Via The Poll Bludger, the same old same old from Newspoll. I think what Rod Cameron had to say on Lateline had a lot of merit - voters will give Kevin Rudd at least another year before making a final judgement. In the meantime, the Liberals probably are wasting their and all of our time with their constant shenanigans. Their best bet would be to lie low and stop making themselves the story. They’re unlikely to, of course. Too much a bunch of prima donnas, plotters and media tarts. And now we’ve got this to look forward to:
But you can be sure that from the end of the next week until at least the end of the following week, it will be all-Costello-all-the-time in the Australian media.
Lord save us.
This question from Essential Research (which incidentally has Labor sitting on a 59/41 2PP split) is a hypothetical, but it’s still an interesting result:
Kevin Rudd is preferred to Peter Costello head-to-head 53 per cent to 27 per cent.
Elsewhere: Possum shows why the Costello dithering is doing a lot of damage to the Libs.
Some very mixed signals were sent over the weekend about the future of the Nationals. Their huge defeat in Lyne will have been disheartening, not so much because it happened, but because Rob Oakeshott won so overwhelmingly with a primary of 64%. The result will encourage Indepedents to try to cherry pick their remaining nine seats. Outside Queensland, where the LNP deal will protect sitting members from Liberal competition and where their three seats are reasonably safe against Labor, the Nats also face potential threats from the Liberal Party when seats fall vacant, and there are some seats which are also potentially vulnerable to Labor. But in the meantime, Labor’s majority in the Reps over the Coalition has increased, and Brendan Nelson can’t take much comfort from a poor campaign in Mayo where the Liberal Party only just held off a challenge from The Greens in a blue-ribbon seat.
But over in the West, Brendon Grylls’ strategy has worked a treat, with the Nats improving their vote and holding the balance of power in both houses. At state level, agrarian socialism and the politics of pork barrelling and extortionate negotiation seems to be a viable strategy for the party. So both Warren Truss and Barnaby Joyce have been contemplating an exit from the federal Coalition. As Andrew Bartlett points out, this is pretty weird for two Queenslanders who are supporting a merged entity at state level. The Nats, of course, don’t see the dissonance, because they’ve effectively swallowed up the Queensland Libs, and are happily preselecting their own members as LNP candidates in state seats which the Liberals had a better chance of winning in, and claiming that the “new face of Queensland” comprises a frontbench where the Borg has only one Brisbane member. Meanwhile, some former Liberals sit on the sidelines, hoping to resurrect their party if the LNP bombs at its first electoral outing when Anna Bligh goes to the polls.
Interesting stuff happening in the two federal by-elections tonight. It’s all over red rover for the Nats candidate in Mark Vaile’s old seat of Lyne, Rob Drew, who’s on about 22% of the primary vote - a swing against the Nationals of over 30%. With two thirds of the vote counted, Independent Rob Oakeshott has romped in with nearly 64% of the primary vote counted so far.
The Nats are now down to a historic low of nine seats in the House of Representatives.
In Mayo, there’s a swing against the Liberals of around 11%, with the Greens’ Lynton Vonow polling strongly. So are former Liberal Bob Day and Independent Di Bell. The Libs’ primary is just over 40% and around 20% of the vote has been counted. I don’t know enough about the electorate to say anything about which booths have reported, but you could foresee a scenario where the Libs lose or are run close with a primary like that. It doesn’t appear to have changed much with more booths reporting since I’ve been watching. At the time of writing, the AEC is putting the 2PP at 52/48 Liberals - Greens.
It looks like a smart tactical decision for Labor not to run in either of these safe conservative electorates, and although no doubt local factors are the key to the results, it’ll be fascinating to see how the results are spun tomorrow, particularly since they’re probably going to be roped in with the WA result, whatever that turns out to be. I wonder whether Brendan Nelson spent much time campaigning in Mayo.
You can follow the count at the AEC’s virtual tally room - for Lyne and for Mayo. The Poll Bludger has open threads as well - for Lyne and Mayo respectively.
Update: The Liberals have claimed victory in Mayo. It’s possible but unlikely that postals and other pre-poll and absentee votes might change the picture if Independent Di Bell can get ahead of the Greens’ Lynton Vonow. On votes counted to date the Liberals have 51.74% of the 2PP vote, with the Greens on 48.26%. It’s a big slap in the face for the Libs, whichever way you look at it.
As Dennis Atkins observes, Brendan Nelson yesterday took what appeared to be a calculated gamble in breaking the convention that senior pollies don’t comment on the Reserve Bank’s interest rate decisions. Nelson called for a cut of 50 points in the cash rate.
I suspect this was some sort of pre-emptive strike to try to forestall any credit claiming by Kevin Rudd and Wayne Swan if (as expected) the cash rate is cut by 25 points later today. The politics haven’t played out to script, with Nelson’s comments that he wouldn’t make such a call in government playing into Rudd’s hands.
But it was interesting to hear Nelson’s justification on Lateline last night. Nelson argued that he was reflecting what “many Australians” thought. For those who’ve been paying any attention to what he’s had to say since he became leader, that’s typical. He appears to regard himself as some sort of transmission belt. Hence all the emo-ting. It’s an intriguing view of political leadership because it completely eviscerates the notion of leadership itself. Perhaps it’s one reason why his own leadership is in so much trouble.
After Gillard taunted him in the parliament last week about his publisher’s motto, “books with spine”, he responded: “If she bought a copy, I might sign it for her. She could take it back to that flat where she lives with the spartan furniture, put it up on the bookshelf with her current library, the collected works of Marx and Engels. She could file it alphabetically, by author, ‘Cos’. It will come after ‘Com’, for The Communist Manifesto, and before ‘D’, for Das Kapital. Or she could it put by her bedside where she’s reading a book on how to create unemployment in an economy which is undergoing a mining boom.” Imagine those lines delivered in parliament.
Federal Opposition Leader Brendan Nelson says all decision-makers should spend 12 hours in a truck to understand the issues long-distance drivers face.
Ok, in the parallel universe that is press reporting of polls, we get this from the West Australian:
Extensive Olympics coverage over the past two weeks may have pushed politics out of the minds of many Australians and be responsible for the minimal changes in the latest Newspoll of voter sentiment and no improvement for the coalition.
Right. Yep. Because the natural order of things is that the Coalition vote should always be rising and its failure to do so is an aberration to be explained away by… stuff that happened in the same fortnight. Whatevs.
Meanwhile, Dennis Shanahan puts it all down to the waiting, waiting, waiting, waiting for Costello to release his book. Which, by the way, the ABC is giving free publicity to by televising a National Press Club speech by the former Treasurer on the day of its release. What’s with that?
But note the common assumption that the Liberals should be gaining were it not for their leadership woes. Really? How do they know? Because they do. It’s not argued. But it’s there as the background assumption on which all the rest rests.
Elsewhere: For actual commentary on the poll, go visit Possum and the Poll Bludger’s crew in comments. The Poll Bludger also links to the rather interesting Essential Research poll (Labor 58-Coalition 42) which shows that there’s a 7% negative differential between state and federal ALP voting intentions among its sample.
Judging by this news item in the Fairfax media, tonight’s Four Corners warts and all profile of Malcolm Turnbull sounds like a bucket load of fun.
In a profile on the shadow treasurer to air on the ABC’s Four Corners tonight, Mr Turnbull is identified as the insider who passed on secret notes indicating Mr Packer would publicly stick to the law but would privately exercise editorial control over Fairfax.
Timely because it comes slap bang in the middle of the run up to Peter The Ditherers biography launch and important questions about Liberal Party leadership issues and tensions arising from that event.
Fun prime time viewing for the whole family. Bring the popcorn and consider this an open thread if you’re watching tonight.
Poor old $weetie must have been feeling attention deprived. The “will he, won’t he?” stories had run out of any possible oxygen, so he opened a Senator’s office, and attacked the Labor party on economic management. The drooling in the News Limited punditariat started on cue, with Costellologist in Chief Dennis Shanahan immediately pointing out that while the Great Pretender had said he woudn’t challenge Brendan Nelson, he hadn’t ruled out being drafted into the leadership. Of course he didn’t. He’s always wanted everything given to him on a platter.
All the schtick about some leadership draft ignores the fact that Nelson - although he’s been reminded ad infinitum that a dignified handover would lead to some fabbo outcome for him like becoming the next Lord Downer - will probably fight, if indeed as the same pundits previously speculated, he has to at all, because he’s been briefed by Costello on his intentions. But I suppose an attention span longer than a day and paying some attention to what you’ve previously written is beyond their ken.
Props to Peter Hartcher at the Sydney Morning Herald for actually including some vaguely sensible commentary in his column on the Nielsen preferred Liberal leader polling, and not beating it up as “Voters Want Costello!”. Perhaps the Fairfax crew are trying to establish a point of differentiation in the market:
But even so, the poll does not suggest that a Costello leadership would be enough to put the Coalition ahead. “Superficially it looks good for Peter Costello,” Stirton observes, “but when you look at where his support comes from, it’s mainly Liberal voters.”
But to win an election, the Coalition needs to win over people currently supporting Labor. Asked whether a Costello leadership would make them more or less likely to vote for the Coalition, 15 per cent said more likely but 24 per cent said less. “Costello is a net negative among Labor voters,” Stirton points out.
I forget who first compared the breathless expectation that the News Limited meejah and the Liberal party are indulging in over Peter Costello’s non-decision making to Kremlinology, but in the wake of the thousands of words wasted on idle speculation and the interpretation of signs from the Great Pretender last weekend, this weekend we get… thousands of words wasted, etc.
Hint to Liberals: Your problems are much deeper than leadership. You need to do a lot more in opposition than “defend the Howard record”, particularly when doing so ties you in knots so tangled that… well, consider Joe Hockey last night. You need to realise that if Costello becomes leader, he will have to display more “economic credibility” than “hey! wasn’t it the good old days when I was Treasurer?” - the configuration of economic issues is different and the world has moved on. And in the process your messiah has been reinforcing his reputation for indecision and indulging his enormous ego and sense of entitlement. And, guess what, if you change leadership, it won’t be the end of your leadership troubles.
If you read between the lines of Peter Costello’s in house columnist/propagandist at News Limited Glenn Milne’s column today, and add in Tony Abbott’s words of praise for The Great Pretender on Lateline on Friday, and the story that came from “nowhere” about Cossie knocking back a 2 million buck a year job, the Liberal leadership narrative is becoming pretty clear - signals are being sent that the party’s Right, and particularly Nick Minchin, want $weetie in the leadership.
But let’s be clear about two things:
(1) Costello is still doing his usual petulant thing - signalling that he’ll only take the leadership if asked. Whether or not a 10 month sulk while his party lies in smoking ruins is a mark of a clever politician or just a massive and self-centred ego is - as they say - a question for the party room.
(2) The Liberal Party right are turning to Costello in order to fend off Malcolm Turnbull. So any suggestion that the former Treasurer is some sort of moderate, or indeed that he might have his own agenda, can probably be put to bed. He’ll be the captive of the denialist hardliners just like Brendan Nelson is. And that - all his past feints to the moderates aside - would be entirely consistent with his history as a politician - a natural right winger, but a lazy one with few ideas of his own, and no eye for political strategy. Turnbull is unlikely to take any second coming lying down.
The Liberals’ position on an emissions trading policy - and climate change - is so obscure that the results of their meeting the other day can be reported in some papers as a defeat for Nelson, and in others as a quixotic victory. Tempers are running so high that the Shadow Cabinet recommendation wasn’t put in writing - lest it leak - and the meeting did policy by whiteboard. But the proceedings leaked anyway. Here are some highlights from Louise Dodson’s story in yesterday’s Fin Review.
It took five hours, a lot of fierce debate and a deal workshopped on a whiteboard, but the coalition party room finally agreed to support Opposition Leader Brendan Nelson on climate change.
…
The party meeting started with the words “climate change is real” being written on the whiteboard. But even this statement could not produce agreement. Backbencher Dennis Jensen said he could not sign up to that statement and it was then removed and replaced by “we give the planet the benefit of the doubt and support action on climate change”.
…
Sources at the meeting said almost all Coalition MPs spoke during the meeting, with one-fifth of them sceptical that there was human-induced climate change, three-fifths of the view that the opposition needed to sort out the position and move on for political reasons and one-fifth arguing against a commitment to an emissions trading scheme specifically by 2012.
Let’s take a look at today’s political “news”, News Limited style, and the ongoing construction of the “media narrative” that according to the press gallery gang, is the only news fit to print.
As noted here, The Opposition Organ spent a bucket of dosh to add extra questions to Newspoll, and chose to run with “Voters Want Costello” as its front page headline over the (presumably less welcome to the masthead of denialism) numbers on climate change, showing overwhelming majorities attributing climate change to AGW and support for an ETS, with a big majority for “not waiting on the world”. So that’s establishing the news agenda through polling to feed the current “media narrative” - centring on the Liberal leadership and Peter Costello lovin’ in particular. And selectivity in emphasis. Then we get selectivity in reporting. The numbers in Newspoll, as Possum points out, don’t show that the voters the Liberals need to persuade are particularly persuadable by a putative Costello return:
The Coalition needs ALP voters to shift to the Coalition, yet ALP voters have a breakdown of 15% more likely and 20% less likely. If Costello became leader, he might not lose voteshare, but neither does he look like he would gain much based on these results.
Let’s go back a bit and remember, as Mark pointed out in his review, that the extracts from Inside Kevin07that kicked the Costello talk off were themselves highly selective - one bit of research done before Rudd became leader and highlighted while the other internal polling and focus group research showing Costello for PM being about as appealling as a piece of wet lettuce was studiously ignored. And let’s not forget either that the “Costello the Saviour” narrative basically depends on the publication date of a book! Leadership calculation by publishing schedule! Melbourne University Press and book distributors hold the nation’s future in their hand!
Newspoll has Labor up to 57 from 55 last time (within the moe) and Nelson flatlining at 14% PPM. Commenters at the Poll Bludger’s thread predict that it will be spun by News Limited as a cri de coueur from the public for the imminent return of Peter Costellothe Great Pretender. Probably.
Update: [by Mark] You can read about the additional questions asked about liberal leadership, Peter Costello, climate change and support for an emissions trading policy at Possum’s place.
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Newspoll Tuesday: Labor 56-44
Ok, in the parallel universe that is press reporting of polls, we get this from the West Australian:
Right. Yep. Because the natural order of things is that the Coalition vote should always be rising and its failure to do so is an aberration to be explained away by… stuff that happened in the same fortnight. Whatevs.
Meanwhile, Dennis Shanahan puts it all down to the waiting, waiting, waiting, waiting for Costello to release his book. Which, by the way, the ABC is giving free publicity to by televising a National Press Club speech by the former Treasurer on the day of its release. What’s with that?
But note the common assumption that the Liberals should be gaining were it not for their leadership woes. Really? How do they know? Because they do. It’s not argued. But it’s there as the background assumption on which all the rest rests.
Elsewhere: For actual commentary on the poll, go visit Possum and the Poll Bludger’s crew in comments. The Poll Bludger also links to the rather interesting Essential Research poll (Labor 58-Coalition 42) which shows that there’s a 7% negative differential between state and federal ALP voting intentions among its sample.