Tag Archive for 'Graham Young'

2010: Bye bye Bligh?

Published
by
Mark
3 months ago
in Politics and Queensland
. 32 Comments

Back in August, I had this to say about Anna Bligh’s Labor regime in Queensland:

Anna Bligh’s credibility was one of the few things the ALP had going for it in the March state election. Her opposition to the dictates of ratings agencies was a hallmark message. The announcement after Labor squeaked back in that the fuel subsidy would go, that public sector wages would effectively be frozen and jobs disappeared through efficiency dividends, and, particularly, the plans for the sell off of state assets have seen the trust the electorate had in Bligh collapse.

I also wrote, commenting on her efforts to turn the situation around:

But the public aren’t inclined to credit her for decisive action — because the basis of trust that existed between citizens and their Premier has already dissipated.

At the time, I was met with some scepticism in comments. At the end of the year, I think it’s pretty clear that Bligh’s regime has the smell of death about it. Anyone who doubts that should have a look at Graham Young’s latest polling [links to posts on quant and qual respectively].

Bligh’s woes have been compounded by the departure of her chief of staff, Mike Kaiser. His replacement, Nicole Scurrah, is something of a policy wonk, and it’s difficult to see any semblance of a political strategy from the (shrinking) Bligh camp, beyond toughing it out and proclaiming the virtues of ‘tough decisions’. Hiring Bernie Fraser on 2 and a half grand a day to pacify the unions was a waste of money, and the partial backdown on the privatisations (now to be 50 and 99 year leases instead of full sales) has not stemmed the tide of public and union anger.

The last month or so has seen serious discussions within the party, caucus and unions about removing Bligh. It’s important to recall here that Bligh has alienated many on the left, both in caucus and in left unions, and also in the faction’s rank and file. There’s a host of intra-factional bad will, which is somewhat tangential to the broader consensus forming that removing Bligh is the only way to give Labor any chance at electoral survival, but which has its own effects.

Monday saw reports of moves to convene a special party conference to reverse the privatisation push. This is the tip of the iceberg when it comes to the machinations going on at the moment, some of which are described in an article by Andrew Crook in today’s Crikey [paywalled]. Continue reading ‘2010: Bye bye Bligh?’

The impending Queensland election and the state of the debt

Published
by
Mark
1 year ago
in Economics, Queensland and State/Territory Elections
. 15 Comments

Various newspapers described Queensland Treasurer Andrew Fraser’s budget outlook review on Friday as providing a “trigger” for an impending poll. That’s something of a misleading formulation. But the budget position does give state Labor – perhaps paradoxically – a political theme to develop and run on.

The Labor Party won’t want issues such as health, which remind voters that it’s had eleven years in office, to be central to the campaign.

Rather, the ALP will want to differentiate its economic approach from the LNP’s. Anna Bligh will be arguing that the state government is doing all it can to kickstart the slowing economy – an argument previewed by Fraser when he pointedly observed that the government had chosen to continue to borrow for infrastructure spending rather than cut its borrowing cloth to the demands of Standard and Poor’s. Jobs above all else was the message.

Graham Young’s polling for the National Forum shows infrastructure still in first place among voter concerns, but the economy rocking up the charts. There’s an obvious connection to be made between the two issues, and the Borg’s constant mantra about debt and the evils thereof boxes the LNP in and prevents them from making big ticket announcements. If they do, they’re destroying their own claims about public debt, and suggesting there’s tons of interest at the moment in public-private partnerships is hardly going to be credible in this economic climate. Labor ends up with a twin focus on the economy and leadership, and it’s hard to see this favouring the opposition. From the point of view of where governments’ political support goes when put to the test in an economic downturn, this will be an interesting campaign.

Continue reading ‘The impending Queensland election and the state of the debt’

Another day, another election false alarm

Published
by
Mark
1 year, 1 month ago
in Queensland, State/Territory Elections and The Web
. 37 Comments

It seems that the ALP still can’t lift a political finger in Queensland without the press wizards at The Australian heralding it as a sign of an imminent election. On Friday, they were writing about a “trigger” for a poll, and yesterday the launch of Anna Bligh’s social media campaign website and the announced retirement of Labor MPs Gary Fenlon (Greenslopes) and Speaker Mike Reynolds (Townsville) suggested that we “could be heading for the polls as early as tomorrow”. Looks like they’re wrong. Perhaps if you write a story like this every day, there will be one day between now and August when it will actually prove accurate?

One has to wonder about the depth of understanding of political mechanics and political logic required to write this stuff. While the process of preselecting new candidates for what are important seats – even if they’re Labor held – won’t be “protracted”, it still has to be done. And those candidates need a bit of breathing space to build a profile before a campaign.

And there’s not much point to having a whizzbang brand new shiny campaign website if it doesn’t get some traction and some traffic.

In any case, it’s probably of more interest to assess how effective Anna4Qld actually is. Graham Young isn’t impressed.

It is true to say that the dynamics factoring into the election date have altered since last year. The LNP’s decline in the polls now has them trying to fend off an early campaign, while previously they were rearing to go. But Labor’s not ready for one – Labor support is quite soft, representing more of a “lesser of two evils” factor in light of the daily drumbeat of stories reinforcing dissatisfaction with health in particular. Labor is well aware of the possibility that voters who won’t plump for the Opposition will vote for a Green or another minor party or independent candidate with no second preference, or simply vote informal or stay away from the polls. There’s a fair way to go yet before either party can be really confident. Which is an indictment of them both, needless to say.

Elsewhere: Andrew Bartlett.

Alternative universe

Published
by
Mark
1 year, 1 month ago
in Media, Polls, Queensland and State/Territory Elections
. 9 Comments

Aside from running “news” stories that “couriermail.com.au readers” are shocked by Anna Bligh’s use of the government jet to fly to Townsville, the redoubtable News Limited ranks are continuing their early election frenzy at every available opportunity. Witness this piece in The Australian about the budget position:

The rapidly deteriorating economic conditions in Queensland will put pressure on the Bligh Government to hold an early election.

An election is due before September, but the prospect of rapidly rising unemployment by the middle of the year plus a tough budget in June may convince the Government to go to the polls in the next few months.

Note that this is “news”, not “opinion”.

I assume it’s News Limited itself who is putting on the pressure.

As I observed the other day, Treasurer Andrew Fraser has explicitly said that the timing of the election wouldn’t be influenced by a desire to avoid a tough budget, and Anna Bligh has repeatedly poured cold water on the early election speculation since she returned from holidays.

It’s much more likely that the state government wants to be seen to be taking the proverbial “decisive action” on jobs and the economy rather than rushing to the polls. And they want some more time to heighten the attack on the LNP. Graham Young’s online polling also suggests that there would be some cost to going early.

Queensland politics – the state of play

Published
by
Mark
1 year, 1 month ago
in Polls, Queensland and State/Territory Elections
. 9 Comments

There are some interesting tidbits around today about where Queensland politics is at – at a point in time when the serious business of politics has started (at least for the ALP) but where I think the election is still quite a way off. Graham Young at What The People Want has released the results of his online poll – on issues and whether the state is “heading in the right direction” and on perceptions of Anna Bligh and Lawrence Springborg as leaders. This sort of polling is invaluable as it gives everyone access to similar sorts of data to that normally closely guarded by parties and polling companies, so it’s well worth a look. I’ll let the analysis speak for itself.

Meanwhile, in Crikey, Bernard Keane has had a look at the state of the LNP. The article is reproduced (with permission) over the fold.

Continue reading ‘Queensland politics – the state of play’

The media and the motivation to blog

Published
by
Mark
1 year, 2 months ago
in Activism, Blogging, Media, Politics and Sociology
. 22 Comments

At Ambit Gambit, Graham Young riffs off a comment made by Jay Rosen on Twitter:

You know why there are bloggers, @Newshour? Because there is “safety first” reasoning in news. People get sick of it and take up their pens.”

Young doesn’t entirely agree – not that the performance of the media in reportage isn’t a jumping off point for the desire to blog – but that the problem with mainstream journalism is “safety first”. He presents three hypotheses which might explain the quality of political reporting and commentary. I think he’s definitely onto something here, though I’d also add that the structure of the media and its corporate logics are also factors we should take note of.

The post concludes:

…perhaps the urge to blog is driven not so much by the tendency of journalists towards “safety first”, but because journalists are by and large socially homogenous and don’t reaffirm the views of most bloggers, who in reaction create their own social networks.

Which is not why I blog at all, but then, I am an statistically inadequate sample, and this post is pure speculation on which I hope to get some feedback from other bloggers.

Part of the academic stuff I’m working on this year goes to the question of the motivation for the creation of “user-generated content”. In the context of political blogging, I’m not at all certain that the sorts of categories the citizen journalism literature employs – ie “monitorial citizen”, “public sphere” and so on – are at all adequate for understanding the desire to blog.

Continue reading ‘The media and the motivation to blog’