was 3.9 per cent, considerably below the State average.
In 1941, Menzies was a short term, failed PM from a collapsing party. Who could have ever expected him even to lead the Treasury benches again, let alone dominate political life? Strange things happen, the story is not over…
“In 1941, Menzies was a short term, failed PM from a collapsing party. Who could have ever expected him even to lead the Treasury benches again, let alone dominate political life? Strange things happen, the story is not over…”
Indeed. And despite LP inexplicably reinventing Rudd – the most calculated, technocratic, self-serving non-ideologue in ALP history – as a hero of the Left, it may still happen.
A really good post John L. Thank you. But, I wonder at the focus on Queensland. Labor did very well in Victoria and SA. Did ‘State of Origin’ play into this? Quite possibly. Labor would have been much better served in the last election by going assertively for a progressive agenda and winning more seats in those two states. They would have got a majority and stayed true to progressive politics, if they’d paid more attention to these Tonyphobic states, instead of wimpishly pandering to Queensland and Western Sydney.
George Megalogenis does an interesting analysis of this in “Trivial Pursuit”. He argues the further south you go on the Eastern seaboard, the better Labor does.
A great post. Two points:
1) Why was there a swing against Rudd in his own seat? I would’ve thought arsey Queenslanders would have flocked to him.
2) There is no strong correlation between the party that holds Kingston also holding Federal government: http://www.aec.gov.au/profiles/SA/Kingston.htm
Fine at 14: The reason for the focus on Queensland is that it was the State where Labor did the best in 2007, winning 15 of the State’s then 29 seats. In 2010 it was reduced to 8 of the State’s 30 seats (it gained one because of population growth after 2007). Retaining four of thee seven seats it lost there would have given it a majority.
While Labor did well in terms of its two-party preferred vote in Victoria, South Australia and Tasmania where it was up 1.04 per cent, 0.78 per cent and 4.41 per cent respectively on 2007, it did lose Melbourne in Victoria to the Greens, could not capture the marginal Coalition seat in South Australia (Christopher Pyne’s seat of Sturt) and lost Denison to Andrew Wilkie despite polling 60.62 per cent of the two-party preferred vote in Tasmania.
The 2010 Federal election was notable for the total of non-voters (those on the electoral roll but who did not register a vote) plus the informal vote exceeding 1.5 million – actually 1,684,506, compared to 1,226,547 in 2007 and 1,383,595 in 2004 (the previous high).
The 2010 election was also unusual because – despite a rise in registered voters of 400,330 on the previous election in 2007 – the number of formal votes at 12,402,363 (turnout plus formal votes) was 17,629 fewer than in 2007 at 12,419,992.
One can only speculate on the reasons for this combination of a low turnout and high informal vote.
This is an interesting post but there is a little too much comparing apples with oranges, as implied by sg above. Ultimately it reads like a conclusion in search of supporting evidence, rather than the other way around.
You simply can’t look at a marginal seats poll under one leader (which was bad) and compare the final result under another leader (which was better) and conclude that the party would have obtained exactly the same result under the former leader.
And Possum’s analysis doesn’t help you as much as you think because to get a decent sample it averages over a period in which voting intentions were in flux.
So, the analysis is also consistent with the hypothesis that Rudd being overturned as leader was instrumental in the party recovering to where it had been earlier in the year.
Unfortunately we simply cannot know how the ALP would have performed in the election under Rudd. It is unobservable and the majority of people that have some insight into how the ALP was being perceived in the period leading up to Rudd’s removal and after, have a major axe to grind.
Finally, as also suggested by others, if the swing against the ALP in Queensland had primarily been because Rudd was ousted, I cannot see why Rudd would have experienced a larger than average swing against him in his own seat. There were a bunch of other things going on in Queensland that put Labor in a difficult position (the deterioration in the local economy being one) that make it inappropriate to attribute the fall in support in Queensland to the leadership change. The data just doesn’t speak loudly enough to support the contention.
Just remember that WA was toxic for Labor as well as Qld.
To think it was just the Kevin factor, or even mainly so, in Qld is simplistic, IMHO. In this post I identified 16 factors that played a part. If I had to single out one it would be the state of the Qld economy which was starkly different from the rest of the states.
The main thrust of the post, though, is about the lack of skill in interpreting marginal seat polling. Mark identified this as an issue at the time. Apparently almost no-one understands it properly apart from those with genuine expertise in polling. Certainly the political agents within the ALP didn’t.
I’d like to point out a couple of other things relevent to the meme that Labor’s vote was on the rise in Kevin’s last weeks.
The first is that while Labor’s 2pp had risen from its April low, Labor’s primary vote was still on the floor (35%) in the last Newspoll before Rudd was ousted and a number of people at the time were raising questions about whether the preference allocation (which was based on the previous election) exaggerated the Labor 2pp vote.
The second is that Rudd’s net satisfaction rating in that last newspoll was -19%, which was lower than in any other Newspoll over that 3 month stretch.
Note that at the Federal election Labor achieved a primary vote of 38% and still only achieved a 2pp of 50.1%. No electoral strategist I know from any party thinks that Labor would have won the election if its primary vote had stayed at 35% because the preference flows would simply not have been strong enough.
IMHO the meme that ALP strategists don’t know how to interpret marginal polling is extremely overblown. Sure, the people that ousted Kevin had their own agendas but neither the aggregate or marginal polling undteraken prior to Kevin’s knifing were positive for Labor.
And to restate, HD’s post at 7 absolutely DOES NOT answer sg’s question completely.
1 – The UMG polling was almost certainly picking up shorter term trends than Possum’s analysis
2 – the final result was under a different leader
3 – The Newspoll figures were only showing an improvement in Labor’s 2pp (which was not directly polled), not an improvment in Labor’s primary, while his net satisfaction rating was still falling
We simply cannot know whether Kevin would have regained the electorate’s confidence if he had been allowed to continue as leader until the election. Sure, he did well in the health debate but the mining tax was handled appallingly. It is also true that the sacking wasn’t great PR, but then neither was the serial leaking after the event (arguably more important).
What is more true is that sacking Rudd didn’t do anything to solve Labor’s structural problems.
Geoff Honnor: Labor tends to brand past leaders as heroes of the Left even if they did quite un-Left things in office (c.f. Hawke and his neo-liberalism)
“Labor tends to brand past leaders as heroes of the Left”
Not, I think in Rudd’s case, OB. My reference to LP relates to “Larvatus Prodeo” – not “Labor Party.”
An excellent analysis! What would the commercial TV journos do with that piece? Nothing, they wouldn’t understand the clear thinking. I thought Kevin Rudd was a great PM, bring him back.
Let us not forget that, post the beheading, we had the election campaign, and in particular the leaks, which were intensely damaging. The election result and Rudd’s last polls are not comparable at all.
The only electoral justification, or not, for replacing Rudd with Gillard is what was known and could have been foreseen at the time.
Yes, it’s a pity we have so few decent journos, though Peter Hartcher does a fair hatchet job on the Libs in today’s SMH.
adrian @25, I was slightly surprised (but also delighted) by Peter Hartcher’s vehemence.
We are so lucky to have principled people like Mr Denmore, Andrew Elder, and Greg Jericho to engage in proper, and balanced, analysis. What would the msm look like if those three (and some others) were to publish where people other than us latte/chardonnay-sipping ayleets could read them?
JohnL@q6. You miss my point completely. I’m fully aware of which seats were won and lost. My point is that id more resources and a more progressive political agenda had been acted on, more seats could have been won in Victoria and SA.
Although I think your post is interesting, I’m pleased by Brian’s post listing 16 factors as to why Labor lost. I think your post is detailed, but oversimplified.
Well I don’t know about all this polling but I trend to think apologia based in some bad polls are not particularly helpful. AS has been pointed out, sitting PMs have had some pretty bad results going into an election and have still won so I think we can dismiss polls as a legitimate reason for this disastrous strategy.
It is still a great mystery as to why this appalling event was allowed to take place. Novices like Bitar and Arbib may waved these poll results around in an effort to create a panic, but why did some many of their colleagues buy it? I would suggest that it shows the lack of depth, the fundamental lack of real world experience that politicians of both sides have.
They honestly expected to sack the existing PM, install a new figurehead and then retire to a Chinese restaurant and watch the votes roll in. And that’s why the coup happened, not because the govt. would have lost with Rudd at the helm but because the vast majority of the FPLP are neophytes.
Labor Outsider at 17, 19 and 20: You certainly wandered far off track.
The main purpose of the post was to examine how sources can manipulate media coverage, with uncritical acceptance of the line that the sources for the “secret polling” wanted to push.
I sought to demonstrate this by showing there was information on the record that challenged the points made in The Australian Financial Review (AFR) article – such information as the ALP vote rising in the three Newspolls after the mining tax was announced; the anomalies in Bill Shorten visiting Julia Gillard on June 16 to warn of a “wipeout” which was before the “secret polling” of four NSW seats was conducted on June 16 and reasons why the “secret polling” data was questionable.
You seem to have a fixation in trying to find excuses for why Labor pollster UMR managed to get the polling of the four NSW seats so spectacularly wrong.
I suggest that a political pollster’s analysis of four NSW seats nine weeks before the Federal election should have a better result than an error rate of 3.32 per cent, 6.78 per cent, 8.61 per cent and 10.73 per cent in Labor’s primary vote and an error rate of 2.88 per cent, 6.24 per cent, 6.83 per cent and 8.19 per cent on Labor’s two-party preferred vote.
Because the AFR article highlighted how this “secret polling” was instrumental in getting the numbers against Kevin Rudd, I think it is reasonable to compare this polling with the election result.
Your responses contain errors, which do not deserve to be left unchallenged. Examples are:
1. The false statement in 17 that Rudd “…experienced a larger than average swing against him in his own seat.”
The Queensland average swing against Labor on the two-party preferred vote (which determines the result in each seat) was 5.58 per cent. The swing against Rudd in Griffith was 3.86 per cent. Examining the 15 Queensland seats Labor held going into the election, Griffith had the fourth lowest two-party preferred swing against at 3.86 per cent. The lowest was Petrie, with 1.70 per cent, followed by Blair with 2.70 per cent, Longman with 3.79 per cent and Griffith at 3.86 per cent.
. (Anthony Green reported that Griffith was the only seat of these four not affected by the redistribution after the 2007 election. He calculated that the redistribution added 2.1 per cent to Labor’s vote in Petrie, 2.9 per cent in Blair and a drop of 3.6 per cent in Longman.)
On the basis of primary votes the swing against Labor in Griffith was the seventh highest of the 15 Labor-held seats in Queensland at 9.01 per cent, with the lowest at 6.27 per cent in Petrie and the highest at 13.22 per cent in Brisbane. I mention the primary vote to eliminate it as a possible justification for “the larger than average swing against him in his own seat”
2. You say at 20: “The UMG polling was almost certainly picking up shorter term trends than Possum’s analysis.” (It is actually UMR).
This is not true. The shorter-term trends were showing a slow improvement for Labor. For example, Essential Report for June 21 (the last before Rudd was deposed showed ALP 38 (up 3), Coalition 40 (down 1), Greens 11, Family First 3, Others 8 for a two-party preferred of Labor 52 (up 1), Coalition 48.
The last Morgan poll before Rudd was replaced. This Face To Face poll taken on June 19-20 under the heading: ”Rudd’s final Morgan poll was a “good one” ALP (53%, up 1.5% .LNP 47%, down 1.5%). This poll had Labor’s primary vote at 41 (up 3), Coalition 41 (unchanged), Greens 12.5 (down 0.5) Family First 1.5 (unchanged) and Others/Independents 4 (down 2.5).
Newspoll of June 18-20 had Labor at 35 (unchanged), Coalition 40 (down 1), Greens 15 (down 1) and Others 10 (up 2) for a two-party preferred of Labor 52, Coalition 48.
These polls were taken slightly later than the UMR “secret polling”. They all show Labor improving its two-party preferred vote from their previous polls.
3. You say: “Possum’s analysis doesn’t help you as much as you think because to get a decent sample it averages over a period in which voting intentions were in flux.”
You ignore what the article said quoting Possum: “This begs the question of whether the recent turn in the polling forced the hand of those in the Labor Party wanting to remove Rudd – putting them in the position where if they did not strike last week, any further improvement in the polls, any further improvement in the polling trends, would effectively close any window of opportunity to replace Rudd with Gillard until well into the next term of government. Especially as any further improvement in the two-party preferred would make many people start to question the authenticity and age of internal polling suggesting a wipeout.”
Possum’s comment of “the recent turn in the polling” is backed up by the three polls quoted in 2 above.
Your dismissive comment implying that an analysis which averages a significant sample (more than 11,000) of polls over the three months to the end of June can be disregarded because it was a period “in which voting intentions were in flux” does not explain how Possum was so much closer to the election result in NSW than UMR was for four seats in NSW. (Let alone, how close he was to the actual votes in Victoria and South Australia).
4. In trying to dismiss the June 18-20 Newspoll you say “Labor’s primary vote was still on the floor (35%) in the last Newspoll before Rudd was ousted and a number of people at the time were raising questions about whether the preference allocation (which was based on the previous election) exaggerated the Labor 2pp vote.”
The reference in my post was to the Newspolls showing a rise in Labor’s support following the introduction of the RSPT was a comment on the claim in the AFR article that focus group polls conducted by the Minerals Council for the big miners “mirrored the public polls”. While the last of these polls did show the ALP primary vote at 35 per cent, it also showed that after the RSPT announcement the combined Coalition primary and two-party preferred vote were both down by 3 per cent. The big winner in the primary vote was the Greens, who supported the mining tax.
Second, you refer to a “number of people” raising questions about whether the Newspoll preference allocation (which was based on the previous election) exaggerated the Labor 2pp vote.
Newspoll was right and the questioners were wrong. In the 2007 election Labor’s share of the 14.85 per cent of primary votes distributed as preferences was 62.76 per cent compared to 37.24 per cent for the Coalition. In the 2010 election Labor’s share of the 18.70 per cent of primary votes distributed as preferences was 64.87 per cent compared to 35.13 per cent for the Coalition. These figures are compiled from the Australian Electoral Commission website.
You also say later at 19: “No electoral strategist I know from any party thinks that Labor would have won the election if its primary vote had stayed at 35% because the preference flows would simply not have been strong enough.”
Well, the unthinkable almost happened in 2010 in the Queensland seat of Moreton, which was won by the Labor candidate with 36.01 per cent of primary votes and a two-party preferred vote of 51.13 per cent. This was after trailing the Coalition candidate on 43.40 per cent of the primary vote. The Labor candidate received 73.43 per cent of the 20.59 per cent of primary votes distributed as preferences.
If the Labor Party candidate had received only 35 per cent of the primary vote, and the 820 votes (1.01 per cent) went to the Coalition and Other candidates on the same proportion as the actual vote, the result would have been: Coalition 35,738 (44.09% instead of 43.4%), ALP 28,370 (35.0% instead of 36.01%) and Others 16,951 (20.91% instead of 20.59%). Distributing these 16,951 primary votes in the same way as the actual result would have meant the ALP candidate getting 12,377 for a total of 40,817 (50.35% instead of 51.13%) and the Coalition candidate getting 4504 for a total of 40,242 (49.65% instead of 48.87%).
5. Your curious statement at 20: “The Newspoll figures were only showing an improvement in Labor’s 2pp (which was not directly polled), not an improvement in Labor’s primary, while his (Rudd’s) net satisfaction rating was still falling.”
I would be interested to know how anyone can directly poll the two-party preferred vote (2pp). The whole point is that the 2pp is arrived at after distributing preferences of the candidates who finish lower than second. It seems to me to be an obfuscation designed to confuse the uninitiated.
6. At 19 you say: “IHMO the meme that ALP strategists don’t know how to interpret marginal polling is extremely overblown. Sure, the people that ousted Kevin had their own agendas but neither the aggregate or marginal polling undertaken prior to Kevin’s knifing were positive for Labor.”
It is false to say the aggregate polling ”undertaken before Kevin’s knifing” was not positive for Labor. As shown in 2, Essential Report, the Morgan poll and the Newspolll taken immediately before Rudd’s removal were positive for Labor in showing an improvement in its two-party preferred vote to a winning position (52-48, 53-47 and 52-48 respectively).
The only marginal polling where the results were published (some time after the event) was the leaded UMR “secret polling” of four NSW seats, which turned out to be wildly inaccurate.
The Victorian right-winger Bill Shorten was also spectacularly wrong when he saw Julia Gillard on June 16 and warned of the real chance that Labor faced a “wipeout”. (The UMR polling was still being conducted). The AFR article notes that Victorian seats like Deakin and Corangamite were under threat and others Labor hoped to win (such as LaTrobe and McEwen) looked unreachable.
The AFR article says South Australian power-broker Senator Don Farrell knew “the situation was not as bad as elsewhere. But Labor would struggle in the southern seats of Kingston (a seat that tends to go with the government of the day), and Hindmarsh, the oldest electorate in the country.”
UMR and Labor strategists were fearful about 10 seats. In the four NSW seats, Labor won the two it held at the 2007 election with increased majorities, it won Greenway which had been turned into a Labor seat because of a redistribution and it failed to win Hughes.
Of the two Labor-held seats in Victoria which were “under threat”, Labor retained Deakin with an increase in its two-party preferred vote and Corangamite with a 0.44 per cent in its two-party preferred vote.
Of the two Coalition-held seats in Victoria that looked “unreachable”, Labor won La Trobe with a 1.42 per cent swing in the two-party preferred vote and McEwen with a 5.34 per cent on the two-party preferred vote.
In the two South Australian seats where the Labor strategist thought Labor would struggle, Kingston was retained with a 4.40 per cent swing on the primary vote and a 9.49 per cent swing on the two-party preferred vote to 63.91 per cent. In Hindmarsh. Labor had a drop in its primary vote but a 0.65 per cent swing to it on the two-party preferred vote to 55.70 per cent.
You may think these results demonstrate how Labor strategists understand marginal polling. I do not
Fine at 27: I think it is debatable that more seats could have been won in Victoria and South Australia. But I do agree that Labor would have been better served by going assertively for a progressive agenda, which as far as the mining tax is concerned, was more likely with Rudd than Gillard.
I also believe that by removing Rudd, Labor did lose an opportunity to hammer the theme that it saved Australia from the GFC.
I also think that Labor would have done better by a greater focus on protecting its seats in Queensland. In this regard, Labor did well in NSW by holding Robertson, Page and Lindsay.
“I was slightly surprised (but also delighted) by Peter Hartcher’s vehemence.”
This one surprised me even more in the curious snail. A far cry from Barrie Cassidy absolution and switch on their ABC.
http://www.couriermail.com.au/news/opinion/heartless-pair-use-misery-to-showboat/story-e6frerc6-1226007785148
JohnL, sorry. I think you have stars in your eyes when it comes to Rudd. He was an utter failure at selling the mining tax and had ample opportunity to hammer home Labor’s success with the GFC and was unable to do so.
Would there be more chance of Labor pushing a progressive agenda with Rudd than Gillard? I doubt it. He caved when it came to getting a price for carbon, which was his real downfall. He was shifting to the right when it came to asylum seekers.
Of course it’s debatable whether Labor could have won more seats in Victoria, SA and Tasmania. Given all the factors that Brian has outlined it’s also debatable that Labor could have done much better in Queensland.
I think your looking for one cause to explain this issue, when there’s multiple causes. One of them is the general dysfunction of Labor, which Rudd and Gillard is both part of.
JohnL
I will say it again.
You are comparing apples and oranges!
The UMP polling was done in a selection of marginal seats under a different leader than Labor fought the election with. There is no reason why that polling should be close to the final election result if the change of leadership affected voting attention in those seats!
I just can’t believe that you don’t get that point.
A poll 9 weeks out does not predict the final election result. It is a snapshot at a particular point in time. That marginal seat polling was revealing deep dissatisfaction with Labor at that time in those seats. Period.
Also, you make the mistake (repeatedly) of comparing marginal seat polling with nation wide polling. For example, it is entirely possible that a party could improve its national standing by improving its standing in safe seats while its standing continues to deteriorate in key marginal seats. Swings are not uniform.
Don’t you understand how important it is to make proper comparisons?
A priori there is no reason why a polling company could not ask voters of minor parties whether they would order the Coalition or Labor first. The fact that they don’t does not mean that they can’t. And I am sorry, Labor achieved a primary vote nation wide of 38% and achieved a 2pp of around 50. It is extraordinarily unlikely that they would have polled 35 and achieved a 2pp of 52 as that last newspoll before Rudd was unseated suggested. I recall the poll bludger analysing that poll and arguing that he thought the “true” 2pp implied by that poll was probably closer to 50-50.
On Rudd’s own seat you are right, he suffered a 9% primary swing against him and the Qld average was 9.3%. So his result was marginally (very marginally) better than the Qld average. But I would still argue that achieving a 0.3pp smaller swing in his own seat is hardly consistent with your argument that it was the dumping of Rudd that was decisive in dragging Labor’s vote lower.
The bottom line is that there is not enough information one way or another to determine whether the plotters made the right decision. Those that were instrumental in the change would argue that the change arrested a terminal decline in Labor’s support in marginal seats. Your only response to that is to compare the final result in those same seats with the initial poll (the wrong thing to do as I showed above) and to argue that Labor’s national support was gradually improving. A closer reading of Newpoll would suggest that the trends there were not favourable to the ALP’s fortunes. But even if I accept that premise on the basis of the Essential and Morgan results, it does not account for the possibility that the improvement was taking place in non-marginals and was unlikely to persist given the problems Kevin was having with the mining tax at the time.
Finally, you misunderstand the plotters. The decision was not made on the basis of polling alone. It was a judgement (with polling as just one input) that Rudd’s standing in the electorate was getting worse (the downward trend in his net satisfaction rate is consistent with that), that he was showing no ability to resolve the mining tax dispute and that the dysfunctionality of his office (and his decision making) implied that things could get worse and not better.
Faction leaders aren’t idiots. They employ and commission a bunch of people whose job it is to understand what is going on in the minds of marginal voters and what that might mean for election results. Perhaps you should use some of your time to looking a bit more deeply at the resources parties put into their marginal seat campaigning and the information sets (and analytical tools) they have at their disposal. Heck, you could even try interviewing some of them so that you could get beyond your caricature of them.
“Faction leaders aren’t idiots”
Yes indeed, just look at what’s happened in NSW, a shining example of political intelligence at work.
Actually, quite a lot of faction leaders are supremely idiotic. The idea that are all all-knowing and wise is itself idiotic.
The faction leaders hated Rudd and used the polling as a reason, or pretext, to get rid of him. As one of them said to Laura Tingle (she recounts this in a recent Quarterly Essay), the danger wasn’t that they would lose with Rudd; the danger was that they would win, and then they’d be stuck with him forever.
Perhaps the faction leader was being facetious. The big lesson in all of this is that they were not prepared to cut Rudd any slack whatsoever. When someone is supremely disliked, in any organisation, they are tolerated only while their performance is high. As soon as they slip, they are gone. On the other hand, someone who is liked and respected is cut some slack. This is just human nature.
There sometimes seems to be an idea that Rudd somehow ascended to leadership without the support of the factional leaders. This isn’t true. He was supported by the NSW Right when he beat Beazley. He was part of the tawdry fray like everyone else. It’s also true that when people loathe you, they won’t cut you any slack. But, the more I see of some of these factional leaders, the worse they look. The Ludwigs, anyone?
One of Gillard’s strengths is that she’s a negotiator. (Getting government, getting a mining tax, health agreement, flood levy). Rudd couldn’t make these things happen. Of course that’s her weakness as well, because it means that she’ll make concessions when she shouldn’t just to get an agreement happening.
@36
“One of Gillard’s strengths is that she’s a negotiator”
Oh yes, back-down on the RSPT and pander to western Sydney over refugees. Supremely adept at convincing people to accept a position they, at first, may be uncomfortable with.
One of Rudd’s many problems was (is) that he was (is) in the Labor Party but not of the Labor Party. The irony is that this detachment was a significant strength (or seen to be, in any case) in 2007, when he was taking on Howard.
The bigger problem is that a leader these days, who is of the Labor Party, is by definition the product of an organisation that is decrepit and venal.
So true.
Patrickb@36 – Yes, Gillard’s negotiation style appears to be give whatever those who shout the loudest want with a few adjustments to give the appearance of something other than a total capitulation.
The only caveat to the above is if those that shout the loudest are your core constituents you can safely ignore them ’cause they’ll vote for you anyway.
Fine at 32: No, I do not have stars in my eyes when it comes to Kevin Rudd. It’s just that I do not think he was treated fairly.
After asking whether there was more chance of Labor pushing a progressive agenda with Rudd than Gillard, you say you doubt it, on the basis that “He caved when it came to getting a price for carbon, which was his real downfall. He was shifting to the right when it came to asylum seekers.”
I think there is ample evidence to suggest your statement is somewhat harsh on Rudd. Well, on the basis of the following evidence, I think there was more chance with Rudd.
On the SMH website on June 24 under the heading “Gillard becomes Australia’s first female prime minister as tearful Rudd stands aside” by Phillip Coorey and Tim Lester the following appears: “After being pressured to take a hard line against asylum seekers, he (Rudd) baulked, saying he would not engage in a race to the right.”
And later: “Senator Arbib and Ms Gillard were instrumental in forcing the government to abandon the emissions trading scheme, which was the catalyst for the government’s slide in the polls.”
Peter Hartcher, The Sydney Morning Herald, 26 June 2010, wrote: “In the inner sanctum, Julia Gillard had urged that the Rudd government not honour its election commitment for an emissions trading scheme unless the opposition’s Tony Abbott agreed to one. The deputy prime minister argued strongly with her cabinet colleagues that the government should dump the scheme “because it’s hurting us too much” politically, according to cabinet members. Mr Rudd and the Finance Minister, Lindsay Tanner, opposed her inside the so-called Gang of Four ministers which in effect ran the government.”
The text of Rudd’s press conference on June 23, 2010 contains the following:
“JOURNALIST: You mentioned asylum seekers and the ETS, are you talking about a change of policy in both those areas?”
”PM: I am being very plain about what I said before. And you’ve heard me say things about asylum seekers policy, and recently. I believe it is absolutely wrong for this country and absolutely wrong in terms of the values which we hold dear, to get engaged in some sort of race to the right in this country on the question of asylum seekers, I don’t think that’s the right thing to do. That’s the direction the Liberal party would like to take us, under my leadership we will not be going in that direction.
“Furthermore, can I say this, on the question of emissions trading which you have raised and obviously is a matter of great controversy in the community. Let me be very clear. Action on climate change cannot be achieved in the absence of an emissions trading scheme. We need a price on carbon. And that price on carbon needs to be put on it within a reasonable timeframe. That would be the decision of the government, assuming I am re-elected as Prime Minister.”
At 36 you mention getting a mining tax was one of Gillard’s strengths as a negotiator. I am not yet aware of any mining tax being agreed (I understand the Government has not yet responded to the Argus report. On 25 January this year it was reported that Treasurer Wayne Swan was expected to release the government’s formal response within weeks.) Media reports suggest the Argus report accepts the contention of the big miners that all state royalty increases should be creditable.
Given the size of recent profits by the big miners, I am sure I am not alone in thinking that Julia Gillard was too hasty in seeking a deal with them soon after becoming Prime Minister.
For an example of the brainpower of a faction leader/faceless person/ this quotation from Paul Howes’ latest book (cited by The Piping Shrike) takes some beating:
“The reality is that this campaign is probably one of the most impressive Labor has ever run. When you look at the things that are under control – ads, research, campaigns in the marginal seats – they can’t be faulted.”
JohnL, it seems that you’re following the meme of when Rudd did something good he gets the credit, when he did something bad it was someone else’s fault. He was the PM when he he caved in on getting a price on climate change. He may well have been pressured by other people, but it was still ultimately his decision. And let’s remember that Hartcher is a Gillard hater, who’s written some terrible stuff about her. Next you’ll be linking to Bob Ellis.
As I said PatrickB, negotiation is also one of Gillard’s weaknesses in that she’ll give away too much at times. But, what exactly had Rudd done with the RSPT? Caved. Didn’t get a deal at all. Introduced it at stupid time and couldn’t sell it. Please save me from the Rudd was a wonderful progressive stymied by the forces of evil and Gillard is just a puppet of the right. It’s way too simplistic.
JohnL, I think you’re pushing your argument to far, because you think he wasn’t treated fairly.