The latest Newspoll has the two major parties tied on the two party preferred vote. No details on primaries yet.
Update: Primaries are ALP 37, Coalition 44, Greens 12, which is the same as Nielsen, except the Coalition is one point lower.
Elsewhere: Peter Brent at Mumble, Ben Eltham at The Drumroll.
The Newspoll primary votes are ALP 37 LNP 44.
Its bad.
At this point, if JG she scrapes home (and I expect her to) it will be *despite* the coup. I think everyone has to concede it hasn’t worked to plan. Victory – if it comes – will be no vindication. Merely an escape.
But that must be put behind us at this point.
I say keep calm: remember that Howard – for all intents and purposes – lost the 98 election, and was only returned owing to the artifices of our non-proportional system.
Its hard to win after the first term – because the old political culture is still fresh.
So this is no surprise, and many of the truisms like “Australia never kicks out first termers” are a largely accidental heritage, not some law:
My point here is this was always going to be tough – the ALP hasnt helped itself by squandering incumbency, but the next one will be easier.
The ALP just has to hang tough here: bring out the GFC ads.
Swallow your pride – raise the banner of the Rudd legacy. Its actually a good legacy. And remind people how borderline barking Tones is.
Its the economy, stupid. And its policies, not slogans.
Primary vote ALP 37 LNP 44. Pretty much the same as Nielsen.
Greens steady on 12.
If the ALP gets home, it will because of them.
COME ON!
What part of “Its the economy, you dumb pack of cloth-eared NSW hacks” doesn’t the ALP campaign team get?
Its infuriatingly conservative campaigning.
Howard had a big buffer of seats in 1998 and recieved only %49 of the vote. If Labor get %49 and wins then it would be a miracle considering the figures the national polls are showing us for QLD.
At least with Abbott now being seen as a strong chance of being PM, we will now get to see whether he is really the electoral drag that Labor is hoping he will be.
Hey maybe a minority labor govt with green support in the lower house is possible after all!
I don’t know what the election result will be. One of the upsides of a contest conducted wbteen two sets of egregious rightwing bastards is that whoever wins, at least one set of egregious rightwing bastards will be very sad shortly after August 21.
I will not waste time exercising my right to (metaphorically) spit on them. I will be doing it at every reasonable opportunity, and on some that are not. I am reminded again of Gloria Clemente‘s words from the movie White Men Can’t Jump…
Looking back over the last three years and to the three years we are about to have, this seems most apt.
The Herald is claiming that the Liberals have outstripped labor on campaign advertising spending in the first 2 weeks, and labor are wondering where they are getting the money. The source of campaign donations apparently won’t be released for a year and a half. What’s the bet it’s the mining companies?
Trenton mentions QLD.
If people are looking for the real dagger through Labor’s heart, don’t go to Rudd’s defenestration, they should be in mind of Fraser and Bligh and the privatisation treachary so well critiqued by Johnquiggin,et al. Surely the worst peice of politics in this country since Labor and Libs joined in a godless alliance to gerrymander Tasmania back in the ‘nineties, moving preciptiously to Latham’s humiliation in 2004.
Certainly getting sick of the Abbott attack ads. Why not focus on their achievements – 5% unemployment, level of Govt Debt c.f to the rest of the world, extraordinary achievement of managing the econmomy through the worst downturn since the depression etc. Use Joe Stiglitz’s stunning endorsement of what they have done.
Instead all we get is negative negative negative on issues they are never going to beat Abbott on.
I think contemplating Lloyd’s comment, that the Australian people can be so thick as not realise we missed being dragged into the global recession by a good labor government.
I can’t believe Australians are too stupid to understand the gist of what’s going on in Britain at the moment, either, or be so convinced that the banks have so thoroughly rehabilitated themselves that its time to put someone as “big end” friendly as Abbott.
authur dent.. its the deja vu thing again…(gleeps).
Doing the rounds of the left blogs is the idea that the ALP must spruik its economic credentials. I am not at all convinced they would be on a winner.
As the Fairfax papers reported yesterday, the ground-level experience of the economy can look quite different to the headline figures: http://www.smh.com.au/national/a-hardworking-nation-thats-losing-its-balance-20100731-110kx.html
This is the concrete micro-detail of neoliberalism, an era that continues to lurch along in practice despite having been ideologically discredited by the GFC. If there is a disconnect between reported economic sunshine and a day-to-day grind that has not got better, the reality often wins out over the propaganda.
Telling voters “you’ve never had it so good” and quoting “a beautiful set of numbers” may work no better now than it has in the past. ALP supporters beware.
Thanks for the info on primaries, folks.
If I remember correctly, Newspoll increases its sample size to 1700 during elections, which means the MoE is substantially lower in this poll than Nielsen.
@Dr_Tad I agree somewhat, especially about the disconnect between lived experience of the economy and the numbers, but I think what the commenters above are mostly saying is that things didn’t get worse in Australia in the last 3 years.
Speaking from the EU I can say that the economic position on the ground is now significantly worse than it was 3 years ago. Unemployment is up everywhere and industries are either stagnating or just plain disappearing.
The ALP worked wonders in buffering Australia from the recession.
Elsewhere: Peter Brent at Mumble, Ben Eltham at The Drumroll.
Fran
I think the idea of the moral equivalence of the two parties is misleading.
I’d argue that the Labor party has actually begun to restore Australia after a decade of its being trashed by the Howard Laissez-faire louts – not just with significant gestures like the apology to Indigenous people but beginning the rebuilding of public infrastructure, reforming the health system and re-establishing a decent IR system.
What is being lost in the the shallow media debate is the fact that all of this will be up for grabs again under a new Conservative Government. And, as a good Howard disciple, Abbot will be doing everything he can to ensure his isnt a one term Government.
@mick I have also heard this comparison (EU/USA vs here) made, but would think that a line of “It could have been worse” is also very hard to sell.
Adamite said:
The two parties are pitching the same ideas at the same demographics. That makes them
moralethical equivalents. The ALP wants the votes of xenophobic bigots. It made that clear on day one by iterating its own version of political correctness on the matter. It framed this election as a contest for the hearts and minds of marginalised outer urban/semi-rural voters, Menzies’ “forgotten Australians” and so forth. Gillard expressed the hope that she would be seens as the right sort of immigrant (as distinct from those freeloading queue-jumping dark-skinned people on boats off the coast of Australia).She made it clear that amongst her top priorities was getting justice for mining executives and their related parasites, (continuing the sterling work Kevin Rudd did in subverting the business of putting a price on carbon) and the creation of new internment camps for vulnerable people in developing countries liek East Timor.
What is clear is that whoever loses, boss class government will be the winner. We are certain to get a government committed to brutal oppression of vulnerable people (whether outsourced to third world concentration camps or insourced via occupying troops (as in Afghanistan), fully committed to fattening the privileges of extractive industry thugs and to poisoning the biosphere in the name of moving forward to real action.
I agree with gregh Mick @ 13. I don’t think Howard and Costello ever got any credit for their performance in the Asian economic crisis either, despite telling us all ad nauseam how clever they had been.
Another very relevant point was made by someone else on another thread over the weekend. Most people won’t vote out of gratitude for past performance; they’ll be thinking about the future. And for all its stupidity, the ‘debt is bad and Labor is the party of debt’ meme has become pretty well entrenched in Australia.
@17 – Fran, discussion of your voting intentions and perceptions of the parties is off topic for this thread, which is about the latest Newspoll. Please take it to a recent election roundtable thread.
So going by the breakfast media the theme of the day is ‘if we’re going to see the REAL Julia now, who have we been seeing for the last few weeks?’. This is straight out of Julia’s own mouth, with a fake, almost giggling smile, with a few flicks of the hair thrown in for good measure.
This looks fake and is getting the cynical media treatment it deserves. For once I can’t bag the media for this. It smells of a new strategy by the same tone deaf idiots who’ve been calling the shots to date, not Julia taking control over her own campaign as she claims.
More of this obvious spin will just see the current trend to the coalition continue.
I think Fran’s post, whatever the technicalities involved for moderators, was the most unhelpful thing she’s done for weeks.
For heaven’s sake, some of you, get your eyes of the ground and look about for a moment.
I’m not quite sure I quite agree here Ken.
It is difficult to get credit for disasters avoided. Had the Victoria government emergency services pulled off a miracle and managed to prevent 100% of bushfire casualties on Black Saturday, they’d have got nothing out of that. Here however, there is the cautionary counterfactual — Greece for example.
What the ALP had to do if it was to convert “dodging a bullet” into electoral reward is hold the election in concert with the moment when it became clear that unemployment had peaked and was heading down, in order to make that the narrative. They could have said they wanted time for the new Australian government — whoever that was, to take the tough decisions that might be needed in the event that the world went into a double dip reciession, freed from the distraction of an immediate election, and pitched continuity of policy.
Of course, as I said before, the best time for the ALP (and perversely for Turnbull rather than the Libs) would have been right after Garnaut. They put a Garnaut-based ETS and then the Libs have to pass it or there’s an immediate election. There would have been no BER/Insulation meme running, the ALP in NSW was not then in as bad a shape as it is now, irregular arrivals was not yet an issue and the Liubs were coming off Godwin Grech and dissent over climate change.
They would have routed the Libs at that point and with the ACT/NT senators taking their place imediately, secured control of the senate.
Sorry if the above was in the wrong place. It seemed a response to the current poor polling of the ALP. I’ll bear this in mind when posting.
Thanks, Fran. This thread is for discussion of the campaign and Labor’s strategy, why the polls are showing what they are, etc. Individual views on Labor are best directed to a Roundtable.
‘Most people won’t vote out of gratitude for past performance; they’ll be thinking about the future.’
Ken – but presumably with an eye to who they believe is going to be competent in delivering the goods based on past performance. I havent picked up any great concern about Australia’s debt levels in my limited sphere of social discourse. Is that an issue where you live?
Adamite I surmise it’s the reason the Libs continue to be rated as better economic managers in the polls.
It is? Where does it say that? Since when did the thought police take over LP?
It doesn’t matter who wins on August 21. Nothing will change on the issues I care about. The only thing that matters is how well the Greens do.
Bob performed well yesterday. Lets hope they get over 15% in both houses and give the big parties a real fright.
The perception of many of my friends from this new round is that the ALP have been too loose with their spending. With the new rounds of adverts the talking points at the BBQ seem to be “we made it through the GFC but maybe if we had kept Howard we’d all be rolling in gold.”
Essentially the ALP has lost the finacial management arguement.
It says it in the body of the post, and moderators have always pointed out when comments are off-topic. Otherwise thread-drift takes over and discussions lose focus. There are plenty of roundtable threads here on just about any election issue you like, it’s not hard to place a comment on a post where it adds to an ongoing conversation, rather than just putting it on the most recent post where it derails a different conversation.
“maybe if we had kept Howard we’d all be rolling in gold.”
The old ‘return to the golden age’ theme huh. Never mind, Abbot may yet grant them their wish, only it might not have the shiny golden lustre their clouded memories have conferred upon it.
carbonsink, to sound like the other mob for a moment, they’re right, it doesn’t matter a one iota what Australia does in the next couple of years as to whether the world will go down the crapper over climate change. About half an iota, maybe, but even the Greens don’t have sufficient urgency IMHO.
Meanwhile it should matter to you whether we get decent broadband and stay up with the way the world is going, whether E-Health and superclinics go by the board, whether our minerals get carted off with no extra tax, whether the economy is run by a bunch of innumerates, whether Julie Bishop is our official face abroad and a list of other things.
Mr. Abbott has only one agenda. To get rid of everything the Rudd government has done. The latest Howard wasteful and inefficient policy to be reborn is the trade schools. One can only wonder what the cost of undoing all of this government has done will be. It must be enormous. Mr. Abbott should remember it was one of the Howard government actions to bring massive change to aged care. They made age care user pay and expensive. It has not worked.
Agreed, troy @ 20. The ABC News soundbite on Julia’s admission about a too controlled campaign so far made her sound really weak and phony! What was she thinking?
Poll on the DT has 77% of respondants going for Abbott.
Best to start getting the humble pies and hats for eating out now peoples.
I was apoplectic with rage on the way to work this morning (dangerous when you’re 60, overweight, and driving up Main North Rd at 80 kph). Some dopey bloody ABC journo, given the opportunity to put Abbott’s feet to the fire over (lack of) policy, asked “So, what do you think of the latest polls?”
Fuck me sideways, what’s the matter with these people? They’re supposed to be professionals, FFS.
The new dumbed-down, wingnut ABC is as shallow and worthless as the Coalition they support.
SG – if it is the mining companies funding the libs then labor should tear up any agreement it has with any mining companies on the tax on that basis alone.
Huh? AFAICT this is a post about the Newspoll results. Nowhere does it say “this thread is for discussion of the campaign and Labor’s strategy”. It could equally be about the Greens strategy and the Greens polling numbers, OR the Coalition’s strategy and polling numbers.
Since when did this become an Labor-only blog?
Mike @ 36. Not an issue anymore. The ALP can do as they like…Tony will be the one to negotiate with in a couple of weeks now.
@37 – carbonsink, you’re reading things into moderation comments which aren’t they’re. Of course, it’s not a “Labor only blog”. The simple point is that the thread is primarily about the poll result, and there are endless others on which you can post about any election related stuff you like, as tigtog pointed out.
It is a requirement of the comments policy that people follow moderation requests, as well as a matter of simple courtesy.
Brian @ 31: I will, of course, be preferencing the ALP ahead of the Coalition, but only because they are marginally less awful. I don’t know the local Coalition candidates from a bar of soap, but the Federal ALP member treats the electorate with contempt. You only hear from her at election time when the local media gets blitzed with ads. At a state level I live in a seat held by the Nationals, and the local MP actually seems like a decent bloke. He shows up at community events, school hall openings etc … seems to give a damn. For this reason I’ve been known to preference the Nats ahead of the ALP in State elections. Of course, living in NSW helps with that decision.