Tag Archive for 'liberal leadership'

Live by the sword…

Published
by
Mark
21 hours, 33 minutes ago
in Media and Politics
. 18 Comments

Julie Bishop’s been copping it from unnamed “senior Liberals” for her poor performance as shadow Treasurer, who’ve helpfully implied Malcolm Turnbull shares their worries, and suggested a few names to replace her (Dutton, Robb, Hockey) for good measure.

While Bishop has been massively unconvincing in the Treasury portfolio, it’s not only the Deputy Leader who should be concerned over this latest outburst of leaks to The Australian. Malcolm Turnbull and the rest of the Libs should also recall that Brendan Nelson was brought down as much by the constant dripfeed of negative stories to their mates in the press gallery, as by his own hapless efforts as Leader. What is now being done to Bishop (and the articles have been cleverly framed to keep the “narrative” alive for quite a while - by forcing her putative replacements to deny an interest, and thus further fuel the story) could be done to Turnbull tomorrow. As if to lay down a few markers, Peter Van Onselen published an otherwise bizarre op/ed on Saturday praising Peter Costello as the best available leader.

I’ve observed before that the opposition’s coziness with the press gallery does them no favours. It shouldn’t be too difficult to find a way of resolving problems internally rather than in newspaper columns.

He’s tanned, rested, and ready to lead!

Published
by
Kim
3 weeks ago
in Media and Polls
. 27 Comments

Newspoll has Labor on 55% 2PP (up 1 point, within the MOE). Kevin Rudd is on 62% (up 3) on the PPM to Malcolm Turnbull’s 22% (down 3).

Brendan Nelson peaked at 16%.

The Opposition Organ says:

But it remains substantially higher than his predecessor Brendan Nelson.

How substantial is substantial, I wonder?

Continue reading ‘He’s tanned, rested, and ready to lead!’

Newspoll: Labor 55-45

Published
by
Mark
1 month, 2 weeks ago
in Media and Polls
. 7 Comments

After a break last Monday for the NSW long weekend, Newspoll is out with a steady 2PP lead for Labor and a jump in Kevin Rudd’s overall standing. Apparently the Preferred Prime Minister measure, which was so crucial in talking down Brendan Nelson’s leadership, is no longer important. At any rate it’s not been reported in the early story in The Australian, which talks up Malcolm Turnbull’s approval rating. It might be more to the point to note that Turnbull has had a negligible leadership effect by any historical measure on the Opposition’s voting intention numbers.

Elsewhere: The Poll Bludger.

Update: Possum. OzPolitics notes the large jump in The Greens’ primary vote.

The Costa Diaries

Published
by
Kim
1 month, 3 weeks ago
in Books, Writers & Writing, Economics, Media and NSW Government
. 41 Comments

Michael Costa has taken a leaf out of Mark Latham’s book… Forced out of office and Parliament? Write op/eds attacking your former party!

LISTENING to Kevin Rudd at Council of Australian Governments meetings as he tried to connect the global economic situation to the more mundane items on the national reform agenda was often excruciating.

Anybody with a rudimentary understanding of economics would have quickly concluded, as I did, that the Prime Minister didn’t have a good understanding of these issues.

Can a tell all book be far behind? Would it need to be a three volume set to contain slurs on all the people Michael Costa doesn’t like?

Here’s a suggestion for the under-employed former pollie - why not join the Liberal Party? You’ve already got News Limited Columnists eating out of your hand (you actually are one too!)… And your right-wing views should see you fit in nicely. Perhaps with your added ruthlessness, you could spark endless speculation about Malcolm Turnbull’s polling and leadership and unlike the Great Pretender seize the top job by the power of the Word!

Essential Research Labor 58-42; Interest rates cut by 100 basis points

Published
by
Kim
1 month, 3 weeks ago
in Economics, Markets, Media and Polls
. 10 Comments

As a bit of an update to my post last night, the Essential Research poll is now out, basically showing no change from last time. Possum has more on all the other questions asked. So, we can now be more confident about suggesting that Malcolm Turnbull’s leadership has yet to really shift any of the trends that were evident under Nelson - this also highlights the vast over-inflation of the importance of Preferred PM and Opposition Leader approval ratings in most of the punditariat’s commentary. It will be very interesting to see what the delayed Newspoll says - since this is apparently the only poll the punditariat focus on. Where to now for the famous “media narrative”?

Peter Martin has all the wonky stuff worth reading on the Reserve Bank’s 1% rates cut, which a number of banks and lending institutions have indicated will lead to a .8% cut in their variable mortgage rates. Dennis Atkins, writing at Party Games, thinks that the Reserve has given the Rudd government political breathing space.

No early Newspoll; interest rates to be cut

Published
by
Kim
1 month, 3 weeks ago
in Economics, Markets, Media and Polls
. 17 Comments

I wonder if no Newspoll is bad news for the pollsters and those who own them. This must be the first Monday in living memory (well, since anyone started paying attention to this stuff before last year’s campaign) when there hasn’t been an early release of selected Newspoll numbers. It couldn’t possibly be because the numbers don’t show any leadership bounce for Malcolm Turnbull, could it? [Update: Or could it be because NSW had a public holiday yesterday?] After all, last week’s Morgan face to face poll showed a straight swap of primary vote from the Coalition to Labor - 1.5%, with Labor on 57.5% 2PP. And ACNielsen and Newspoll a fortnight ago showed a very poor bounce by historical standards for the Opposition.

No doubt we’ll find out.

Malcolm Turnbull has been playing a dangerous game on interest rates. Continue reading ‘No early Newspoll; interest rates to be cut’

The culture wars on tv… live!

Published
by
Kim
2 months ago
in Culture, Media and Politics
. 25 Comments

Tom Switzer, former op/editor of the Government Gazette and the Opposition Organ and subsaquently Nelson staffer is a panelist on tonight’s final instalment of the ABC’s Q&A. Switzer famously proclaimed that the right was now winning the Culture Wars. Let’s see if culture war logic stands up to questioning!

Ps: Media tart Peter Costello is also on, in close proximity to David Marr. Perhaps sales of teh book are disappointing? Can he revive them by starting another round of leadership rumours?

Polls mean whatever journalists want them to mean

Published
by
Kim
2 months ago
in Media, Polls and Queensland
. 8 Comments

The Courier-Mail trumpets a Galaxy poll of Queenslanders on federal voting intentions:

Opposition Leader Malcolm Turnbull a hit in Queensland

If you look at the tables, Labor is in a (slightly) better position on the two party preferred than it was in the federal election, on 51-49 in the state (the ALP’s 2PP in Queensland in November was 50.4%). And the Coalition’s primary vote has fallen by .5%.

But:

The fact that Labor’s advantage in the home state of Prime Minister Kevin Rudd and Treasurer Wayne Swan could be eroded so quickly is likely to send shockwaves through the Federal Government.

Hardly.

All this is based on some improvement in the ratings on economic management (but with the Coalition still behind Labor). Last year, the Coalition had better poll numbers on economic management - and lost the election.

[Via Oz Politics]

Governor-General “not especially bright”, columnist claims

Published
by
Kim
2 months ago
in Climate change, Howardia, Law and Media
. 45 Comments

There’s an extraordinary rant from Christopher Pearson in today’s Opposition Organ, beginning with a big spray against Quentin Bryce. Let me just observe that her opinion that the reserve powers can be codified is a respectable one, and that Pearson is committing a significant fallacy when he conflates that opinion with the analytically separate question of the political feasibility of such a change to the Constitution.

The actual occasion for his condescending twaddle seems to be a lamentation about the ideological unsoundness of the Liberal Party leadership:

Until recently, it would have been hard to imagine a candidate with Bryce’s limitations and ideological baggage winning the level of broad acceptance within the conservative wing of the political class necessary for her to function as governor-general. Indeed, since Brendan Nelson, Julie Bishop and Malcolm Turnbull could not be described plausibly as conservatives, it may not be safe to assume that Bryce does enjoy that kind of acceptance. In less than a year, the values for which John Howard, Peter Costello and Alexander Downer provided so formidable a bulwark are no longer taken for granted in the Liberal Party room.

More power to Nick Minchin and Tony Abbott appears to be the suggestion. Yep, they’re electoral gold. Attack Rudd from the hard right, urges Pearson.

Continue reading ‘Governor-General “not especially bright”, columnist claims’

Malcolm Turnbull on Q&A: The reviews are in

Published
by
Kim
2 months, 1 week ago
in Film, TV, Video etc and Politics
. 56 Comments

I was actually thinking about liveblogging Turnbull’s solo appearance last night on Q&A. But then I thought better of it. So what did folks think?

I now know that Malcolm’s dad is his hero, and that he once smoked marijuana but now knows pot is evil. Aside from clearing up what he meant about the bank bailout thing, I can’t really remember anything else he said.

The elephant in the room (or on Wall Street)

Published
by
Kim
2 months, 1 week ago
in China, Foreign policy, Markets, Media and USA
. 17 Comments

In an interview where he displayed to the full his immense self-regard, and incidentally engaged in his now customary tease about his future in politics, Peter Costello was asked by Tony Jones to comment on his warnings during the election campaign last year about financial tsunamis from China. He didn’t exactly address that front on, but he did comment that Asian sovereign wealth funds were providing a force for stability in world financial markets. That’s intriguing, because Ian Welsh at Firedoglake highlights what isn’t being openly discussed in the political reaction to the proposed Paulson bailout of Wall Street, in the context of the Japanese company Namura acquiring a 20% equity stake in Morgan Stanley after Henry Paulson’s announcement:

Investors, and especially foreign investors, want to know that if they buy in again, they’re protected. Since they aren’t going to be allowed to buy up the US’s financial sector for pennies, that means they need to know that prices will be maintained so they aren’t buying pigs-in-a-poke.

Which is also why the Paulson or Dodd bailout is still on the books. Because if the US doesn’t bail out its own financial sector (by borrowing money it doesn’t have) then the only people with enough money are foreign sovereign funds and large investors. And they willbail it out for cents on the dollar at fire sale prices. The end result is that New York would definitively no longer be the world’s financial center. Odds on favourite to be the new one? Dubai. London doesn’t want it (they want to be middlemen). Tokyo can’t quite do it. Shanghai isn’t ready.

But Dubai is raring to go. And that’s one real reason why Congressional leaders and Wall Street CEOs are panicking. If Wall Street isn’t bailed out by Congress, the executives will all be either working for Chinese and Arabs, or they’ll be out on the street, drowning their sorrow in their 50 feet yachts drinking $100,000 dollar bottles of whine. Er, wine.

What the US government is really seeking to do (among other things) is to engage in its own version of state capitalism in order to fend off the accelerating shift of power from America to Asia. And that’s one of the motivations they don’t particularly want to foreground, because the US taxpayer will be footing the bill. Make no mistake, this is just as much about geopolitics as finance.

Continue reading ‘The elephant in the room (or on Wall Street)’

Government moving too slowly on IR; Essential Research 57-43

Published
by
Mark
2 months, 1 week ago
in Industrial Relations and Polls
. 16 Comments

…45% of Australians think so, according to this fortnight’s Essential Research poll. As a bit of an addendum to my earlier post about Julia Gillard’s speech last week to the National Press Club on the detail of the Forward with Fairness bills which will shortly be introduced into parliament, I should also note that many Labor MPs have been concerned by reports they’re receiving from constituents about continuing abuses of workplace power. This is more the everyday bastardry that WorkChoices encouraged, rather than the headline anti-union moves of big corporations like Telstra. A lot of voters assumed that WorkChoices had already been “torn up”, and there’s significant pressure on Gillard to bring forward some of the implementation dates for aspects of the new legislation.

The whole “keep business satisfied” implementation agenda might have seemed like a good idea last year. It’s not looking so flash now, particularly as the ACTU finally wakes up to the fact that they’ve effectively been locked out of the policy making process.

Elsewhere: More discussion of the poll at The Poll Bludger. Also interesting is the comparison with ratings of attributes between Malcolm Turnbull and Kevin Rudd (with the proviso that the data on Rudd dates from June). Turnbull will be worried at the 47% “out of touch” figure. How do you actually turn that around? Brendan Nelson didn’t do so by emoting and going trucking.

Winners and losers in Turnbull’s shadow cabinet

Published
by
Mark
2 months, 1 week ago
in Politics
. 47 Comments

The list is out and it can be found here.

Julie Bishop is the new Shadow Treasurer.

Contrary to Turnbull’s own claims, it’s clear that he’s rewarded his own supporters and demoted or discarded some of Nelson’s - such as Nick Minchin and Tony Smith. Tony Abbott seems to have shot himself in the foot with his undisciplined comments that he’d rather be closer to the action leading to his remaining where he was.

And Sophie Mirabella joins the Shadow Ministry. That might tell you something - along with the elevation of Concetta Fioranti-Wells - about the depth of talent Turnbull has to work with.

Turnbull poll bounce? ACNielsen 52-48, Newspoll 55-45

Published
by
Kim
2 months, 1 week ago
in Media and Polls
. 39 Comments

ACNielsen has Labor behind the Liberals on primaries 42-41, the first time the Libs have been ahead of Labor in the Nielsen poll since September 2006. Labor leads in the 2PP 52-48, and Kevin Rudd leads Malcolm Turnbull on PPM 56-33. Rudd led Brendan Nelson 65-19 in the August poll.

The Liberals have gained 3% on the primary vote and 3% on the 2PP since the August Nielsen poll.

I observed the other day that Possum had calculated opposition leader change bounce averages. It’s for Newspoll, but here it is for purposes of comparison:

…the average Coalition bounce from a leadership change was 5.7% on the primary and 6% on the TPP.

Speaking of Newspoll, The Poll Bludger reports rumours of an early release for the one that normally appears first on Lateline tomorrow night. I wouldn’t be at all surprised, as otherwise the OO will be reduced to writing their new narrative on the basis of a story in The Age. So get in quickly for Possum’s guess the Newspoll bounce competition.

Update: That was quick. Dennis gets to write his story on the basis of the poll he owns. Newspoll has the primaries favouring Labor 42-38 (down 2 and up 1 respectively, and within the MOE as Shanahan notes). The 2PP is 55-45 in Labor’s favour. It was 56-44 last time. Without mentioning the ACNielsen poll, Shanahan has actually written a story that would fit its findings better than Newspoll’s, having to construct his narrative out of the frippery of the PPM where Rudd leads Turnbull 54-24. As The Poll Bludger observes, this matches the Galaxy Poll in the News Limited tabloids on the weekend.

So if we do the comparison with Possum’s calculations, the Turnbull bounce is almost non-existent. Heh.

In reality, we should wait before passing judgement, but it’s fair to say that the previous trend is still very much apparent. Rudd’s losing some of his shine, but Labor’s vote is holding up well.

Continue reading ‘Turnbull poll bounce? ACNielsen 52-48, Newspoll 55-45′

Labor’s game plan for Malcolm Turnbull

Published
by
Mark
2 months, 2 weeks ago
in Media and Politics
. 71 Comments

Tony Abbott trotted out the line on Q&A tonight that the ALP is scared of Malcolm Turnbull, hence the attack on him. This meme - which I think originated with the claims that the government were trembling in their collective boots at the spectre of Peter Costello becoming Opposition Leader - is dumb. It was hardly worth going after Brendan Nelson - he did a good enough job on himself. But what politicians do is attack their opponents. It’s hardly rocket science.

So what’s Labor up to? A lot of it has to do with Turnbull’s persona. As Kim observed the other day, Turnbull won’t be anywhere near as well known among the general public as he is among political junkies. When there’s so much attention on him, you get in quick to define his persona. The line has already morphed - from rich dude to out of touch Eastern suburbs silvertail who represents, you know, latte sippers and Sydney Morning Herald readers. Which, after all, he does. “Vaucluse”, “Point Piper”, and “Western suburbs” (by way of contrast) are words carrying huge symbolic weight. It’s a tie in with the “right to drive a Porsche” jibes and will be a better fit with Turnbull than with truckin’ Brendan.

Turnbull’s possibly doing himself no favours by talking about himself so much, a point that a conga line of Ministers have made. It’s the downside of having to define yourself. To the degree that Turnbull does have an image as egotistical and arrogant, he reinforces that by dwelling on his own qualities. And the press does part of the job for the ALP by writing about him in terms of his stellar intellect, heroic qualities, his temper and “inability to tolerate fools”, blah blah. If there’s one image that Australian voters don’t like, it’s of someone with tickets on themselves and a sense of entitlement. Just ask Peter Costello.

Thirdly, while the press may have been suggesting Turbull is some sort of “crazy brave” choice and will provide sparks and excitement, that’s probably a negative. Continue reading ‘Labor’s game plan for Malcolm Turnbull’