Please keep the general election campaign talk (breaking news etc) on these Election Open Threads, and keep discussions on the other posts focussed on the topic presented by the author.
N.B. Off topic posts in other threads are liable to be summarily deleted at the discretion of the moderators.
The one and only topic that is not welcome on principle on these Election Open Threads is Endless Rehashing of the Labor Leadership Change.
This picks up on stuff from Election Thread #2.
The medicare analogy does have some relevance IMHO, as one who lived through it with a young family at the time. The whole thing kept getting jerked around, with different mixes of tax and contribution, public/private involvement, which was quite disruptive. Blewett fixed it, but he did so by consulting people with the relevant expertise. A panel of experts, perchance? I’d love to go back and look at how the policy bit was handled pre and post election, but I don’t have time.
Oakes is ridiculing Gillard for involving experts in the sustainability policy. Tingle is even calling for numbers, right now, off the top of her head, and should know better. Oakes reveals himself as a boofhead.
One thing Medicare got wrong was that there wasn’t a mechanism for increasing the hypothecated tax to cover costs ‘going forward’, so the medicare levy is now almost irrelevant.
The implications for the economy and society for the transformations needed for climate change are orders of magnitude greater than was the case with medicare. We are stuck with policies based on assumptions fed into a weekend seminar held in Brisbane, based on 550ppm or, if possible and not too inconvenient, 450ppm levels of CO2. The lower level would see the planet committed to no permanent ice and sea level rises of about 75m.
Gillard’s scientific panel (which the media neglects in favour of guffawing like braying donkeys about the citizens panel) is crucial if we are going to get a grip on what needs to be done before we rush off and do it. The Greens targets make concessions to what might be called political realism, which means that if we don’t change them not too far down the track we’ll be down the crapper. But if we do that business will complain about shifting the goalposts, and with reason.
Not sure about the citizen’s thing but we don’t need any denialists there, even though it’s advisory, which is one thing that’s different from parliament about it, did you notice, Laurie?
I do think that we need bipartisanship. As Bob McMullan said the other day, the COALition is the only party in the advanced economies that’s run by denialists., who, if we take them seriously, would try to unpick what Labor might do if they got in. Not good for business certainty.
In Nicholas Stuart’s book he says that earlier this year Rudd asked Gillard’s advice whether he should talk to the Greens on the CPRS. She advised him to “remain steadfast”. There was the possibility of a deal there with the Greens which may have been suppported by two rebel Libs in the Senate, but all that was a bit tricky. And we don’t know how big the denialist factor within Labor is, We know that it’s there, starting with Ferguson.
I think it’s not unreasonable to infer that she always saw the need for bipartisanship and a more deliberative approach to policy development.
But I’ve got no conclusive evidence apart from what comes out of her own mouth and if you want to believe that she’s motivated by shallow political considerations then there’s not much I can do about it.
Bernard Keane on Labor’s strategy of putting the electorate to sleep, and its policy cowardice:
http://blogs.crikey.com.au/thestump/2010/07/24/week-1-labors-sleepwalking-strategy-working-a-treat/
Nielsen tables here:
http://blogs.news.com.au/images/uploads/Nielsen_table_July_20_22_2010.pdf
Note Coalition leading Labor 54-46 in both Queensland and WA.
The sample size per state is small though, and therefore there’s a higher MoE than in the poll as a whole.
This poll in the marginal seat of Kingston done by the Adelaide Advertiser is interesting.
It’s basically mortgage belt and the seat was marginal in 2007. Yet even allowing for sampling error, the ALP is winning easily — 67-33-2PP if you can believe it with 26% of Liberal voters preferring Gillard as PM.
As some note, that whiny Pyne character could be in a bit of trouble.
54-46 is landslide territory. This seems unlikely to me, but it is an unusual election. Never in my life have I seen an election that so few people seem to care about. Shit, I am a bit of a politics tragic, and I don’t care all that much.
Anyway, it looks like Labor will lose a few seats in cowboy states and win a few in south east. If they lose a lot in the cowboy states then 54-46 overall means they will win seats elsewhere that perviously were unthinkable.
OK Mark, I’ll bite: why is the opposition polling so well in Queensland? The disproportionate influence of the miners? Voters being unable to distinguish between federal Labor and the unloved Bligh government? The dumping of Queensland’s favourite son? A return to the State’s natural conservatism following the aberration of 2007? A bit of all of the above?
As much as the Republicans in the USA have specific leaders, they’re either open denialists or act in a manner indistinguishable from them.
And, no, we don’t need bipartisanship. We didn’t have bipartisanship on the GST.
@6 – I reckon a bit of all of the above, snorky.
Note what I said about the MoE in the state samples, though.
For instance, it’s hard to credit that Labor is ahead 59-41 in NSW.
But the Queensland figure does seem consistent with other polls.
It’s 59-41 to Labor in NSW according to Nielsen. PM Ranga must have those western suburbs bogans eating out of her hand.
Margin of error on the NSW figures is 5%, Sam.
Mark 11, I know that. So it could be 64-36.
You can’t have it both ways Mark. There is a wide margin of error in all of the state samples. There is no more reason to believe that the Queensland estimate is more representative than the NSW estimate. Also, when interpreting polls it is important to remember that even when the MoE is wide, the bulk of the probability mass is still close to the central estimate. For example, 59-41 with a 5pp MoE doesn’t mean that 54 is as likely as 59
@13 – LO, I quoted Possum on another thread – the Queensland data is consistent with other polls. He thinks that NSW is overcooked.
It’s also consistent with the fact that Julia Gillard has hardly left Queensland (except when she’s in Perth or Western Sydney).
And also what people like me resident here are hearing on the ground.
The Qld figures just confirm my southern bias about Qld since I moved up here.
You win some and lose some up here, TRex. +8 seats for Labor last time. It’s always a wild ride.
There is no particular reason to believe that the NSW is massively overcooked. The 54-46 is entirely consistent with other national polls. And if QLD is about right at 46-54, then the other states have to be much stronger for the ALP to get the aggregate result.
i will put this on the other thread, but you have to be careful about interpreting the question of whether people are more likely to vote Labor a result of the change and the breakdown by party. The main reason is that party affiliation is not fixed. So, when it says Labor voters are more likely to vote Labor as a result of the change, who is a Labor voter is assessed from the current poll, not the previous one. Some of those current Labor voters may actually have been intending to vote coalition before the change of leader.
What is pretty clear is that Labor’s primary vote has strengthened significantly since the leadership change. It would be pretty heroic to suggest that Gillard has been anything but a boon to Labor’s vote.
I’m surprised by that poll in Kingston, which is the electorate in which I reside. I think Rishworth is a very ordinary representative, but she is quite visible around the place…or maybe she’s just lucky that cafes in McLaren Vale and Willunga are now in Kingston and not in Mayo like they used to be. I’ve been avoiding political discussion – I did here an elderly couple on the train declare there was no way they were voting for Gillard based on her hard-line on refugees – “that issue is a beat-up” the older of the Two decared, “it’s disgusting”. It made me proud to be a southerner to hear that.
Is it mortgage belt here? I guess it is, a slightly atypical mortgage belt given the quirkiness of some of the beach-side villages, and the dominance of the vines too. I would say the rejection of “Big Australia” is very popular here. We have endless discussions in the local paper about trying to limit sprawl into the Vale. The winegrowers association is very vocal, and seemingly very influential. The area has also been rather cleverly targeted as the local launching ground for the national broadband network – specifically Willunga and McLaren Vale, which are already better served than some of the less affluent areas in terms of access to broadband, since both have telephone exchanges. [*personal gripe*: meanwhile my suburb relies almost entirely on VERY expensive wireless, as terrestrial broadband is not available here at all - ho-hum.]
Rishworth’s posters are all over McLaren Vale and Willunga declaring that she is delivering on faster internet, as well as doing something about recycled water to irrigators – they are continuing the roll out of purple pipes that began under the Libs. In many ways this is picking winners in the wine industry..but I’m not complaining because the over-allocation of ground water has been a big [but mostly invisible] environmental problem here – we are starting to see the impacts of underground seawater encroachment in some of our iconic coastal vegetation.
Thinking back, it’s funny – last federal election state Labor announced a land release near where I live, this was to combat some of the Howard governments assertions that it was state governments holding on to land that was driving housing prices up…as soon as Labor one the election state Labor had second thoughts about the land release. T be honest. I’m glad that least this time around the conversation is veering towards avoiding having the entire region under concrete, even if I have my suspicions about what motivated Gillard in regards to her rebuttal of “Big Australia”.
The betting markets have firmed again for Labor, $1.19 on Sportsbet and $1.21 on Centrebet. I’m not calling it yet, but if these polls and markets persist for another week and a half then it will time to dust off the L word.
In a sense, none of this is a surprise. Women are flocking to Gillard because she is a woman and away from Abbott because he is Abbott. He is the every bit the negative amongst that people said he would be when he got the leadership.
Nah. If that were true, the Bishops Julie and Bronwyn would be a great deal more popular with women than they are.
That’s more like it.
Mark reported: “Note Coalition leading Labor 54-46 in both Queensland and WA”
But this in todays West Australian:
“West Australian women have emerged as Julia Gillard’s secret weapon, with female voters poised to deliver Australia’s first woman Prime Minister a surprise election victory in a key marginal Perth seat.
A Westpoll of four key WA seats conducted exclusively for The West Australian shows former [ALP] State minister Alannah MacTiernan is on track to end [Lib] Don Randall’s nine-year stranglehold on the seat of Canning thanks to the strength of the female vote. Westpoll shows the resolution of the Government’s argument with the big miners and the toppling of former PM Kevin Rudd has played strongly for Labor in its most marginal WA seat, Hasluck, held by [ALP] Sharryn Jackson by just 1 per cent. The sitting member has surged to a two-party preferred lead of 54 per cent to the Liberals’ 46 per cent. The poll, which gauged the views of 1650 respondents between Sunday and Wednesday evenings, also found the Liberals would likely hold the seats of Cowan and Swan.”
So in the most marginal seats the polling shows a gain of 1 seat for the ALP – thanks to Julia.
FWIW, the “cash for clunkers” policy seems to be another craptacular effort, on several grounds. I’ll have a post on it soon.
FB, I dare say it though that Mclaren Vale is not very representative of Kingston overall. I grew up in the area (went to Reynella East High School) and I can imagine Gillard and her current messages going down pretty well in Reynella, Christies Beach, Hackham, Morphett Vale, etc. It is an interesting electorate. Low income housing in one part, solid middle classes in another, wineries in yet another. It is definitely the sort of electorate the Coalition need to win, or at least get close to, if they are going to win back government. I know Amanda Rishworth somewhat well. She’s a pretty hard working local rep and a bright woman. She worked for the SDA for a number of years though, so that will make her a bit unpopular on LP!
JG will win – but take a couple of points off, and those QLD figures do become troubling. WA not so much, as there’s fewer relevant seats in play.
Face facts people: no one was ever going to vote Abbott into govt in a blue fit once the phoney war had ended. Rudd, Gillard – whatevs. To suggest otherwise would be valiant … or something.
Doubtless it is a rubbish policy, but as someone housing number 1 son’s KB Laser (unregistered) in the driveway while he is off in the UK for an indefinite stay, I can see an upside. $2000 for that piece of crap?
Nice. This one might well get her some votes.
There’s something about Julia.
It’s not because she’s a woman, but maybe it’s the fact that she say’s the sort of things that women say, everyday:
…take a deep breath…lets’s talk about it…work hard at school…eat your lunch…don’t dwell on the past…brush your teeth…
It’s the tedious, pedestrian, repetitive, facts of life, the basics that women in the greater part, deal with day in and out. Women know that thing don’t change overnight.
The wild promises don’t pay the bills or make troubles go away. women (and of course men) want a brighter future but based in some common sense.
As for Tabbott – he’s gone past the patronising tipping point with most women (and men I know, especially the young ones. At least Malcolm T has some style and quite a bit of courage.
Some formal votes, Fran?
Fran, to get the 2 grand a) the car needs to have been registered and insured for the past two years, and b) the person who registered and insured the car needs to trade it in for a brand-new car (as such, costing a minimum of 13 grand plus on-roads).
The first requirement is kinda fair enough (the point is to take old cars off the roads) the second means it’s actively regressive.
I bet there would be some old hoon mobiles in Julia Gillard’s electorate of Lalor, taking in Melton, Werribee and so on. Wasn’t that where car hoons staged a riot, smashing up a Bob Jane T-Mart, about restrictions on their right to pull donuts in the car park?
I have one thing to say about the cash for clunkers policy – broken window fallacy….
Cash for clunkers is so bad its probably not really intended as an environmental scheme, except as a bit of greenwash. Perhaps its just intended as aomething intended to influence voters in the car manufacturing sector?
I’ll give JG this: its a brilliant piece of populism. I really mean that – this policy will be vote city.
But if they “trade it in for a brand-new car” and get a 4WD – it’ll be a negative environmental outcome.
Terry, theriot occurred on the other side of town. Same demographic though.
Lefty E: they can’t trade it in for a full-size 4WD under the scheme. It’s restricted to cars that consume less than a certain amount of fuel (though by the time the scheme kicks in I can guarantee you both Commodores and Falcons will qualify – they are currently infinitesimally over the limit).
Sorry, I can’t see how that follows. If we’re talking landslide, or the sort of story Russell tells at #21, then surely this indicates that people care about it enough to change their voting intentions enough to change the way the polls look. And look at the way the journos are behaving; any pretence at objectivity is being thrown out of the window by most of them. And people certainly care about it here; at least a dozen threads at LP already specifically dedicated to aspects of the election and we’ve still got a month to go, and there have already been some very, erm, lively exchanges. How, ‘not care’?
I certainly care. If we end up with a foot-in-mouth shoot-from-the-lip narcissistic weathervane doofus like Abbott in charge of the country with a total ditz as 2IC, I can think of twenty or so different ways it could be a catastrophe. And I can’t help thinking of the way Abbott became leader of the Opposition by mistake, because so many people thought they’d ‘teach Malcolm a lesson’ by not voting for him.
Simon Crean in Insiders this morning when Cassidy started on his ‘the BER was a disaster’ routine explained that there were 240 complaints across the nation, mostly in NSW, out of 24,000 projects. “One percent, Barry, and we are fixing them”.
I do hope Gillard leaves Crean exactly where he is, when portfolios are allocated, if the ALP wins, of course.
Robert @ 34 – there is however no restriction that people move to a car which is more efficient than the one they currently have. ie they may move from a small old car to a large efficient which will produce more emissions.
Perhaps a more innovative approach would have been to instead of subsidising the purchase of a new car they gave people a non transferrable public transport pass allowing them free travel for a couple of years.
Chris, there are other issues (which I will discuss in the post I’m preparing) which mean in many ways that switching from an old Corolla to a new Landcruiser is doing the rest of us a favour. On non-CO2 pollutants from transport (one of Australia’s great silent killers), the worst modern 4WD is way better than a 15-year-old small car (particularly one in bad nick). Ditto on safety.
Well put.
I’d also add that Abbott (while perhaps not directly of them) owes his position to the most troglodyte sections of his party.
I suspect that what someone is seeing as people who don’t “care about” the election is actually people who don’t “care about” the campaigns, and the media coverage thereof, because they’ve already well and truly decided where their vote is going to go.
A friend of mine is one of the people in the debate audience tonight. controlling the infamous ‘worm’. I’ll very interested to find out what the experience was like.
Interesting point, tigtog – have any of the recent polls done a hard/soft voting intention analysis?
@Rebekka – one has recently, but I forget which! Probably the easiest way to find it is to go through Possum’s posts.
@Fine, just an editorial note that there’s now a dedicated post for talking about the debate:
http://larvatusprodeo.ozblogistan.com.au/2010/07/25/open-2010-leaders-debate-thread/
Robert M@28 said:
Oh dear … more sensible than I thought. These are the kinds of restrictions I would have put on the scheme, but it looks as if I really am stuck with that piece of junk.
I’d actually lose the new car requirement but require the car emit no more than 110g CO2/km …
“Lefty E: they can’t trade it in for a full-size 4WD under the scheme.”
Robert – good, Ta. Thats one less gasket I’ll blow today.
(srsly …I really wouldnt haven been surprised if you’d said the opposite)