Christian Kerr from Crikey writes:
Who are the people in politics and the media who will really decide the outcome of this year’s election?
There are the obvious big names of the Gallery and the frontbenchers, their advisers and their backroom teams – but what about the people with more diffuse or more localised power?
It already seems to be conventional wisdom, for example, that the election will be won or lost for Labor in South Australia and Queensland. SA’s easy. The marginals there are all in metropolitan Adelaide. But even then, who do people in Kingston, Makin and Wakefield listen to on the radio? And Queensland? The population spread and the location of the key seats is very different. Where does the media clout there really lie? With Madonna King or syndicated broadcasts of John Laws?
Crikey is attempting to compile the ultimate election year power list and wants your help.
They want to know who you think the obvious media and political names that should be on it are – journos, producers, pollies, advisers, spinners, pollsters and strategists – but they also want more.
Is there someone in Burnie, for example, whose influence could make Braddon swing back to Labor at the poll – or in any of the other 30 odd marginal seats and electorates with retiring MPs that will be crucial to who forms the next government.
Send your nominations to christian@crikey.com.au and post them here and see where the discussion takes us.
It apears that Howard has already unfurled the white flag as he is not game to sort out the factionalism within the Queensland Liberal Party.
My tip if you want influences on the Liberal Party vote in Queensland would be to try the Federal police, the CMC, the Federal Director of Prosecutions, The Australian Electoral Commission various Federal Courts and the local prisons.
I’m sure the ATO would also have an interesting view of local groups and whether they are charities or not.
No wonder Howard wants to stay the course in Iraq because the Liberal Party has buckley’s chance of staying the course in Queensland. I think Iraq is a much more friendly place for him to visit anyway after how his mates in Queensland have treated him and obviously he thinks so too.
There is something poetic about a cabinet reshuffle from the middle East that shuffles Queenslanders out of cabinet.
Perhaps the Director of the Qld Libs could tell us who are the unannounced surprises from printgate and whether or not they are Federal Ministers requiring another reshuffle. After all we haven’t had a reshuffle since yeaterday and I prefer one reshuffle per week myself.
Christian Kerr:
Congratulations on your promotion to Larvatus Prodeo
A thoroughly biased view from a small town out bush …. there is no journalist who has much obvious influence here. The good news is that journalists rank higher in public opinion than child molesters and Osama bin-Whatshisname. Quite a few people do listen to John Laws but since his staff probably pick the issues for him to talk about, there is likely to be more of a feedback loop than actual influence as such.
Many people used to be rusted-on Labor or Country/Nationals but the times are changing. The Labor Party is seen as having turned into an anti-worker, pro-business party ["A.L.P. stand for Academics, Lawyers and P**fters" and variations on that]. The National Party is seen as weak and nothing but a rubber-stamp for Howard and even against rural people ; if anyone votes for them, it will be through gritted teeth; their votes will probably go straight to the religious fanatics [wonder when they'll be able to form a theocratic government in their own right?]. Like a dead roo on the side of the road, the Liberals stink to high heaven. Other political parties are unknown and distrusted ….. except for Pauline Hanson who is seen as the only potential candidate who gives a damn about Australians; she’ll replace the top Labor senator [Labor have only themselves to blame and the electorate will punish them]. Don’t know about Baker; jumping ship from the Nationals automatically gives him a few thousand more rural votes.
No doubt others elsewhere will have a different point of view.
Now I’m really depressed. My blog appears to be the only one in Australia not asked to host a guest spot by Christian Kerr.
Considering the bullshit Kerr’s capable of, I’m surprised LP allows him to darken your door.
shrug
Given the bullshit LP is capable of I figure all is fair.
Mmmm, it doesn’t take much to upset the boys from Fight Dem Back. Ridiculous. Thanks to them I got mentioned once on a Nazi website in positive terms, all because I wondered whether Dem Back was a pure vehicle for the vanity of one of their members.
Why do the extremists always spend their time fighting other extremists?
“Who are the people in politics and the media who will really decide the outcome of this year’s election?”
Errr, the voters.
Darlene, I’m surprised someone didn’t bring up that opening question before. To me it seems to perfectly sum up the problem with the commentariate, and in particular the Canberra press gallery. The arrogance that the question suggests is so deeply ingrained that the questioner is totally oblivious to these implications.
Adelaide’s marginals are mortgage belt so its interest rates, interest rates and more interest rates. They’re gone for the govt now with 3 interest rate rises. No commentator is loud or relevant enough to sing above that chorus line.
Have you heard of “spoonman” TripleM’s Alan Jones for boguns, He’s always prepared to put a political point (plus lots of other crap like dream interpretation), and happy to namedrop politcal operators. Strangely though, he keeps his identity a secret. Time to do some outing Christian.
“The arrogance that the question suggests is so deeply ingrained that the questioner is totally oblivious to these implications”.
Absolutely arrogant, and typical of media elites who think the rest of us are buying everything they say, and that we don’t make up our minds.
Can we stick to the topic of the post, please, and cut out the predictable Crikey-bashing from the usual suspects?
Christian Kerr: LP’s Sophie Masson.
So it seems, but last meta-comment, please!
While I can sympathize with the call for substantive discussion rather than windbaggery, Crikey should be called out on this one. This question suggests a lot about what at least one person at Crikey thinks of the positions of politicians and the MSM. When I saw it I wanted to do an Aussie echo of Brad deLong’s “Why oh why can’t we have a better press corps?” Seriously, if Crikey is so out of information that it needs to survey blog readers, do you think think they could also go back to do Politics 101, Sociology 101, and Economics 101 because clearly they understand very little about their supposed raison d’etre?
Kim, this ‘aint Crikey bashing, more disappointment that at least one of its number seems all too willing to succumb to the same flaws and misconceptions that infest the MSM, and make viable alternatives so necessary.
“Can we stick to the topic of the post, please, and cut out the predictable Crikey-bashing from the usual suspects?”
Excuse me, Kim, but it wasn’t just Crikey bashing, and it was on topic. I couldn’t care if the Pope said it. It’s arrogant to write out the electorate in such a way, and presume such an important role for the media and politicians.
“Who are the people in politics and the media who will really decide the outcome of this year’s election?”
You don’t find that arrogant?
I’m sorry, but your comment is out of line and inappropriate.
Sorry Kim. Mostly.
On the topic of the post: I would identify three groups of people who’re going to really strongly influence voting intentions come the Federal election. None of them, I think, are the kinds of media intermediaries Crikey and Kerr are imagining.
First are employers, especially small-scale employers of non-unionised staff. Everyone thinks that the job they’ve got is due to their own merit and inherent worthiness, and if they lose it they’re unlikely to blame themselves individually. Sacked or retrenched workers, whatever the facts of the case, are going to need little prompting to blame their job loss on WorkChoices.
Second are individual members of Parliament and candidates for office. Not their staffers, not the Head Office creeps, not the consultants-general or the advertising pimps. The simple features of ordinary election campaigning, like saying hello to people in shopping centres, are vastly underrated.
Third, of course, are the hawks, of the uniformed and non-uniformed varieties. Rumbles in the jungle of East Timor or the Solomons, say, with associated ADF deployments, would boost the Government’s vote, naturally. And that’s not to even consider an escalation in the Brawl in Baghdad, or a potential Touch-Up in Teheran.
“The simple features of ordinary election campaigning, like saying hello to people in shopping centres, are vastly underrated.”
Darn tootin’
Darlene, you don’t think that there aren’t people in the media who swing opinion? Maybe it’s overstated but can’t we have that debate in civil terms?
I have no idea. I live in inner Brisbane and have only met one openly conservative voter EVER. He’s a cop. He has a 4WD. Most of my friends don’t have 4WDs, maybe 4WD owners vote conservative? There seem to be plenty of the space hogging resourse guzzlers in my electorate (Ryan) which is uniformly true blue except for one tiny little polling booth tucked into the NE corner, which houses the vestiges of the inner city working class, and manages 50.1% for the red team. I hear tell of suburbs of McMansions filled with aspirational 4WDers heading the other way down the freeways. Maybe they vote conservative. I listen to Fran on RN in the mornings while making sandwiches for the kids, who else would anyone listen to (can you even get John Laws in Brisbane?). I read LP, and am forced to endure the Australian because the Courier Mail is unreadable. I wonder if the Australian commentators drive 4WDs?
I cannot imagine letting people drown at sea, or excising parts of Australia from legislation so boat people cannot access our legal system, or telling 50 year old men there is no need to be unemployed since there is always lawn mowing to be done, or honestly believing Saddam was responsible for 9/11 or a nuclear weapons program, or letting a citizen rot, without due process, in a foreign jail, or punishing the unemployed with cruel hoop jumping exercises, or failing to take responsibility for a massive financial scandal signed off the government, or allowing policies to proceed which have led to runaway house and skills prices.
I don’t know why 10% of Australian’s vote conservative let alone 8 odd million. Why would you do it?
In short, I have no idea. I watch polls to judge others opinion now, majority views seem to have little correlation to mine.
“Maybe it’s overstated but can’t we have that debate in civil terms?”
Yes, I can, if you can have a discussion without making unfounded accusations against the people participating in it.
Yes, people in the media have influence, but this post seems to indicate that they have lots and lots and lots. Anything that diminishes other influences (e.g. think about if you’re a poor person who needs dental care) is a crock. A bit of a wank, really.
A lot of people in the media have an overly optimistic view of their influence.
Power List nominations:
Ron Walker, as in (a)
bagmanfifteen years treasurer of Liberal Party, raised $175 million for them (b) Costello Supporter (c ) Chairman of Fairfax ie publisher of Tony Abbott (d) purveyor of Australian Nuclear Energy…etc… I mean look what happened when someone dared to raise his name in vain in Parliament…… now that’s power.Australia’s small business owners, power wielded by (a) holding off sackings ( for “operational reasons” )/ rehiring with diminished wages/conditions until after election, thereby lulling employees into false sense of security (b) subtly or otherwise
putting the frighteners onvoicing their opinion that a change of government will be the end for the business.Wayne Swan, power in a negative sense, if he can refrain from making a dog’s breakfast of budget reply
ADF personnel, Australian sportspersons, anyone that is prepared to give JWH a warm-inner-glow photo opportunity, uniforms preferable. I’d include other cheerleaders like Bush/Cheney/Maliki, all those for whom good governance is spin for “whatever is most profitable for us and ours”
Whoever has any real dirt/ scores to settle, if there is/are any, on Captain Kev, for whether they can keep their mouth shut in the National Interest. I’d bracket the power-tripping trade union troglodytes in here, they probably have the power to spoil everything, and in the absence of any other power they probably would… they have to have something to whinge and plot about to justify their few thousand beers.
Canberra’s barkeepers, power residing in whether or not they continue to put in whatever it is they have been in the drinks of the Press Gallery.
Janette and Therese.
Textor/Crosby
PS Thanks crikey for daring to suggest the Smoking Plane Incident was a set-up.
If I’ve given offence, Darlene, I apologise.
If the ALP could get Bert Newton to endorse them in 2007, they’d be home.
The reserve bank. Movement on interest rates will have more affect on political fortunes in this country than most newspapers.
Doesn’t Glen Milne have a big scoop for you Christian?
Should fit right up yr nose mate.
Fiasco Da Game [at 2:07pm] and FDB :
Spot-on there.
b.t.w., I mentioned on another LP thread that we’ll soon have National Service dodgers spindoctered into really-truly war heroes as the drum-beats get louder; my guess is that a handful of brown-nosing senior ADF officers will have extraordinary influence on the election by facilitating the making of downright lying images of gutless wonders that will swamp our screens …. “Your taxes at work” ????..
TonyRoberts:
Cheer up. You’ll soon be able to pick up plenty of 4WD of your choice and colour dirt cheap at repossession auctions ….. and the former distressed owners will be more likely to vote for the religious fanatics than for that nice Mr Howard and his competent managers of our great economy. Anyway, hang in there; change is on the way.
Blind Freddy:
That’s a thoughtful list.
Everyone:
Surprise. Surprise. The people at Crikey are just like us. Sometimes they get things right; sometimes they get things wrong; sometimes they are brilliant; sometimes they are less so …..
Kim on 19 March 2007 at 11:53 am
Kim, who are the ‘usual suspects’ you’re dismissing so readily- and how long have they been ‘usual suspects?’
I wouldn’t have had negative word number one to say about Kerr, had he not decided last week to hit the PUBLISH button on his defamatory hackjob on FightDemBack! before doing ANY research whatsoever, including reading the FDB main page.
I still haven’t anything to swat Crikey in general for- I’ve got a 2-year, $200 paid sub… and actually read it some days, to boot.
Darlene drooled,
No luv- that was your own little tapdance down nazi lane that got you a glowing review from the brownshirts. Don’t give us any credit until we’re really due.
So, being a migrant to Australia who objects to having his neighbourhood plastered with white-supremacist stickers makes me an extremist?
Get ya hand off it, Darlene.
Weez:
((Ever notice how so much of that white supremicist stuff is 100% fully-imported but with the word “Australia” and Australian symbols substituted for local use? )) Now, back on topic …..
White Supremicists, few in number though they may be, are likely to have an extraordinary influence on any federal election that might happen. And NO, NOT supporting Pauline Hanson; she’s their rival not their ally or their opponent.
White supremicists will get used/trotted-out to uphold Australian values, to fight against all those terrorists and their supporters skulking around Australia, to protect Christianity and do whatever is required of them. Get ready to see them on TV every day.
They will be renarkably effective because we have been through a decade of unrelenting Aussie-bashing, where native-born Australians have have been slandered and abused day-in-day-out as lazy, stupid, cowardly, ignorant and racist …… so anybody who perhaps appears to be likely to think about sticking up for ordinary Australians at some time or another is going to get a very good hearing indeed …. whether that person is a white supremicist. a religious fanatic or whoever.
I’m not going to even dignify your little character assassination with a response, Weez.
Your apology is accepted, Kim. Thanks.
I didn’t go after your character, Darlene- I went after your misleading statement. How interesting that you attempt to deflect with yet another misleading statement (that your character was somehow assassinated).
Your lack of willingness to defend the balance of your statements is indicative of their level of defensibility.
GB said:
Who is doing this slandering?
There always will be an ignorance and xenophobia vote. Responsible politicians won’t pander to it. Those who do give life to the hatred vote deserve to be labeled base and opportunist. It’s a mark of desperation in any campaign.
“No luv- that was your own little tapdance down nazi lane that got you a glowing review from the brownshirts. Don’t give us any credit until we’re really due.”
What do you call that…luv?
Attribution of responsibility for your fan club where it belongs… darls.
Namecalling FDB as a vehicle of self-promotion is demonstrative of total ignorance about the form and function of FDB. If it was a fame-machine, you’d think some of us would be famous after 4 years of it.
Weez…..????????????????????????????
Like, whatever…..seriously, whatever.
Weez, I hadn’t seen CK’s thing about FDM, so therefore I wasn’t making a reference to it!
Weez:
It would be quicker to look for the minority who haven’t indulged in Aussie-bashing.
All Howard and his mob have to do is say that they are contemplating saying nice things about tolerant, decent, hard-working, sensible Aussies ….. and they are in like Flynn ….. never mind BirkChoices, Iraq, our loss of sovereignty, rorts, scandals, social fracturing, inflation, environmental dithering, ever-weakening defence and all the rest ….. they’re as good as re-elected.,
As a native-born (white) working class Australian, I have have been slandered and abused as stupid, cowardly, ignorant… and anti-racist.
Mostly by white supremacists, strangely enough.
Anyways, “I’m mad as hell and I’m not gonna take it any more!” Well, not from illiterate yuppies like that Christian bloke.
As for the election, I live in a safe Labor seat.
Sooo… yeah.
Still, for what it’s worth, I also reckon that discussing which politicians or media outlets are able to exert influence over voting intentions inre the next Federal election is kinda pointless in the absence of a discussion regarding what may be the key issues voters imagine that they may be exerting some influence over through voting; whether that issue may be regarded as existing on a national, state, or local level.
That said, I do feel that some Yanqui named Murdoch may have a small degree of influence.
I have have have repeated myself.