On Lateline tonight, the point was made that other police agencies failed to share information with Queensland Police before the Fitzgerald Inquiry because it was demonstrated that such intelligence was leaked or sold to suspects. Can it be too difficult for the Victorian government to recognise that cops investigating cops is a bad model, and that you need an independent commission? Is it just the power of the Police Association? Or the fear that the government will suffer if systemic corruption and malfeasance is going on? Hard to read it any other way.
The Poll Bludger has the numbers on the latest Nielsen poll for Victoria. Labor leads on the 2PP 55-45.
The Age trumpets this result as Victorian Labor “defying the national trend”. No doubt other papers are saying the same - I haven’t looked.
I’ve been arguing for a while that there is insufficient evidence to conclude that there is a national trend against Labor, and that in fact thinking about disparate polls in seven different jurisdictions with differing political histories, cultures and current circumstances as constituting a trend makes little sense. My contention for a long time has been that elections are unrepeatable and singular events and that epistemologically we can know much less about electoral behaviour and find grounds for prediction with much less certainty than we think. Political behaviour follows few laws and a lot of conclusions reached after the fact are questionable.
But there is a sort of reflexivity feedback loop built into the way we think about politics and the way polls are reported. Particularly at state level - where polls are few and far between - one poll which struggles to form a series can have a large impact on perceptions, and thus the interpretations of the public and the press and the morale of politicians and “momentum”.
Continue reading ‘The truth of polls and the epistemology of politics’
Finally, Victoria’s abortion laws make explicit the clinical practice of the past several decades, with the passing of the legislation in the Upper House on Friday.
Continue reading ‘Abortion is now legal in Victoria’
To the best of my knowledge, there have been fewer pro-choice interventions in Australian State and Federal elections than there have been “pro-life” ones. The last one I recall (largely because I letterboxed for it) was Dr. Bertram Wainer’s candidacy for a Federal seat in Melbourne’s outer eastern suburbs in 1980. On that occasion there was a head to head contest in the seat on the issue of abortion rights between Dr. Wainer and a “pro-life” candidate, and the pro-choice side won out by a factor of 3 to 1, although it’s less clear what impact this had on the Labor/Liberal contest for the seat itself.
Since then there have been a couple of high-profile “pro-life” interventions in Federal elections, on both occasions aimed at removing right-wing Labor members (Michael Maher, Barry Cunningham) who were personally anti-abortion but who had displeased the “pro-life” crew by not being sufficiently rabid about it. The demise of Maher and Cunningham has, I believe, been a factor in the growth of the myth, in certain Labor circles, of the anti-abortion lobby as a terribly powerful electoral force.
The probable outcome of the current Parliamentary debate on Victoria’s abortion laws suggests that the myth is losing its sting. The bullying and vindictive behaviour by “pro-life” forces in connection with this debate suggests the possibility that, if the vote goes as we hope and expect it will, there may be punitive electoral interventions in the next Victorian State poll with the aim of removing supporters of the bill from State Parliament and restoring the intimidatory power of the myth. I believe pro-choice people could profitably consider how to organise to meet - indeed, to pre-empt - this threat, and destroy the myth for all time.
Continue reading ‘A pro-choice electoral intervention in the next Victorian State election?’
The water tank wars are going another round, this time in the Victorian state cabinet, according to yesterday’s Age:
The behind-the-scenes Government debate centres on the role of tanks in light of last year’s contentious decision to spend almost $5 billion on big water projects such as desalination.
It has intensified as the Government finalises its new-look green building code. Existing five-star rules require that all new homes must have a tank or solar hot water system.
Senior bureaucrats with the ear of Water Minister Tim Holding are arguing that, with the desalination plant set to come on line in 2011, tanks should be left to personal choice.
Continue reading ‘Water tanks, round 247′
A couple of comments on the thread about reforms to Victoria’s abortion laws suggested that it’s likely to come down to a few votes in the Legislative Council (the state Upper House). If so, success in passing the legislation is likely to require persuading waverers with moral qualms about abortion to pass the bill. While trying to persuade such people is not completely novel (for instance, the overturning of the RU486 ban a couple of years ago), it’s not something I’m sure either side of the debate has a huge amount of experience in.
For instance, Leslie Cannold, as the head of Pro-Choice Victoria, recently published an op-ed in The Age. As an essay in the abstract, I think it’s a useful contribution to the argument. But, as a gut reaction, I don’t know whether these arguments are ones that are going to work on the fence-sitters.
But then, I’m not particularly sure what arguments are likely to be persuasive with people who are conflicted on the upcoming vote, and I’d like to have a better idea before I put pen to paper to write to my MLCs on the matter. Any thoughts?
Poor Paula Wriedt is obviously having a difficult time at the moment. It’s hard enough to endure such times without media interest, so it must be even tougher with the media lurking about. Imagine how hard it must be when the reason for much of that media interest has come from the fact that you were the subject of one of Sam Newman’s comments. Newman just has to open up his ugly juvenile gob and he gets press in Victoria. While some of the attention is negative, there’s often a ”Sam’s just a good ol’ boy with a sense of humour” thing not far from the surface.
Here’s some of the headlines from a couple of mainstream news sites about Ms Wreidt’s plight:
Sam Newman sexism row MP in health crisis
Sex slur MP rushed to hospital
MP at centre of Sam Newman ’sex slur’ controversy in hospital
For those wondering how the Victorian government is travelling, here’s a good summary from The Age’s Paul Austin:
The great public transport squeeze and the water crisis could make or break Brumby.
WHEN he became premier a year ago, John Brumby hit the ground running. He enjoys the plaudits he receives for injecting new energy into an ageing Government. But he is less keen for people to dwell on a couple of big questions that arise from all the activity evident in Spring Street: why does Brumby have to run so hard, and what is he running from?
Brumby is having to run so hard because he is playing political catch-up. The Government is scrambling to find a policy framework that matches the on-the-ground reality of a city and state groaning under the pressure created by the twin challenges of climate change and a population explosion.
Continue reading ‘State of Victorian politics - it’s all about the projects’
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