Tag Archive for 'boat people'

Tony Abbott: Dogwhistling towards destiny?

Tony Abbott gave an Australia day address in Melbourne last night (a few days early, but what the hey…). The Shorter Tone? Immigrants should adopt Australian values and that Mufti character was dodgy; A big population is good, but John Howard was right about everything, though we should have compassion for asylum seekers.

This, no doubt, is the first of the ‘philosophical’, ‘headland’ speeches which will define Abbott as the very model of a modern Liberal leaderthe ghost of Howardia.

Elsewhere: Andrew Elder.

Road to nowhere

In the wake of his avowal of climate change denialism on Four Corners, Nick Minchin has spent the second last week of the Parliamentary year stoking the fires of Coalition opposition to the CPRS. Tony Abbott, previously a ’skeptic’ who argued that the opposition should nevertheless support the legislation to remove a political headache for the Liberals, has now turned tail, claiming “the politics have changed”.

In some quarters of the Coalition, the news that Copenhagen is unlikely to see a legally binding deal agreed has been seized on to claim that there is less political risk in voting against the legislation. Key here are the amendments Ian Macfarlane is negotiating with Penny Wong. If the shadow cabinet recommends acceptance of an amended bill, the legislation will likely pass despite masses of Liberal Senators and all the Nationals voting against it. So the Liberal right has been raising the bar for the negotiation process to ‘all or nothing’ – a position the government is hardly likely to adopt.

The open rumblings have now been spun to imply that opposition unity needs to be secured at all costs, and that it would be disastrous if the Nationals walked away from the Coalition entirely over the CPRS. (But would it?)

What are the implications of all this?

Continue reading ‘Road to nowhere’

The polling trend

Although the new Newspoll (and presumably the Newspoll with the unpublished voting intention figures) shows a return to what has become normality with a 2PP of 56/44 in Labor’s favour, all the talk among the commentariat is of “the trend”.

We’ve seen umpteen “honeymoon is over” stories, with a sub-theme that Liberal research (no doubt being spruiked around the press gallery as we speak) demonstrates “doubts” about Kevin Rudd.

But what of this trend?

Possum illuminates the story:

Interestingly enough, while the volatility has been pretty high, the actual polling trends tell a slightly more boring and probably realistic story – the period where asylum seekers have dominated the media cycle has seen 2 points knocked off the government’s two party preferred on both the all pollster and phone pollster trend measures.

With polling showing a divided public on the asylum seeker issue (and not evenly divided along party lines), it would be wrong to infer people on boats is the reason for this relatively small movement (and even more wrong to conclude it’s just because Rudd isn’t “tough” enough). It’s equally plausible to conclude that it may be just because the government looks a bit messy – which is, in part, an artefact of the media coverage. Though that’s not to say that the Ruddster’s own messaging efforts aren’t part of the picture.

But I’d be very reticent about claiming “Liberals back in the game” at this stage.

News(poll) hits new lows

At politicalowl, Richard Farmer quotes Gary Morgan on the Newspoll released today, which asked questions about the Prime Minister’s handling of asylum seekers but which also included questions about voting intention. But the results of those questions were not printed by its owners, News Limited:

The evidence was clear. Yet the publication of News Ltd’s poll (Newspoll) in the first place had already had a major impact. The evidence showing the ‘error’ of Newspoll was literally ignored by media discussion (e.g. the Insiders on ABC TV and the impact of the ‘rogue’ poll was allowed to run unabated).

Pollsters and those who publish the polls have a responsibility to report the facts and the truth.

Newspoll should have conducted another poll as soon as possible when they saw the dramatic change in their results — and if different, released the data to correct the misconceptions caused by their ‘rogue’ poll.

It is extremely worrying that today’s Newspoll on “boat people” clearly did include questions on ‘Political support,’ but the results from the ‘Political support’ question were not published.

A statistical analysis of the data reported on Australians’ attitudes to “boat people” issues — specifically the breakdown by ‘Political support’ — suggests the ALP vote in that poll was very strong. The percentage supporting each political party clearly should have been released.

Polls and their publishers should not seek to set the agenda by selectively releasing polling data.

Polls and their publishers are powerful but with that power comes responsibility.

Predictably tonight, the ABC and SBS news, and the 7 30 report ran with lines shaped by The Australian’s coverage of Newspoll, with no or just a bare mention of the Nielsen results. It may be that the voting intention results will be released tomorrow, but the delayed release and the lack of context to the results on questions about asylum seekers presents a picture which is deliberately distorted, stoking the claims about “crisis” and inflaming the issue further.

This really is getting to be a complete disgrace.

Update: William Bowe on Chris Mitchell’s explanation:

Queried by Andrew Crook of Crikey, The Australian’s editor Chris Mitchell explained that “even Crikey” should be able to understand that a non-fortnightly set of voting intention figures would cause a disturbance in the force. Mitchell further invoked a Beatles-and-the-Stones style arrangement between Newspoll and Nielsen in which they have agreed not to step on each other’s releases. Yet just one month ago, on the same day that Nielsen produced its regular monthly poll, The Australian published a “special Newspoll survey” on the Liberal leadership in between its regular fortnightly polls, and was not in the least bit shy about informing us that the sample produced the same 58-42 split in favour of Labor as recorded the previous week. In fairness, it should be noted that Crikey “understands that on Sunday morning, Newspoll chief Martin O’Shannessy contacted his Nielsen counterpart John Stirton and agreed not to release the two-party preferred vote to The Australian”.

Memories

John Howard is on the front page of the Sydney Sunday Telegraph proclaiming “I’d stop the boats!”

Meanwhile, all week since the Newspoll likely outlier, the tone of the media coverage and commentary has shifted. Glenn Milne, with his accustomed lack of subtlety, gives the game away in his column today, claiming that the effects of the poll are “real”, even if it’s wrong.

This claim is supported by the usual panoply of quotes from unnamed senior Liberal sources, and the press gallery line du jour – that Turnbull can succeed by making the government the issue (and by having no policy on anything – asylum seekers or otherwise – which would actually allow him to be scrutinised). That needs to be considered along with that other recurrent media theme – that they (and the opposition) perform a valuable public service by keeping the government accountable. In truth, it’s all about the drama and the sense of power.

I, for one, am still not convinced that the asylum seekers “crisis” is one. I doubt many voters are really all that concerned. Australian politics – except in the mind of the political class itself – is not stuck in an eternal loop. Howard’s use of the Tampa was exemplary of an ability he once had to exploit elements of the national mood – it worked not because Australians are inherently xenophobic, but because it channeled a set of fears and anxieties characteristic of a particular cultural moment and projected them towards refugees. In the longer view, it was in some ways the end of an era where the Hansonite outbreaks were already a last gasp.

A secular shift in the register of issues, and the particular take on the asylum seeker brouhaha, had already happened by the beginning of 2007, and was itself a harbinger of Howard’s defeat. Among related reasons for his defeat was the fact that the electorate got tired of loud, noisy symbolic political clashes and culture wars. I think Rudd knew that then, and knows that now, and that’s why his calm demeanour works.

So, I’m not at all certain that many outside the Canberra beltway are actually paying attention to the “crises”. The noise itself might be a turnoff.

And, as noted by a number of commenters on the open thread, missing in all the media talk has been not just the Essential Research poll which was taken at the same time as the Newspoll, but also Morgan on Friday – another sample taken simultaneously. It’s not at all unreasonable to believe that the message from these two polls is that all this is just a preoccupation of the Canberra elites. Which is ironic, when you think about it – because populism employed in the service of naked electoral self interest, the desire for Sturm und Drang and on the backs of the poor and dispossessed of the world is not always an electoral winner. Which is good.

That other race

As Phil observed on Facebook, the political classes are going to work themselves into a lather over a poll on the day when a horse race stops the nation.

Newspoll shows Labor’s primary at 41, down 7 points, and equal with the Coalition’s.

Possum presents a variety of reasons why it is highly likely that this poll is an outlier, and the most recent survey of public opinion on the asylum seeker issue from Essential Research (which also has Labor’s 2PP vote exactly where it was last time), doesn’t bear out the simple equation “asylum seeker crisis = poll shock”.

Asylum seeker rhetorics

There’s been a bit of a debate over the rhetorical dimension of the government’s messages about asylum seekers. Is Kevin Rudd playing bad cop to Stephen Smith’s good cop? With Senator Chris Evans as straight man, and loud denunciator of the evils of the opposition’s inhumanity… (They richly deserve the condemnation, though. Even Malcolm Turnbull looked embarrassed trying on his Howardian “we will decide who comes to this country” lines in parliament the other day).

The truth is that this scenario is probably about right. It’s all part of the Rudd government’s famous balancing act.

But the more important questions go unanswered. Why are no political leaders prepared to speak the truth about why there’s so much angst out there about asylum seekers in the first place. Why won’t commentators stop hiding behind characterisations of the issue as “emotional”? (And I heard two journos on the ABC radio this morning dancing around the topic, while seeming to pat themselves on the back over the cleverness of the phrase “the Indonesian solution”.)

Bob Ellis puts these questions plainly:

Am I alone in finding this bizarre? If letting “these people” in is a disastrous idea, can we name one, just one, who shouldn’t be here? Who has proved a bad citizen? Just one? If not, what are we talking about? Who are we protecting ourselves from? Why are we burning their rescuers’ boats? If the refugees were Swiss or Belgian or white South Africans or white Zimbabweans, would we be making this fuss? If there were votes lost taking them why did Peter Andren triple his majority in 2001, three months after Tampa, by saying we should let them in? Argued his case well, I guess.

“Ghosts go along with us to the end…”

So, what happens if the Opposition, and their media echo chambers, tried every Howardian trick in the book, and nothing worked?

Possum explains the significance of the latest polling numbers:

With the phone poll average in the sidebar now showing 109 seats going to Labor were the latest round of phone polls repeated at an election, there must be some pretty nervous Coalition marginal and not so marginal seat holders.

Look back at the tactics of the Opposition over the last few months where every card from the Howard era was played. Rising Interest Rates…. tick. Labor’s debt…. tick. Boat People….. tick.

It’s like that episode of the Simpsons where Lisa tests the difference in learning capability between a hamster and Bart. Sure the cupcake is electrified, sure every time he tries to grab it he gets shocked – after a few tries even a hamster would learn – but Bart keeps grabbing away time and time again, hoping that this time he won’t be zapped. Hoping this time it will be different.

When you change governments you change the country – as Keating said, but the national zeitgeist also changes with it and pulling these old cards out from the Oppo benches is a roadmap to failure.

Meanwhile, Essential Research finds 66% of respondents rating the Rudd government’s performance in handling the Global Financial Crisis as good or excellent. But over at The Australian, they’re banging on about the Liberal leadership, and declaiming:

…debt and deficit are now a concern of most Australians…

Oh. Really?

Elsewhere: Bernard Keane.

Eternal return

As the detention centre on Christmas Island reaches capacity, and Kevin Rudd dashes to Indonesia, you’d be forgiven for thinking some things never change. Reading over a piece from Amnesty International’s Claire Mallinson in The Punch, it would appear that the misinformation and the badly framed debating points characteristic of the Howard era are still around, Rudd government or no Rudd government:

Amnesty International welcomes greater regional engagement on the issue of asylum seekers, but only if such cooperation results in durable solutions for vulnerable people fleeing persecution. It should be remembered that neither Indonesia nor Malaysia are signatories to the Refugee Convention, and that those countries do not provide adequate protection for refugees. If Australia is going to cooperate with our regional neighbours, our government needs to ensure that it urges protection for those in need and that it does not become complicit in the turning back of people to countries where they face serious risks of persecution.

The current figure being bandied around is that 10,000 people could potentially seek asylum by boat in Australia each year. This figure is purely speculative and it is Amnesty International’s firm belief that such speculation is dangerous. It is dangerous because it is based on conjecture rather than fact. It is dangerous because it serves to inflame a debate that is already highly charged, both politically and emotionally. And it is dangerous because the only thing it contributes to this important issue is misinformation.

The issues about diversion of asylum seekers to Indonesia remain the same. It’s still a ‘Pacific Solution’ of sorts, even if Kevin Rudd can bat questions away by invoking the spectre of Philip Ruddock.

And it remains the case that most asylum seekers still arrive in this country by plane, and that those on boats are almost always the most desperate and the most exploited:

Sensationalist reporting and speculative commentary detracts attention from the human dimension of the asylum-seeker issue. Such reporting and commentary fails to acknowledge the severe risks that people take when they embark on dangerous boat journeys in order to escape persecution and human rights abuses in their home countries.

It is the lack of durable solutions and protection available in other parts of our region that forces people to make onward journeys to Australia and other Western countries that do offer such protection. Asylum-seekers are human beings who have been forced to take real risks in their search for safety and security, and they do not take lightly the decision to undertake perilous journeys to Australia.

Rather than arguing over numbers, our leaders should be focusing on finding real and lasting solutions for those in need of protection, and ensuring that all people seeking asylum in Australia are treated equally and humanely – regardless of their method of arrival.

Elsewhere: Andrew Bartlett.

Update: Eva Cox.

Update: Guy Rundle.