This time last year, we were all feverishly anticipating the calling of the federal election, which was less than a fortnight away. Now, courtesy of the quarterly Newspoll geographical and demographic analysis we can track where and with whom the Rudd government has been travelling well and less well from January to September 2008 and compare the poll numbers with the election result in November 2007.
Possum has all the spiffy graphs.
As The Poll Bludger notes, there are two really interesting trends in the aggregate poll. First, the Rudd honeymoon is still very much alive for the 18-34 demographic (and it will be intriguing to see some good data on how Turnbull’s elevation shifts this – if at all – down the track.) Secondly, Labor is still doing poorly in the West, and has gone a fair way backward in South Australia. (Incidentally, the data supports the point Kim made here the other day about Labor trending upwards in Queensland federally while Anna Bligh’s state regime goes into a slump – albeit a slump which is still of election winning dimensions even if it’s not a Beattie style landslide. And federal Labor hasn’t been hurt in New South Wales by the implosion of the Iemma government.)
A lot of folks are attributing Labor’s performance in South Australia to the Murray-Darling basin issue. Again, it’s worth noting that Labor still has a primary lead of 3 points over the Coalition, but it is no doubt significant to see eight points knocked off its lead so quickly in the last quarter, after having been stable at 49% more or less since the election. I’d be interested to hear from South Australian LP-ers about what they think is going on.
If it is the Murray-Darling, this might say something interesting about the Rudd government’s ability to deal with relatively intractable problems through its preferred mode of governance. Continue reading ‘The state of Rudd Nation’
A week after Western Australians went to the vote, and the counting and manoeuvring continues. The Poll Bludger has all the details on the latest results and a poll on which way the Nationals should jump.
I’ve got a feeling the Nationals might go with Labor. It’s hard to explain why Brendon Grylls should give Alan Carpenter a big assist to stay in the leadership otherwise. But the contrary hypothesis would be it’s part of a game plan to keep us all guessing.
With all the attention on the role of Brendon Grylls and the Nationals as the kingmakers in the WA election result, the improvement in the Greens’ vote has slipped under the radar somewhat. Counting subsequent to election night has seen their vote climb to almost 12% of the Legislative Assembly total according to the WAEC (which is interestingly slightly higher than the Greens’ vote in the Legislative Council).
But, if the Fin Review is to be believed, the significance of a 4% plus swing to the Greens hasn’t escaped the attention of ALP wonks. “Labor hardheads” are quoted by the paper as concerned by the vote in Fremantle, and the implications for the seats of Federal Ministers such as Lindsay Tanner, Anthony Albanese and Tanya Plibersek. “Labor strategists” are cited as concerned about a drift away among “left-leaning voters”.
This is hardly rocket science. Any modern managerialist ALP government is bound to disappoint at least some left voters after the initial euphoria of a Tory defeat has worn off. And the Greens nationally are going to have a much bigger profile with a balance of power role in the Senate and new Senators who may develop a high profile. The article, however, leaves us none the wiser as to how “Labor strategists” think their party should respond.
Continue reading ‘Greens back in the spotlight after the WA election?’
Accy raises an interesting concept.
Whichever party the Nats decide to deal with, they likely won’t enter into coalition. They’d guarantee supply, but otherwise keep their options open. And given the Nats’ likely control of both houses, it would possible for one of those options to be to get legislation passed without the help of the government. Meaning ministers forced to implement legislation they voted against.
Unlikely, sure. But wouldn’t it be fun while it lasted? And what other wacky scenarios can people think up before boring reality kicks in again?
When it appeared likely that the Libs might win in WA, much of the commentary focused on how a non-Labor state government would play havoc with Kevin Rudd’s “cooperative federalism”. As with so much political analysis around the traps, this is lazy commentary shaped by myths and cliches and not by reality. Rudd’s “ending the blame game” theme was always somewhat tentative – people seem to forget the stick and carrot approach never went away. Indeed, it was explicitly highlighted before the election with regard to health and the possibility of a Commonwealth hospitals takeover. Implicitly, it’s raised its head as “argy bargy” on issues such as IR, education and water, among others. The feds still have the power of the purse strings, and this and the fear of breaking ranks among Labor premiers, and being seen to do so, is a very effective method of shaping outcomes while maintaining the political high ground.
A possible Barnett premiership would shift the dynamics somewhat, but Barnett would still have considerable incentive to cooperate. Rudd’s template for COAG reform comes from the 90s when Liberal premiers such as Kennett, Greiner and Court worked with Labor premiers such as Goss and Paul Keating’s government.
It’s also worth remembering that Rudd’s “ending the blame game” promise was explicitly defined as a response to the “coast to coast Labor” scare. A Liberal state government or two would allow Rudd to sharpen the almighty Narrative some, as well as enabling him to adopt a somewhat tougher political persona, just as Labor will probably benefit politically from Liberal Senate obstructionism. It would be very far from the disaster some short sighted commentators with short memories seem to think it would be.
Saturday’s election result in WA means the possibility of the political commentator’s dream: the hung parliament. Labor has suffered a massive swing, and now it’s probably going to come down to who can convince the Nationals to make a deal. Whose trainwreck? We’ll see…
The Nationals in WA are more agrarian socialist than they are in the rest of the country, and there are some who say that Brendan Grylls personally leans more towards the Labor Party. Common ‘wisdom’ and Liberal MPs suggest that the Libs and Nats will come to an arrangement, but Gryll’s personal politics, and a desire (and need) to appear genuinely independent and influential mean that there’s a good chance he may prefer to make a deal with Carpenter.
Whether Carps will want to, when it will mean having to fork out a huge amount of money to rural seats, in addition to meeting all his election promises, and dealing with the instability of an angry party and CCC reports, is another question. Whether he’s capable of working with another party when he’s so terrible at working with his own is a third. To be successful would require an ability to reach a consensus, at least with the most important bills; that just isn’t his style.
Continue reading ‘No, thanks’
I was very interested to watch interviews with both Alan Carpenter and Brendon Grylls on the 7 30 Report tonight. The punditariat – and Kerry O’Brien – seem to have no awareness of the specific history of the WA Nationals (whose former leader Hendy Cowan was much less socially conservative than his federal counterparts, and whose conference this year supported same sex civil unions) or indeed what occurred during the campaign. The lazy assumption that the Nats will jump to install Colin Barnett ignores, for instance, the bad blood that was signalled by Barnett refusing to meet Grylls during the lead up to the election, not to mention Grylls’ explicit statements about negotiating with both major parties. This is just speculation, but my feeling was that Grylls has an incentive to go with Labor to demonstrate that the Nats’ independence is genuine. This may well be very interesting.
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.
Continue reading ‘Nationals resurgent or dead?’
This was the worst campaign I have ever seen run by the ALP.
Ever.
This was an election where all of the ALP’s problems over the last 6-8 years came home to roost.
There was no central theme. The campaign material was ugly, late out, badly written, and largely unrelated to anything voters actually cared about.
The central campaign was a shambles, courtesy of a complete disconnect between the Parliamentary Labor party, party office, and the lay ALP membership.
Continue reading ‘Worst. Campaign. Ever.’
MB: William’s been having problems with his database crashing, so he’s going to conclude his liveblogging of the WA election poll count here if the problems continue.
10.48pm. I’ll wrap it up here and carry on over at my place, so enormous thanks to Mark Bahnisch for allowing me to clog up his page. The Liberals have gained Ocean Reef, North West, Jandakot, Swan Hills, Mount Lawley, Bunbury, Darling Range, Kingsley, Wanneroo, Southern River and apparently Morley. Varying degrees of doubt remain about Riverton, Forrestfield, Collie-Preston and Morley. Labor might make a notional gain of Albany. Former Labor independent John Bowler has won Kalgoorlie from the Liberals. Labor may have lost Kwinana to independent Carol Adams. Independents Janet Woollard in Alfred Cove and Sue Walker in Nedlands may or may not lose their seats to the Liberals. The numbers are 27 to 29 for Labor plus Labor independents, with either one or two of the latter; 26 to 28 for the Liberals plus Liberal independents, also with one to three of the latter; and four for the Nationals.
Continue reading ‘The Poll Bludger’s live blog of the WA count [continued from The Poll Bludger]‘
WA goes to the polls today. Prediction, speculation, reports, links, etc, welcomed.
Possum and The Poll Bludger have rounded up the latest polling, which suggests a very close race.
Election bloggy goodness: Worst of Perth and the WA Greens both have posts. Liveblogging is going to happen at The Poll Bludger, and Antony Green’s place at the ABC, where the election coverage will also be streamed. ABC Local Perth Radio also has a tally room blog.
Update: The polls in WA have now closed and local lad The Poll Bludger has opened his liveblogging post.
Watch it on your computer: Here’s the url for the ABC’s live streaming tv coverage.
Update: [by Mark] William Bowe’s been having database problems at The Poll Bludger, so his liveblogging of the WA count continues here at LP.
Yesterday the WA Labor Party took the strange step of releasing its internal polling publicly, rather than pretending to some journo that it was an uncontrolled leak. They claim that Labor faces losing the election on Saturday, and are hoping that much of the swing away from them is a protest vote, that people don’t really want to elect Colin Barnett.
When polling was “leaked” in the usual way last week, Joe Spagnolo wrote that:
Labor is still quietly confident of victory.
It just doesn’t want to show it.
Labor still believes that come election day, voters will not want to bank on a Coalition which has changed leaders four times in three years.
It just wants to make sure that the expected protest vote doesn’t become a protest of tsunami proportions.
But after yesterday’s performance, “quietly confident” is not a phrase I would use to describe them. It looks like they really are worried. The punters, not so much.
Continue reading ‘Whose trainwreck will it be?’
On a day when speculation ran rife that WA had lost the nation’s biggest resource development project, the Inpex Liquefied Natural Gas project in the Kimberley valued at $25 billion, Alan Carpenter announced yesterday he would be closing the bars at Parliament House.
That announcement, aimed at wedging Colin Barnett over his predecessor Troy Buswell, was pretty typical of how this election has gone in the first two weeks and might explain why at the halfway mark of the campaign Labor finds itself in a tight contest against a crisis-ridden Opposition that only settled on a leader the day before the election was called.
Barnett may be obsessed with Brian Burke, but the Labor campaign is a little too fond of the Buswell jokes they had prepared to let them go this quickly. There are many valid points to be made about Buswell’s continued political success, in particular the effect it’s had, and will continue to have, on women in the Liberal Party, which translates to the women whom they seek to govern. But stunts like this impress nobody, and they belittle the real issues that Buswell’s behaviour brings to light. The problem with Buswell, and the boys’ clubs on both sides, is not that there are bars in parliament house.
Continue reading ‘The big issues’
After the Great Debate 05, it was always going to be a staid affair. Last time, Barnett used the forum to announce his plans for the “Far Canal“. The Howard Government wouldn’t speak in support of it, and then he got his costings wrong and denied that they were.
So it’s not surprising that the verdict this time: dull.
Carps focussed on his Vision for Western Australia, in a strategy that sounds a little “More to do but heading in the right direction“; talking about environment, infrastructure and services.
Barnett’s main theme was that the current government is too corrupt to win another term, although he refused to implement a ban like Gallop’s (and, eventually, Carpenter) on his team meeting with Noel Crichton-Browne or Brian Burke. He started off quite well, and the worm liked him, but he struggled when the focus turned to how he would deal with the problem. Frankly, it’s a little strange to make Burke the focus, yet be unwilling to say the word “ban”. Apparently, his team just won’t have any contact with them.
Continue reading ‘No Alarms and No Surprises’
With just under two weeks left until the earliest WA election in 100 years, the main story of the campaign is a Premier trying to position himself as a strong and decisive leader, and an opposition trying to paint him as devious and arrogant. It’s all about Carps, really.
He’s devious, because calling an election only a day after Barnett became leader was like “jump[ing] into the Olympic swimming pool five seconds before the other competitors“. But if length of time as leader is the issue, then it’s his own fault that he gave up his advantage; if he’d stuck around after losing the last election he’d now be ahead of Carps in time served.
He’s devious because he’s trying to avoid CCC reports that will prove just how deep he was in with Brian Burke. He went to parties with Burke, you see. The idea that Brian Burke installed Carps as leader is one of those stories that’s both true and not-true, all at the same time. Continue reading ‘I am not, nor have I ever been…’
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