The latest Newspoll has arrived without the fanfare usually sounded, which is probably a good thing on balance. It shows the two major parties tied on 50% of the 2PP. Primary votes for both the Coalition and Labor are down from the election, with support for The Greens and “others” up. I suspect the truth of it is that we’re seeing a difference between election results and the sampling in Newspoll, and the actual state of public sentiment hasn’t moved since August 21, but the only real point of interest is that even The Australian is reporting the poll as a validation of the Independents’ choice.
On that, 48% of respondents believed Labor should form a government as opposed to 36% for the Coalition. That suggests it’s really only Liberal and National partisans who are of the view that they ought to have formed a government, though as Essential Research found yesterday, they hold that view very strongly.
Essential also had the two major parties on 50-50 two party preferred.
At any rate, this should throw a spanner in the works of the “Election Now!” crowd. I imagine News Limited will get on with their campaign of writing non-stories about “extreme Green” policies threatening the Labor government’s stability.
“Greens fight Labor on uranium” headline on this morning’s OO. No doubt many more non-stories to come.
50/50 makes perfect sense as no-one has done any governing yet for people to have an opinion about. I wouldn’t count on it to stop the whole ‘illegitimacy’ debate though. As Lenore Taylor pointed out on Q&A last night it’s like spoiled children whinging about the rules when they’ve lost the game.
If this is the poll I remember seeing then it has a sample size of just over 2000, which gives a maximum 95% confidence interval of roughly 3%.
Don’t think we are quite back to ho-um time.
While I agreed with the fuss being made about leaving Higher Education out of ministry titles and the kerfuffle about a lack of a ministry for Aboriginal Health, the fact that there was such a huge fuss created in the media about such minor issues as terminology, and about Kevin Rudd neing 24/7 (what else is a foregn minister supposed to do, and in any case the longer he’s out of the country the more likely the Labor Government will be stable) shows that the anti Labor media campaign has a long way to go,
(At any rate, this should throw a spanner in the works of the “Election Now!” crowd. I imagine News Limited will get on with their campaign of writing non-stories about “extreme Green” policies threatening the Labor government’s stability.)
Sorry to say, the Election Now crowd will continue. They appear to believe that this and the election before was a mistake. They are so immersed in the born to rule syndrome, they believe the situation will be reversed.
It is a wonder that anyone would want to be a politician in this day and age. Maybe it is time we became a little old fashioned and give respect to the public offices in this country. The continual nit picking by the media is unnecessary and unproductive.
It is about time some of the better opposition members took a stand for the good of their own pride, party and the country. There must be some in the party that knows it is a pointless policy to win at any cost. There must be a handful, but they are hard to find, that have principles and want to do good. If there are any, it is time to get a backbone and stand up for the benefit of the party and country. Good governance needs a strong and ethical opposition.
They could have an opinion about the 7-11 billion dollar error in the Coalition’s policies and about their attempts to bully the independents to support them.
I find it a bit disappointing that that didn’t make a difference to be honest.
No no we need an election now! Colour!! Movement!!! More polls!!!! HOW CAN WE HAVE POLITICS WITHOUT POLLS?!?!?!?!?
Stephen,
Perhaps they are just waiting to see whether there is an error in the NBN costings. Has anyone seen them yet?
Why would anyone presume there is an error in the NBN costings?
[That was rhetorical.]
Particularly in the context of the known error in the costings of the COALition which doesn’t seem to have stirred the media too much.
But that’s different, hannah’s dad. It’s quite legitimate for this Opposition to have wildly inaccurate costings. They didn’t have access to Treasury, and anyway a pack of wild dogs ate their costings. And anyway they’re the legitimate party of government. (Limited News obviously wants to elect a new people … )
You know as well as I do that if a COALition spokesmouth makes a minor error of $10B, it’s not worth quibbling about, but if Labor makes a huge blunder of dozens of dollars that’s FISICALLY IRRESPONSIBLE!!!!11! and possibly will trigger the downfall of western civilisation and the collapse of the whole Enlightenment project.
Or something.
The dog ate their homework? Joe Hockey didn’t even know about the homework, let alone the dog – the other kids wouldn’t tell him about it till it was too late for him to do anything about it – or something
Andrew Reynolds@8 – Haven’t you caught up with the McKinsey Report?
Weren’t you paying attention to Mr Robb’s explanations, DI? They were not “wildly inaccurate”; they were just “open to different interpretations”.
Yes, I’m sorry, Don. I wasn’t listening that day.
I realise now that accountancy can be really, really nuanced …
I’m going to ask Mr Robb for a small loan, say a couple of billion, then repay him my “interpretation” of the amount. I see no problem with this strategy.
Yep … “open to different interpretations” … is absolutely correct.
Hockey and Robb reckon 2 + 2 = 3 whle Treasury insists it is still 4.
Man, how incompetent are those communist-wombat-hugging stupids in Treasury ?
The terrifying thing here is that Robb used to be involved in the Productivity Commission … the economic stupidity , it burns …