Perseverance, n.A lowly virtue whereby mediocrity achieves an inglorious success.
(Ambrose Bierce, The Devilâs Dictionary)
If I hadnât been long convinced that Kim Beazley has to go, if the ALP is to have any chance of winning back government, Jacques Chesterâs paean, at Club Troppo, to Kimâs âbottomless reserves of patience and comebackitudeâ? â in plain English his perseverance â would have done it for me. Kim reminds Jacques of Doctor Who and:
⦠another famous opposition leader, one who eventually made it all the way to the top.
John Howard, of course.
The idea of âDoctor Kimboâ? is a bit of a laugh. Confronted by a Cyberleader determined to convert the whole of humanity into robotic drones, his most likely response would be âDonât forget the Cyberdogs and Cybercats.â? Daleks threatening to exterminate humanity? âNot good enough. Here are a few other species who warrant extermination.â?
The remainder of Jacquesâ post argues, mainly, that itâs time for the ALP to lower its expectations of the leadership, in much the way that members of the Liberal Party have learnt to live with John Howard as Prime Minister.
Hereâs one of the principles of governance that the Liberals have learnt to live with:
I think in public life you take a position, and I think particularly of the positions I’ve taken in the time I’ve been Prime Minister, I have to live with the consequences . . . and, if I ever develop reservations I hope I would have the grace to keep them to myself,
(John Howard, reported in The Hun, November 22)
Thatâs what Howard expects of himself â would he expect any less of his colleagues? Phil Ruddockâs rise from Immigration Minister to Attorney General gives a very strong clue to the answer. Petro Georgious conspicuous exclusion from Cabinet, and the attempts to strip him of his pre-selection are a pretty good indication of how Howardâs âbroad churchâ? deals with those graceless individuals who wonât keep their reservations to themselves.
The Howard government â not just Howard â has to go. In a better world â not the perfect world of my imagination where all the women are leggy, bi-sexual blondes with identical twin sisters but one close to it â a droverâs dog could lead the Federal ALP to victory in the next election. But we donât live in that better world. And for that reason, the ALP needs more energetic leadership than this:
The time that really counts as a leader â and it’s 50 per cent of your task, the other 50 per cent leading up to that â is in the five weeks of the election campaign.
(Beazley to Michelle Grattan in The Age, November 25)
(Cross-posted at Tug Boat Potemkin)
Tomorrow’s Neilsen Poll looks a caucus bracer. We only have selective report, but it shows:
(1) If an election was held now, Labor would beat the government by 56 per cent to 44 per cent – 12 points.
(2) If Rudd was leader, Labor’s primary vote would be 48 per cent, compared with Beazley’s 41 – 7 points.
The report does not tell us what the ALP’s margin would be if Rudd was leader, but hints that most if not all of his higher primary comes from the Greens and Dems. On the other hand, perhaps tellingly, or not, the poll was taken between Thursday and Saturday, the period during which the challenge was underway, opening up the possibility that the ALP lead has already factored in the leadership change (or, at the very least, that the challenge has boosted not detracted from Labor’s support).
A Monday morning blow for the Beazer camp would be the possibility/likelihood that the poll also has yet unreleased head-to-head popularity scores for Beazley vs Howard and Rudd vs Howard, and perhaps even Beazley vs Rudd. Going on the primary difference, and the recent Newspoll, these scores could be expected favour Rudd appreciably, giving him tomorrow’s Fairfax headlines.
Beazer reckons he’s getting good responses in his phone discussions, but it’s reasonable to wonder which of those interested (that is, not entirely convinced) in Rudd would actually tell the Beazer today upfront they’re going to ditch him – that’s a pretty big personal call to make over the phone. Might be easier to do it tomorrow. Obviously there’s genuine reason to keep the Beazer, that is, it’s not so clear cut, but it might already be over and done with for Beazer supporters.
Here’s to cs, as well, so far at least. A long time call on Rudd.
I was just thinking that a Rudd victory would likely see someone other than Stephen Smith in IR… which would be a big plus. Smith starches his brain along with his shirt collars…
Yes, I remember CS’ long term favouritism for Rudd, and welcome him back to the blogosphere, if only for the duration of the leadership stoush.
I think there are many people who want to come back to the ALP as well, they just need a reason. Rudd gives them that reason, especially if he’s got Julia Gillard with him.
The 2PP is actually the same for both Bomber and Krudd. It suggests that for some reason the ALP actually had a good week. But the AWB attacks and the IR rallies were both described in the media as being failures. The media wouldn’t have been wrong.
Cs I think is right in the sense that tommorrow this could be spun in favor of the new team. Practically though it shows Rudd taking Primary vote from the left of the poltical spectrum who happen to be the most disaffected with Beazley’s leadership. I see it as confirmation that his satifaction ratings are directly effected by these same voters who will not realy play a role in deciding the next election. As I see has been pointed out somewhere else the support for Rudd from those on the left will most probably dry up after some of them get a bit more aquainted with his attitude on some of their pet issues.
One other thing I would point out is that this poll tends to backup the opinion that the Newspol that showed Labor’s primary at 37% was nearly certainly an outlier.
Thanks for the tip cs. Shaun Carney’s piece in yesterday’s Age is worth a look if we’re talking figures. Carney points out that in the Newspoll figures that look good for Beazley, the 2PP is a derived figure, calculated from the primary vote – but take a look for yourselves.
… Back yet?
Assuming you’ve read Carney, I’ll say that if Labor has polling that shows Rudd would pull a bigger primary than Beazley, they’d be mad not to take account of it in tomorrow’s vote.
In the absence of CS, many of my favourite leftists Aussie Bob, Ken Lovell, Mark and Kim all despair of this move and hope Beazley survives. Some, nasking and Tim Dunlop seem to have mixed feelings.
I’m glad to find a few more reading it as I do. It’s not that Labor leads in 2PP and as AB points out has been doing so for a year. The real issue is what you read into those figures. I agree that the preferred PM is a bullshit issue and should not even be in polling. So I’m not worried about lousy showings there.
Other things matter. What sort of alternative are Labor if we can’t convince more than 40% we’re the best option? The polls can be a bit soft. A small percentage, while pissed off with the government, will drift back when the crunch of actually voting takes place. That means that unless the government is seriously on the nose, the opposition needs to be about 5 points ahead of the government on primaries. Beazley Labor has never been that, and has mostly been level or one or two points behind.
As the long Hawke-Keating years showed, you must do well in the marginals if you are to win government. The only way of beating good marginal members (which the Libs have developed and have incumbancy advantages) is by raising the high water mark of primary votes. The limited material we have on this suggests Beazley Labor is not close. The situation in Qld (with only 7 seats out of 29) is diabolical and has shown no sign of improving. Short of the Howard mob imploding (at best only a rough possibility as the chickens come home to roost) there is no chance of Beazley winning. I don’t buy the argument that Beazley’s a safe man to lose with. Why lose at all?
As somebody else said, so many of the public are just looking for Labor to give them a reason to change their vote. Labor’s not doing it.
I honestly don’t think it would be too hard to boost labor’s primary vote to 45% . If that’s done. Howard’s gone. You’d just about get him in Qld before the outer west in NSW and elsewhere have a chance to kick in.
And a more energetic opposition would make all this papering over of scandals seem the sham it is. The Lib primary could fall away.
One wonders what effect a Queenslander as ALP leader will have. Menzies I believe always said that Qld was the odd one out, voting consistently against trends in other states. Clearly it has been the odd one out, although I haven’t checked figures for 96 98 2001.
Plus Ruddy’s greater ability at headkicking, which he has in common with Latham. (And I hope to hell if he wins and wins again he takes over Foreign Affairs as PM, or puts his imprimateur on the minister–big job cleaning up after a big elephant.)
Kim is beyond offering the Curtin/Chifley/Light-on-the-Hill leadership Labor needs.
If Kevin can provide it, then fair go to him.
I agree Gummo. This Nielsen poll is pretty hard to believe, yet assuming it is half right, it would still amount to a major shift, with more likely to follow tomorrow.
The ALP has generally led on the 2PP between elections for the past 10 years, and generally had woeful leadership approval and head-to-head scores. The ALP even led on the Newspoll 2PP 52/48 only two weeks before the last election, and Newspoll had them equal on election day.
WorkChoices and the Iraq implosion notwithstanding, I won’t be convinced that the ALP is realistically in the hunt until there is a sustained upward movement in the primary and/or leadership approval and preferred pm scores, and we must hope for movement across all three. The 2PP margin has established itself as an unreliable barometer, particularly between elections and, as Carney reminds us, particularly Newspoll’s 2PPs.
Given that Fairfax has leaked the primary-vote half its own front-page poll story today, it is hard not to suspect that the paper has held back some pro-Rudd approval and head-to head scores for tomorrow’s headlines.
Cripes, I thought cs was dead.
I’d not warmed to Rudd in the past – and I’m pretty sure that the common touch that cs has described him demonstrated remains a mystery to most of us – but at least he’s not a born-to-rule windbag. Killard all the way …
Certainly Latham had some magnificent leadership approval and preferred pm scores and he did very well in the end.
the best outcome tomorrow would be to see smith, conroy and swan get their miserable arses kicked. Beasely is a loser everyone knows that. He had one go but all venal pollies he went again and again but only with the support of the slimey suited roosters
Trenton wrote: As I see has been pointed out somewhere else the support for Rudd from those on the left will most probably dry up after some of them get a bit more aquainted with his attitude on some of their pet issues.
I’m a swinging left voter who is not thrilled with Rudd as a choice – to some extent I see it as a ‘damned if you do and damned if you don’t’ situation. I’m not automatically thrilled with Gillard either. However, the prospect of Beazley winning the vote tomorrow engenders a strong sense of despair, whereas the prospect of R/G winning at least opens up a bit of hope. I think Howard has been weakened recently and I suspect his invincibility shield suffered some serious dents with the recent climate change debate and Bush’s loss in the US (and the ongoing Iraq disaster). I realise that the ALP will not run an election campaign on those two issues (though I wish they would). Still, I think Rudd is capable of taking on Howard in a way that Beazley has shown he is not.
And a lot of people I know have never forgiven Beazley for the Tampa sellout in 2001. I think if Beazley wins the ALP can kiss the next election goodbye.
suzoz said :”I’m a swinging left voter”
Does that mean you have voted for Howard and Labor at various time or Howard and Greens at various times? Of coures your voting habits are personal but in this day and age a “swingin left voter” who votes for either Coaltition,Labor or Greens is a seriously swinging voter.
I am dead Zoe. Nice to hear from you too.
Very funny Trenton. Latham never bested Howard on either approval or preferred PM basis, and had a (too) low primary vote. The 2pp is well and good but, on the record, is insufficient to be taken as a guide in isolation, especially between elections, and especially if it’s Newspoll (on the last election, Nielsen has the best record on the 2pp, Morgan the best on the primary, and Newspoll was between the two, coming second on both counts).
Coaltition,Labor or Greens is a seriously swinging voter.
Or deranged. Quite sensible to swing between Coalition and Labor though, shows a maturiity beyond tribalism, and keeps the bastards honest.
Latham from memory had the highest approval rating of any opposition leader and his preferred PM figures were much superior to Creans. The Coalition Primary vote doesn’t change regardless of who leads Labor on the AC Nielsen poll so I am just trying to work out how taking Primary vote from the Greens makes a whole lot of difference to Labor. Rudd will win tommorow but this whole thing has a smell of self dellusion about it that underlined the Latham run in 2004.
Just as a sidenote I wouldn’t give Newspoll the time of day as a serious Poll anymore, unless you are lucky enough to be the journalist that submits the poll questions.
This ballot has divided me, just as it seems to have done the Labor party. I instinctively lean towards Rudd, but can’t shake the feeling that Beazley is getting a harsh deal. If you read his speeches and listen to his Parliamentiary and media performances over the last 12 months (discounting the trivial gaffes like the Karl/Rove/McManus one), his messages have been clear, strong and consistent in the last 12 months.
But it’s as if both the commentariat and the public have stopped listening to him and treat him as a joke, based on a narrative in part based on past failures, and in part driven by sections of the media, and nothing Beazer can do can shake that.
It’s classic proof that politics these days is all theatre and image, like Australian Idol or Big Brother. And Beazer is like that long-time rock band that had its heyday, then a few flops in the early 80s, but still puts out reasonable albums after 30 years, only for critics turn their noses up every time they hit the stage or the record shops.
That being said, to further the rock analogy, the Beazer resembles one of those oldies 70s bands – probably Status Quo is the closest – who, despite 30 years together and many hit albums, are just plain mediocre and never going to be up there with the greats.
And just as some of those stodgy 70s dinosaur bands confect more and more three-chord front-bar boogie, Beazley keeps on putting together the template outrage responses and the familiar windy rhetoric that people have heard before. That is what I think his problem is – the woman from this morning’s Insiders summed it up best – people just don’t believe what he says.
And this is why the gaffes were so disastrous: it wasn’t the gaffes themselves, but that they confirmed in people’s minds a person who – if there are no health issues – just isn’t hungry and switched on enough to the issues of the moment.
For all Rudd’s faults, he is hungry and switched on. He has many of Latham’s qualities but without the instability. And that is why I reckon he will win tomorrow.
Fair comment Trenton. All Labor has to do to win is to put the country before tribalism. The country before the need to be just different from the Coalition. The country before the need not to alienate the loopy left.
Who leads is secondary
Martin, so that makes Howard the Merle Haggard of Australian politics. Maybe Rudd would then be the Mark Holden of Australian politics as opposed to Latham who would be considered more in the Bon Scot “crash and burn” mould.
Here’s the rest of the Neilson poll:
The poll shows 36 per cent of voters think Mr Rudd would be Labor’s best leader, an increase of nine points since the question was last posed in May. Ms Gillard is the next preferred leader on 29 per cent, while Mr Beazley is lagging at 24 per cent.
This is a blessed story to appear for Rudd in this morning’s press, if the numbers are presently giving him a slight majority or the result is to depend on only a few undecideds, as is generally being reported.
Re Latham, it’s true that he had high personal approval ratings at various times, but his preferred PM ratings were always significantly less. The last I can easily find was 45/32 in Howard’s favour about 2 weeks from the election. There doesn’t appear to be a preferred PM poll reported in this latest Nielson.
While I’m here, the ALP’s primary at the last election was 37.64, its lowest since 1934. Many pundits have concluded that the ALP must raise its primary to win, or perhaps even to avoid oblivion. Given that the ALP’s 2004 2pp was 47.26, a 48 point ALP primary, if it was to be true, would be gorgeous.
Speaking of Polls : http://www.theaustralian.news.com.au/story/0,20867,20866098-601,00.html
Rudd team leads by 21pc: Newspoll
Steve Lewis, Chief political correspondent
December 04, 2006
LABOR is preparing to take a big gamble today by electing Kevin Rudd to challenge John Howard at the federal election next year, as voters call on a divided ALP to dump Kim Beazley as leader.
As Labor MPs arrive in Canberra for this morning’s leadership showdown, a special Newspoll reveals the “dream team” of Mr Rudd and Julia Gillard holds a commanding lead of almost two to one over the incumbents Mr Beazley and Jenny Macklin.
The Newspoll, conducted exclusively for The Australian, reveals support among voters for the Rudd-Gillard combination at 48 per cent, 21 percentage points higher than their rivals.
Mr Rudd also holds a decisive lead over Mr Beazley as preferred Opposition leader.
Support for the Queensland MP, who is untested in a leadership role, has jumped to 43 per cent. This easily outstrips Mr Beazley, who can muster only 27 per cent backing to continue as Opposition Leader.
Who the hell did they survey, the personal address books of the entire News Ltd Staff list ??
And of course we all know what the editorial will say
Trenton,
Why assume that Rudd/Gillard is taking primary votes only from the Greens? That’s a silly assumption, based on a set of equally silly assumptions (and maybe attitudes) – like that the left of the ALP is going Green and good riddance to them.
One place where first preferences are going to count a lot, in the next election, is the Senate. A higher primary vote for Labor there translates into more quotas filled on first preferences, hence more seats. And maybe next time round, the twonks who put Steve Fielding into the Senate on Labor preferences they couldn’t bear to see go to the Greens will get it right, so the Senate actually functions as a House of Review again.
Sky says its Rudd 49-39
NewsRadio is also reporting an ‘unofficial’ result: a Rudd victory without numbers
Hang on, someone just cut in with the 49-39 figure.
Of interest:
result for Deputy? Same margin or different? What about Senate leader and deputy?
Will Rudd’s forces unite to postpone the frontbench ballot till tomorrow?
ABC reporter Brissenden pointing out that 50 minutes is a long time, especially if the vote is indeed 49-39. Perhaps a lot of procedural manouevering in the first 20-25 minutes?
Anthony Byrne, Caucus returning officer, via News Radio:
Rudd 49 d Beazley 39
Gillard only nomination for Deputy.
Frontbench spill on Thursday, current frontbench to remain till then. Unsure what happens to Beazley between now and then – does he get to keep frontbench status? We’ll know by Question Time at the latest.
Senate:
Evans unopposed for leader
Conroy unopposed for deputy leader
David, perhaps some explanation in Milne’s column this morning.
Or perhaps not – Australian now saying front bench will be decided at tomorrow’s (ordinary) caucus meeting.
KEVIN Rudd is Labor’s new leader, after winning a caucus vote by 10 votes. He beat Kim Beazley by 49 votes to 39. The result was confirmed after a party room meeting this morning.
Julia Gillard has been elected deputy unopposed.
Hours before the ballot, Mr Rudd declared he was happy to leave his future in his colleagues’ hands as he strode into Parliament.
Mr Rudd and running mate Julia Gillard spent the weekend working the phones to secure the crucial 45 caucus votes needed to snatch victory from incumbent leader Kim Beazley and his deputy Jenny Macklin.
“Today is called a reality check and we are more than happy to put our future in our colleagues’ hands,” a croaky voiced Mr Rudd told reporters this morning, before the vote
Asked about his voice, Mr Rudd said: “If you spend the last three days on the telephone non-stop, that’s what happens to your voice.”
The ambitious Ms Gillard, who has taken a very determined back seat to Mr Rudd this weekend, only said: “I’m feeling good thank you”.
Zoe, I heard Byrne say Thursday live on NewsRadio…the media did report over the weekend that postponing the spill till tomorrow was the original plan.
I guess the Australian assumed that if Rudd won, the Tues option would be followed, and did not wait to hear what Byrne said. Presumably most of the article you linked to was pre-written.
I have saved a screenhot of the article in case they change it later without admitting it
Time to close this thread.
I suggest any further comments on the byzantine workings of ALP internal politics be posted here.