I’ve previously highlighted Dennis Shanahan and Malcolm Colless as barometers of the new new political narrative (‘Rudd in trouble! Gloss comes off! Action Man Tony Off To Vigorous Start!’). Michelle Grattan provided another twist on the mechanics of constructing such a story on the weekend.
Rudd’s political style, whether his prolixity or his obsession for control, was always destined to be viewed more harshly when the politics became tougher.
Eventually it might work, but it’s not so far, because Abbott, blemished as he might be, is seen as ”authentic”, just as people are starting to ask ”will the real Kevin stand up?”…
But the dynamics have changed, the government is worried and the public, for the moment, seem to be hoping the underdog makes it a contest.
There’s lots, lots, more, and in fact the whole piece is something of a mind dump rather than a considered analysis. But what’s worth highlighting is the elision between “the public” (referenced anecdotally), the polls (alluded to) and “people”. The story is largely written in the passive voice beloved of such authoritative pronouncements – stuff just happens, and it’s unclear who thinks that it has, and who has been doing the doing. Who is doing the viewing of Rudd in the para I’ve excerpted? What is this destiny?
What it really adds up to is a picture of the commentariat-bot at work.
Not everyone is as artless as Alexander Downer, claiming to detect a sea-change in public opinion on the basis of random airport encounters, quickly morphed into “people think”, and “people say”, but the underlying illogic is the same. Public opinion has changed because the commentariat says it has. The absence of much hard data, or even reference to such data as exists, only serves to highlight the constructedness of the narrative.
For a corrective, one might try Possum.
How popular is Kevin Rudd? It’s the question on the tips of the lips of political commentators everywhere. The exciting answer is that he’s on the nose, he’s doomed, the honeymoon is over, his popularity is plunging to new lows – add exclamation marks for effect.But the boring – boring and correct – answer is, “about as popular as he was last time there was an Opposition leadership change”.
And on the federal polling from the same Galaxy sample as the horror poll for Anna Bligh, headlined as “Coalition surges to poll lead” by the Courier-Mail:
Effectively, these polls suggest a net loss to Rudd of 1 seat in Qld at the moment compared to the 2007 election results applied to the new electoral boundaries.
Compare that to Stephanie Balogh’s story:
SUPPORT for Kevin Rudd in his home state has crashed as Tony Abbott’s new-look Coalition powers ahead of Labor for the first time since the 2007 federal election.
I was just going to post this on the other thread re: the reported incident by Nina Funnell as a general comment but sort of suits your post…
……
Maybe I’m too old and desperately partisan but I’m not buying into all the of anti-Rudd personality stuff that is cluttering up every comment box on every MSM site and is overflowing into other media & blogs, because I watched the MSM destroy the reputation of our last Labor PM…. while he was still in office.
So much of the anti-Keating memes during 93-96 centred around Keating’s personality. If we were told he was arrogant once, we were told it ten thousand times. Farrk, vote him out cause you don’t like the way he handled the economy or didn’t like X and Y policy, but voting him out cause you don’t like his arrogance and perceived elitism, his profanity and so on…
The disdain that the ordinary person in the street “felt” about Keating the man, by 1996, is only matched now by the affection for those very traits held by peeps who in hindsight admire his take-no-prisoners rhetoric.
Howard didn’t talk down to people, he lied and dog whistled to them. That’s why I didn’t like the Howard the politician and his policies. I couldn’t have cared less about his personality – it was however his sub-urban ordinariness was what he traded in esp. to get into Kirribilli in the first place, and posited as curative to all of Keating’s “faults”.
So now we have Rudd’s and his waffling nerdy technospeak and his Howard-lite personality being pitched against Abbott’s uber-masculinity and factually inconsistent man-in-the-street unpopular viewpoints aka dog-whistling.
How about sticking to the actual policies from both camps and in the Govt’s case the policy outcomes and we’d all be a lot more knowledgeable about our Government & Opposition.
This is not to say that Rudd hasn’t been his own worst enemy commenting on every news item that he is asked about, but Kennett did the same thing and was lauded for it – I remember Jeff giving his opinion on the 6 o’clock news from taxi drivers wearing uniforms to the quality of vanilla slices, it was crazy and the MSM lapped it up and served it every night for years until his Govt was on the nose and the polling fell away etc.
From my point of view, the two big policies that Abbott has released seem like policy on the run. Just there for the quick sound bite grab.
Admittedly I haven’t read the community board/hospital one but I have heard of such a proposal before.
In both cases, I’m not sure they’re operationally feasible.
I don’t really see how you can paint Possum’s analysis as not confirming that support for Rudd has ‘crashed’. Only a couple of months ago everyone was talking of a Ruddslide following lib divisions. Now in his home state he might go backwards.
Let’s put that in proportion, Matt C. Some excitable folks were talking about a Ruddslide. Others thought that it was always likely that the polls would narrow in the lead up to the election. On the probabilities Possum has posted, the result in Queensland wouldn’t be that different from the 2007 election. That doesn’t warrant a claim that his support has ‘crashed’ or that the Coaliton is ‘powering ahead’. In any case, a lot could happen in terms of Labor’s prospects in Queensland in the eight or so months before the election.
I think the more balanced perspective is to acknowledge that support for the ALP appears to have pulled back over the past few months due to a combination of factors (questions on policy, better coalition performance (in political terms), but it is too early to tell whether this represents a permanent narrowing or a temporary one. The MSM are feeding the permanent line in part because it gives them more to write about. They like a contest. Whether it ends up being permanent will depend on whether the government can get back on track policy wise (see Hartcher in the SMH on the weekend for a very good read) and whether the coalition collapses under the weight of their own internal contradictions. At the moment they are being reasonably successful at avoiding scrutiny of their own shabby policies. That won’t be the case during the full glare of an election campaign.
Note also that the Galaxy Poll has an MOE of about 3.5% – their sample size is smaller than most polls, and that The Poll Bludger suspects the sample might be somewhat skewed towards the Coalition.
http://blogs.crikey.com.au/pollbludger/2010/02/14/morgan-phone-poll-53-5-46-5/
Yep, post-QandA last week, Bolt and Co haven’t ceased declaring ‘cynical and switched-on Gen-Yers’ all over Oz have seen through that ever so rude Mr. Rudd’s spin and are saying they’ve had enough, and, rather vomitously as far as I’m concerned, that the future of our nation is in good hands.
I didn’t really have the heart on that thread to get stuck into Ms Samuels’ mother for sockpuppeting her daughter’s political ambitions all over the interweb (in much the same way she spruiked her teenage son’s commercial ambitions a few years back). But, moving on, there you have it not a week later – a handful of paid up, card-carrying young Libs with their parents hands firmly pulling the strings, have been morphed out of the blue by the Right-leaning commentariat into being the very zeitgeist of a heroic and dissenting Gen-Y Australia.
Prediction (plus a possibly misguided, and very happy to retract if I’m proved incorrect, hunch): it’s going to be an ugly campaign from the Coalition, with most of its dirty work being performed and disseminated semi-anonymously (and voluminously) via the internet. Why dig dirt these days when you can have ostensible others just make it up for you?
Abbott is entertaining, but unelectable. Rudd is boring and will win.
“Boring man still winning” doesn’t exactly sell fish wrappers.
End of story. Nothing else to see here.
My feeling is that people, both the ‘informed’ and the great unwashed, are confused by the idea of a Coalition leader who is a stronger personality than the ALP’s federal boss man. That just hasn’t happened, not in a very long time. There either isn’t much light between the two office holders, or the Labor leader is a living icon—the Liberal boss man isn’t supposed to be able to dominate his opponent with his animal magnetism.
It doesn’t matter that Abbott is truly crazy. He’s kind of broken the mold in being more dynamic than our generic Labor PM person, at the same time as he’s also reinvigorated the tribal instincts of Liberal voters, what with his masterful ability to get almost a whole third of the electorate to say they think he’d make a better prime minister than Rudd. C’est magnifique!
(Does anyone watch BBC World/listen to the World Service? Their Australian correspondent—their man downunder—has, during the last week, been pushing the line that the Abbott Opposition is leading the Rudd government in the polls, thanks to that Newspoll 41/40 primary result. Just remember that the next time you refexively think “public broadcasting will save us from the Dennis Shanahans of the world”.)
Jo – I think thats exactly what will happen as the election draws closer. The dissembling Abbot will be forced to spell out the substance (is there any?)of opposition policy rather than just spouting slogans. The memory of workchoices is still strong in the electorate and Labor will be highlighting the choice between a return to that (and other regressive policies) under Howard’s gang Mark II or sticking with a Government which is delivering a strong and fair economic outcome.
@7, yeah, Nick, I made the point to a friend on Facebook who’s living in Canada and posted that he was watching Qanda that the audience was hardly representative of ‘Gen Y’; but rather selected from unrepresentative middle class Canberra residents who are politically active in youth wings of various parties and highly partisan. The fact that 6 identified their allegiance as ‘CEC’ should be a giveaway. Yet all week we had all this crap about how Gen Y had exposed Rudd’s prevarication, gone sour on him, etc. I thought the most recent breakdown showed huge levels of weakness for the Coalition in the younger demographic.
@5 – LO, yes I agree.
I think the basic story is that some of Labor’s soft support – not much at all, but some – has peeled off now that the Liberals appear united.
And I’ve been amusing myself composing Labor election leaflets in my head while on the bus! It’s not at all hard to see what will be thrown at the Coalition, and I’m not sure that people have factored in dills like Peter Dutton having to get up and defend flimsy healthcare proposals in the white heat of the campaign.
Btw, just on the Queensland polling, my feeling for some time has been that there are 2 or 3 Liberal seats in Brisbane that are vulnerable to Labor, and the same number of regional seats held by Labor vulnerable to the Coalition. So a result that’s essentially status quo, albeit with some seats changing hands, wouldn’t surprise me. I think Labor won some regional seats in this state on factors which were very salient indeed in 2007 (Workchoices, cost of living) and the Libs were protected by incumbency and in some cases, weak Labor candidates, in a few Brisbane seats.
About QandA I’m still wondering if the media watched the same show I did. Did the youth ask tough questions. For the most-part, yes they did. Did they cover a broad ranging spectrum? Yes
Did Rudd answer most of them, if not all of them, adequately? Yes he did. Admittedly a little excessive with the verbiage. So I’m a little perplexed by headlines like “At the end of the day, the kids caned Kevin on Q&A”
@14 – Yeah, I didn’t think he was all that bad.
http://larvatusprodeo.net/?s=qanda
I think it’s just another example of the herd instinct in the gallery/commentariat. It might be exacerbated by Twitter, where people do insta-commentary which dissects every answer of Rudd’s, and compete to out-Annabel Crabb each other. Needless to say, 200 or so people on Twitter would be in no way representative of 800 000 people who watched the programme.
The story is largely written in the passive voice beloved of such authoritative pronouncements
I’m going to be a pedant and point out that I only count two passive clauses in the whole story:
Mike Kaiser has turned up in a $450,000 ”job for the boy” with the new government broadband company, after he was suggested by Communications Minister Stephen Conroy.
If he doesn’t relocate Joyce, the Coalition’s economic credibility, not high anyway, will be seriously compromised.
There are a couple of others which look like passive, but which I would say are really adjectival uses of past participles.
Sure agency is obscured in many other places, using various techniques, but passive voice is not the major culprit here!
At present Abbott is getting away with second rate recycled policies such as the minimalist response to climate change and local control of hospitals. We see to stuck in 2007 or earlier. Where are the headlines: “Tony offers nothing new!”, “Abbott forward to the past.” “Simple Answers to Complex Problems”? Give me Rudd’s prolixity anyday over the coalition’s populist piffle.
ALP up one point to 53-47 in Newspoll.
Naturally, Cue the Organ: “Rudd hits a new low”.
http://www.theaustralian.com.au/news/rudd-hits-a-new-low-newspoll/story-e6frg6n6-1225830688059
I rather like Rudd despite his shortcomings. All the current problems he is facing are all of his own making though. Bouyed by incredible polls he took his foot off the accelerator and allowed Abbott to steal a march thinking he could waltz into this years election. Abbott’s front bench is a joke and so are all his policies to date but in the world of politics this counts for little. Perception plays a big role and come closer to election day the press will turn on Abbott and co and expose them as the shallow hucksters they obviously are. Rudd’s legendary work rate has become a liability as he falls into the trap of working harder but not smarter than his opponent. Someone needs to remind him that a bit of mongrel from time to time is ok as well. The Press Gallery are like a pack of peeping toms when it comes to politics and are not so much enthralled by the cut and thrust but by the size of the chutzpuh involved.
I think you are all being unfair to the media. They can spin more than one narrative.
For every comment about how arrogant Keating was I could point yo towards them saying our PM was strong willed and decisive. Of course that happened about half way through Howard’s turn at the tiller…
@Simon Musgrave: “There are a couple of others which look like passive, but which I would say are really adjectival uses of past participles.”
I love it when you talk dirty.
@16 – Simon, fair point! I meant to encapsulate how there’s a lack of agency in this style of writing – ie stuff just happens, narratives change, things are destined, blah blah. Shouldn’t perhaps have made it that way!
@18 – yeah, Lefty E, it’s interesting to compare those words of wisdom from Shanahan compared to the sort of ‘Howard Political Wizardry Finally Gaining Traction as Liberals gain one point’ sort of stuff we used to see! I can’t believe they failed to mention the 2PP. Basically the poll shows what we’re seeing elsewhere – something of a falling away in the Labor vote but a continued dominance in the 2PP, though for whatever reason, Newspoll is getting worse numbers for Labor than the other pollsters. Essential Research today, I think, has Labor 55-45 and Morgan 53.5-46.5. The basic story is that nothing has changed. But it’s interesting that the two commentariat obsessions – the CPRS and the leaders’ personal ratings – are what gets highlighted.
To give him credit, Van Onselen at least recently wrote in the OO that the beauty contest between leaders had bugger all correlation with the party vote historically.
The wisdom was Abbott would be a disaster. Perhaps he yet will. I cannot remember a less liberal Liberal.
But he has coalesced conservative support, and caught Labor coasting after three failing Liberal leaders (Howard’s dotage, the Nelson interregnum, the Turnbull mismatch).
And reminded us that under compulsory voting, landslides are rare as rocking horse excrement. Of the MSM had a sense of history, or rather a desire to avoid it, it would embrace the dream of a landslide over the boring likelihood of a close but comfortable re-election.
For all the stuff about Abbott having consolidated the conservative base, it’s interesting to observe that if 27% of Newspoll respondents think he’s the better PM, and the Coalition primary is 40%, a fair few Coalition voters must think Rudd’s better.
I suspect that the leakage to the Coalition on primaries is as soft for them as it was for Labor when it was in their pile. It’s eminently possible that a bit of it could switch back to Labor, which would presumably see them back around trend levels on 2PP. A lot of these voters might find Abbott’s outfit more plausible, and be parked there through any number of sentiments of dissatisfaction, but they’re also precisely the ones who are more likely to shift during the campaign itself.
I also wouldn’t rule out Abbott blowing himself up in one way or another somewhere along the track.
Actually Mark, there has been a definite trend down in the 2pp as well over the past few months. With regard to the primary vote, I agree it is wrong to headline that rather than the tick up in the 2pp, but Labor won’t be happy with its primary vote under 40.
Having listened to Michelle Grattan wittering on about nothing much on RN Breakfast for years, I don’t quite understand why anyone would regard her as insightful. Frankly, I’ve pulled better intuitions out of my arse when drunk.
@26 – yeah, LO, but I think from memory the 2PP in Newspoll is an artefact of the primary, as they don’t ask a second question, as some other pollsters do, about allocation of preference, but just factor in preference flows from the last election. So it’s in an invariant relationship with the primary figures. Don’t quote me on that, but that’s what I recall. Possum etc. would know.
However, you’re right about the low primary being something of a worry. They need to decide whether to go hunting among The Greens’ primary, or the primary that’s bleeding to the Coalition. Given the disposition of seats, the latter is the more likely option nationally, but I’d be a bit nervous if I were Tanner, Plibersek or Albanese.
Am I alone in thinking the Australian media, particulalry the commentariat is the worst in the western world?
Certainly, the British ‘serious’ papers have some crap (‘I went to a dinner party, and we discussed cutlery’), but honestly, there are some excellent articles – say, 1 in 3. Oz? 1 in 10?
It’s more the overpowering mediocrity, rather than bad..
Labor is on track to increase their majority in the House, and decrease their deficit in the Senate. This is all ye know, and all ye need to know.
The Abbott trajectory assumes that sufficient momentum exists to take him above his current predicament. It doesn’t: in the past fortnight or so it’s become clear that the penny-ante stuff the Coalition has come out with is not a taste of what’s to come, it’s all there is. It’s small beer or no beer.
It’s one thing for the media to have a line and stick to it – it’s quite another for them to use the blatantly contradictory line that they are in order to drum up interest that doesn’t exist, as I’ve said elsewhere.
It’s because many forget that Rudd’s polls HAD to be inflated. He doesn’t have that bif of a margin. He is in danger zone now. Against the one person he should never have been against. Want my professional advice I gave this blog when Bligh was facing the unthinkable? PROTECT AGAINST THE PROTEST VOTE. What you are seeing is the protest vote. “Kev can’t lose so why not throw a vote the other way” etc etc
Scotty you have a point that hasn’t been raised in the MSM. Graeme gets the other half almost perfect in my opinion.
“Labor is on track to increase their majority in the House, and decrease their deficit in the Senate. This is all ye know, and all ye need to know.”
I disagree with this.
The increase in the house could well be small. And while the Senate deficit will reduce slightly, it is the Greens that are on track to improve their position the most.
That stituation will present real dangers to Labor. On some issues where they disagree with the Coalition they will have to reach compromises with the Greens. But in that process could lose support to the Coalition. It will require a very fine balancing act. The narrowing is important, if it is permanent because it constrains Labor’s agenda more in the next parliament.
Rudd’s personal appeal is an issue. eg: on the left support has always been soft. He was not a popular choice to take the opposition leadership for those like, for example, most commenters at this blog. The same people also do not like his personality or social conservatism.
He’ll always compare OK with Abbott on those measures with that type of voter – but he won’t attract the passionate conviction and support required to carry big election wins. Specially when those types of voter correspond closely with those working in media.
I want to elaborate on this a little.
We can understand a bit of what is going on through the prism of climate change policy. Labor’s strategy was always predicated on being the “voice of reason” in the middle of the debate. The Greens want to go too far and the Libs not far enough. Offering the swinging voter enough to give the appearance of action without scaring them. Unfortunately for Labor, public opinion seems to be becoming more polarised and they seem to have a policy that nobody really likes that much or understands, but that they can’t easily change or get rid of, and so Labor is bleeding primary votes to the coalition and the greens (compared with a few months ago). While bleeding to the greens won’t hurt the 2pp and thus there is little chance of Labor losing the election or going backwards, it matters a lot for the Senate. There are very few Labor hardheads that will be happy with a large, entrenched Green representation with the balance of power.
Labor has to shift the debate on to issues where they can put the coalition under more pressure and where the Greens have fewer natural advantages.
Actually, there isn’t a lot of love for him within Labor’s right either. Trust me.
Rudd is a policy wonk but he hasn’t got any political balls. If he did he would call an election now rather than allowing the Coalition getting any momentum.
Oppositions don’t win elections – governments lose them.
Actually, now isn’t the right time for an election as Labor needs a bit of time to reconsider its own strategy, and take back the momentum it has lost over the past few months. For a start it will still be in the process of working out how to turn the Henry Review recommendations into a set of politically saleable initiatives.
@34 –
Yes, me too. At least the implication that it’s a certainty, and it’s all over red rover.
It always comes down to specific seats in specific states. I think, at the moment, a status quo result in Queensland, with, as I said a few seats changing hands but no great difference in the 07 result (which was excellent by historical standards in this state) is most likely. I don’t know there’ll be that much movement in NSW either.
I don’t know enough about Tassie, the NT and SA, but do people really think Pyne is in danger?
Victoria and WA might actually be the battleground states, contrary to received wisdom.
Having said all that, Abbott’s novelty will wear off, and it’s eminently possible, as Andrew E says, that they won’t be able to maintain momentum. Not that I think they’ve got the huge head of steam up that the commentariat do, anyway.
@35 – while that’s true, wbb, I think there’ll be more negative passion around our neck of the woods against Abbott then there would have been had, say, Hockey become Liberal leader, so perhaps Rudd doesn’t have to worry overly much about whether anyone’s really all that enthusiastic about him, as he didn’t when Howard was his opponent.
IR springs to mind, and the government seems to be a lot more confident they will have the upper hand on education and health than you’d know by reading the papers.
Conroy’s invocation of the Chinese censorship model with google has just about turned me off Labor.
jo@ you took the words right out of my mouth, as the song goes! Mark mentioned above the herd instinct of the media/commentariat. If the LP commentary on the Nina Funnell article is anything to go by there’s a herd instinct alive and well in the left of centre blogotariat as well.
There are plenty of people out there willing to hurl gratuitous insults at Rudd from the right, why are we doing it from the left? Who could be that ALP icon whose sense of his own importance has been diminished by Rudd’s astronomic popularity? He must have known that it would find it’s way into Downer’s column. Mark, you disappoint me. Downer artless? Bitter, bitchy, born to rule sense of entitlement frustrated, he’s still out for Labour blood, particularly Rudd’s blood.
Like Jo I watched with a sinking heart as the “arrogant Keating” theme was played over and over pre-1996 at a time when the Coalition shadow cabinet was unimaginably lacklustre. Eventually it was accepted wisdom, encouraged even by many unionists because of his economy reforms, and we lost the man who delivered the Redfern speech which Pat Dodson said showed leadership, principle and courage.
I don’t know if Kevin Rudd will demonstrate leadership, principle and courage of the order that Keating might have done but he’s brainy, got political nous and is nothing like the reputed robotic machine given to burst gaskets throwing out toxic venom. He looks to me like a hard worker who runs a Government team that works extraordinarily well together. Does a control freak cum geek keep a group of individuals like John Faulkner, Lindsay Tanner and Julia Gillard and other similarly strong and decent people performing consistently through years of historic world crisis without scandals and resignations?
On a personal level he looks like a happy man in a good marriage with a normal and healthy family. He even takes holidays and has Sundays off! I hate reading and hearing these stories of his personal shortcomings often third hand on a site of this reputation which then gets reported elsewhere as more evidence of growing dissatisfaction on the left. It all contributes to the mounting tide of lies and blather which will see the right roll back into power with that shifty North Shore surfer riding the waves to victory.
“I watched with a sinking heart as the “arrogant Keating” theme was played over and over pre-1996″…
Mine sank when he came out with the “full confidence” line re: Carmen Lawrence after the Penny Easton incident enquiry, suggesting surrender of his moral compass to the “My party Right or Wrong” political imperative.
Could Rudd too be on the tragic path to being a Oncer by not having his moral compass aligned with the nation’s, (or the election winning bit of it), as he declares “full confidence” in Garrett?
Na Danny. Standing firm with Garrett against another Lib/ MSM beat up seems to have had absolutely no influence on Labor standing in the most recent Newspoll. Mind you, when Labor polling improves the MSM then focuses on Rudd personal popularity falling, from crazy highs, so as not to interfere with their ‘down the tubes’ narrative party.
“Actually, there isn’t a lot of love for him within Labor’s right either. Trust me.”
That’s good enough for me. Once the Libs cop their deserved hiding later this year, piss Rudd off and put Gillard in. Oh and for good measure throw Conroy overboard too. Preferably off the coast of Port Lincoln.
Patricia WA is correct – this is Keating all over again.
The strange thing is, most here just accept it, even coming from the ABC. Hell we’ll even join in on the basis of a dubious report in the SMH of all places.
And the headline on your ABC online? ‘Rudd slipping as preferred PM’
Don’t be surprised when the coalition wins the next election, constantly negative media has an effect over time. Maybe just ask why most on the left are so sanguine about it.
On A.M. this day the presenter, as a segway into yet another story on Garrett, said something quite close to…”on a day when a Newspoll, just released, shows another slump for Labor”.
See Pollytics…
“Newspoll Tuesday comes in via The Oz with the primaries running 39 (down 1) /40 (down 1) to the Coalition, washing out into a two party preferred of 53/47 to Labor – a one point gain to Labor since the last Newspoll.”
WTF?
I call the Lefter-Than-Thou Convocation at @44 and @48 to order. A fair-minded reading of comments here and the other recent threads to which you refer hardly supports your characterisation of LP readers as bamboozled by the commentariat spin. Nina Funnell’s comments have been subjected to fairly skeptical appraisal (enough to attract Loud Denunciation from both right and left-leaning readers), and the comments on this thread hardly bespeak panic and an electoral rout for the ALP.
Unless you’re on a Lefter-Than-Thou kick, of course.
BTW, can I whingily request please that posters resist the temptation to treat every second comment thread as though the subject is “Tell Us What You Think About LP Readers” regardless of the actual topic?
I think our navels are now sufficiently engazed to discuss, you know, the topic, rather than derail every other thread with meta-commentary about the perceived or actual peccadillos of LP readers and contributors? It’s one-note, boring, repetitive, and I already know what my navel looks like.
My two bobs worth is that it is probably about 53-47 at the moment, and between now and the election, that is about as good as it is going to get for the Coalition.
As I said after 52-48, where can I bank it?
Front page news today is Abbott bringing back Workchoices. Labor will eat that up with a spoon.
I think you’re right Mercurius – there seems little chance that Rudd won’t get relected this year. I just can’t see the swinging centre voters (like me) electing any government that includes Barnaby Joyce as Finance Minister. Joyce may well resonate well with the National voters – but he’s a clown (to use Mark’s description from another thread).
However – what the recent MSM Rudd coverage shoes (echoed on this thread) is the dawning realisation that Rudd is a dud. He always was. He’s the consumate style over substance politician – and unfortunately for him, his style has grown wearisome. The public (and MSM) has tired of the endless ‘dialogue’, ‘review’, ‘evidence based policy’ etc etc…. for goodness sake man – stop talking and reviewing the issues and actually get on with doing something about the problems!
The surprise packet of the last two years has been Gillard. My opinion of her has risen enormously. My impression two years ago was that Gillard was one of those union beholden, well left of centre ALP hacks – boy was I wrong. Gillard may well become our first female PM one day!
Yep, Fine, the foxy Julia is already out with a big bowl of red jelly.
“What it really adds up to is a picture of the commentariat-bot at work.”
Spot on Mark. And George M. on Insiders gave the game away. It’s partially about the mainstream media needing a race…hook-in for the readership & viewers.
As for Rudd’s popularity…it’s gonna happen at this point in the cycle…particularly as the commentariat-bot do their “onslaught” thing & Rudd gets a bit fatigued & wary. He’s already adapting.
I think Labor is doing the appropriate thing by pushing the TEAM aspect.
Tanner demonstrated himself to be a far more CAPABLE & articulate individual than Barnaby last night on Q&A. Barnaby acts like a STUNNED MULLET half the time.
I take polls w/ a pinch of doubt…but noticed the SPIN & PRIORITISING on the government making traction in the latest Newspoll.
For instance, The Australian used blowhard/screamer headlines to inform the readership that Rudd has hit a low in popularity.
Hmmm…perhaps we need to emphasise the following?:
ABBOTT STILL STUCK ON BASEMENT ROOF LEVELS
SHOWING OFF BALL BAG IN LYCRA NOT AS SUBSTANTIAL AS THOUGHT
N’
As far as the party support and leader approval goes, there is not really anything happening which is outside the margin of statistical error.
The larger story in 2PP terms is that the average of three Newspolls so far this year is 53-47 in Labor’s favour, with the most recent Morgan and Neilsen polls also very much in this range, and if history is any guide the Opposition is polling nowhere near where it needs to be at this stage of the electoral cycle if it is to be competitive at the election – barring some extraordinary and at this stage unforseeable development.
Agree with Mark and LO further up the thread that the downside for Labor is that they are depending on people who aren’t Labor voters to give them their winning margin, and that they won’t be thrilled at how well the Greens are tracking.
The really interesting figures in the poll are the ones on climate change opinion, which I’m doing another post about.
Point taken, Mercurius, but LP aside the left is pretty good at eatings its own, more prone to the tall poppy syndrome than the right. The conservatives fall readily, no joyfully, in behind a strong leader who sings an appealing marching song.
Danny @ 45 don’t start me on the Penny Easton affair. Keating’s support of Carmen Lawrence was principled and just. That was another “blood on her hands” witchhunt ruthlessly pursued by the Liberals. I was reminded of it by Abbott’s recent tactics.
@ 56 Yep Paul, electorally 53-47 is a status-quo result. I noticed the CC polling results too, look forward to your post.
I agree with Andrew @ 53. My observation of Australian politics is that the leader may not be liked but if he/she is seen as reasonably competent they will re-elected for a second term. People may not like Rudd as a person (and even myself I said that I’d rather invite Tony Abbott to a dinner party than Kevin Rudd). I think people may take into account that Australia has so far weathered the recession well etc. and I think that will be more of a factor in the ballot booth than whether Abbot is more of a people person etc.
Also I don’t agree with the Keating comparison. When Keating lost Labor had been in power for 12 years and we know that that is a very dangerous time for governments. I think people are less likely to toss a government out just after one term unless they are utterly incompetent, and I don’t think the Rudd government is that.
Agree with Guido #59, and especially the second par. Voters had been ready for a change of government for about a decade before 1996 but in three consecutive elections Labor had managed to out-campaign the Coalition in the marginals, outdo the Coalition on salient issues such as the environment (1987 & 1990) and Medibank (1990 and 1993) and benefit from Coalition disunity (1987) and scariness (1993). The polls had been consistently bad (as in well behind the Coalition) for Labor after Howard took over as Liberal Leader early in 1995. Whatever other similarites there may be between Rudd and Keating, Rudd is in a much stronger position than Keating at the same stage of the electoral cycle.
I hope you’re all correct, because a coalition government composed of the current bunch of lunatics would be an unmitigated disaster.
I just can’t understand why most seemingly accept the orchestrated media campaign against Rudd and Labor as an inevitable part of the media landscape in Australia and its consequences for democracy.
Some of us are old enough to remember it happening with Whitlam and Keating, and the pattern this time is the same.
Where was the Howard government at the same point in ’98? From memory they were behind, not way out in front like this mob. It would be good to know what Shanners et al were writing then about what was happening.
Put yourself in a press gallery journo’s shoes. The polls show Labor will most likely win the next election, perhaps with additional couple of seats or at least holding steady. This is not much of a story.
So the movement in the polls puts politics on the front page again and suddenly Sydney are on the phone again asking you for by-lined trunk stories and sidebar analysis and commentary.
The other aspect to this is that Abbott managed the silly season news vaccuum well, giving the MSM something to talk about over January other than shark attacks and the road toll. He’s carried that momentum forward.
This narrative will run its course, like all the others. The media will get bored with “The Abbott Ascendancy” and eventually shift its focus to “well, what would they do that’s different?”
Mark’s right. This narrative is as much about what the media needs as it is about what is actually happening. it’s like in 2007 when Peter Hartcher was writing all those columns saying Howard would win because of his perceived strengths in economic management and security.
The media are hopeless, hopeless forecasters.
“The media are hopeless, hopeless forecasters.”
…..but also persistent manipulators, Mr Denmore. As usual, you are prepared to let them off too easy with what is the standard Megalogenis excuse.
Goosey #62, in February 1998 they were behind on primary votes and not getting=an advantage from preferences.
Also, the incumbents were getting slaughtered at the same stage of the electoral cycle in 2001, and were quite some way behind at the comparable stages in 2004.
‘Election news: the inevitable eventuates’.
Possum is saying much the same thing as we were last night:
http://blogs.crikey.com.au/pollytics/2010/02/15/newspoll-at-9pm/
Latham 2004 = Abbott 2010. I think at this stage in 2004,Latham as the new Opp leader was setting the agenda, Howard was rattled and even right up to the election campaign the message was that Labor could win, but it all turned sour in the end.
If Rudd and Wong are prepared to eat a lot of humble pie and reach a deal with the Greens on climate change (the Greens have put a proposal for an interim scheme on the table) and get it agreed by Xenaphon and at least one Lib (Troeth?) it takes Abbotts “direct action” plan out of the game.
However, I fear Rudd lacks the guts for such a bold initiative.
Yep, and in another 2004 rerun, Rudd is grabbing bits of Abbott’s policy he thinks might be popular:
http://www.news.com.au/couriermail/story/0,23739,26729316-953,00.html