Australia General Discussion

[Smid]

Yeah, you have to wonder how he ever became a Cabinet Minister (actually, we all know the answer to that one... *wink*).

Just looked at his wikipedia page. As if he dated Julia!

No?

[quote author=Prime Minister Gillard]
JULIA GILLARD: My relationship with Craig Emerson was a very important one to me. Being involved with a colleague has got its down side in the sense that drawing the line between what's work and what's not work becomes increasingly blurred. Craig and I were staying together at a hotel and I'd managed to forget to pack my contact lens holder. So I was just storing the contact lenses at the bottom of a glass, which wasn't exactly the smartest thing in the world to do. Er, so...in the bathroom, this glass with the contact lenses and a bit of solution in them. So, you know, during the course of the night, Craig gets up and thinking it's water, grabs the glass and drinks it. So I was wandering around National Conference blind for the next morning. I did have to give the Health Policy Report at the podium not basically able to see my notes or see the audience. Craig and I lived in different states in very demanding positions. And in the hurly-burly of the Labor world, ultimately it was just too difficult. I'm not involved in a relationship now, and you know, your, sort of, your life history rolls on.
[/url]

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http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=kYqRB63Yh-4

Un...believable.  To think he's Labor's best hope.  Depressing (for me anyway.  Not for you )  What about Greg Combet, is he considered a viable future leader? 

He's from the left, which probably doesn't help his cause (my understanding is that NSW right almost always dominates caucus). He is apparently very smart, though, and has a thorough understanding of his portfolio - I heard this from someone on my side who has met with him in a professional capacity.

Shorten was always very good with the media while he was a union boss, although he's dropped all the balls since being elected. I used to fear a Shorten leadership, back when Howard was still PM, now I think he'd almost be a second coming of Mark Latham. His media management during the Beaconsfield mine collapse was particularly impressive - I think he'd been preselected at that point, but had not yet been elected... this was when he was at his most fearsome, in my opinion. I was reading he's a favourite of NSW Right, still, but that they don't want to burn him up by having him lead Labor to an election loss, when they could install him following the election.

Rudd is drastically unpopular, and the attacks by Wayne Swan, et al during the last leadership bid were designed to be used in Liberal ads if he were to become PM... thereby making him untouchable. He's popular with the electorate, and desperate backbenchers can do desperate things, particularly when looking at a forced retirement at the next election, so it's impossible to rule him out, but they'll probably not go to him because of the clips that could be run in Liberal ads of him being savaged by those senior Labor figures.

There has been a bit of talk around Simon Crean. He's boring (in a good, "doesn't spook the horses" kind of way), and is probably perceived as a bit of an elder statesman.

I read a very good article the other week that Swan could get it as a person who wouldn't win the next election, but might "save the furniture." It said that he wasn't seeking the leadership, but might take it if the Prime Minister was challenged. It was saying the office, staff and driver for life might convince him that being PM for a year or half a year leading up to an election loss may be a good... swan song... if you excuse the pun.

[Smid]

That sucks.  Would the left have a shot at it if most of the MP's who loose their seats in 2013 are from the right?  'Cause it seems (correct me if I'm wrong) like the majority of MP's who are at risk of loosing their seats are from the right. 

I think that the map will look somewhere between current and 2004 results (when the election was fought on interest rates, and given that mortgage repayments = cost of living, is not dissimilar to "the carbon tax raises the cost of living"). Basically, outer suburban areas are more likely to swing than inner-city seats. I don't know enough about which backbencher is in which faction to be able to comment further.

Current:


2004:


Bigger versions in the gallery.

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The Greens won't pass Labor in primary vote for a long time, if at all. They may achieve that in some individual seats - that's how they won their NSW state seat, but it's quite uncommon. They've passed the Liberal vote in a few inner-city seats, but then they need Liberal preferences to win those seats. Of course, they got them in Melbourne, but sentiment in the Liberal Party is different now and they won't be getting them again any time soon, I would suspect.

Green support is concentrated in a few areas, which makes it harder for them to win enough seats to achieve what the NDP accomplished in Canada.

Preferential voting may advantage them with allowing people to vote for them without wasting their vote, but the real benefit compared to other countries is the Senate, where PR allows them to win seats, which gives them publicity, which gains them votes.

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It's more that Australian Labor is basically left-in-that-it-isn't-as-right-wing-as-the-liberals.

I highly doubt anyone will replace Gillard before the next election, and if it were to be anyone it would need to be an old face like Crean.

Post election, Shorten is a possibility, although I wouldn't be surprised if they put up a bit of an unknown, and allowed them to build a brand new identity as Labor leader, untainted by the Gillard government.

Shorten has obviously had a few gaffes of late - eating humble pie, and not knowing what he supports, but I didn't think either were enough to stop him from becoming Leader. However... after yesterday's gaffe, I don't think he can ever become leader.

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(Source)

For our international readers, Newstart allowance is the government/brand name for unemployment welfare payments. Specifically, here is Minister Shorten's quote from the same article:

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Slipper resigns

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Embarrassingly, given his lewd text messages, the Prime Minister and Attorney-General who believe that Tony Abbott has a problem with women, somewhat hypocritically supported him to remain as Speaker today.

I won't copy any of his texts here, but a google search of "peter slipper salty" will turn up results for anyone who wants to assess for themselves the content of his messages.

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I've said many things in private about Slipper, that I won't repeat here, but we shouldn't have preselected him - and this is not a recent conclusion on my part and relates to other personality traits.

I think Labor's support for him yesterday revealed poor political judgement, as did the pursuit of Abbott for supposed sexism over the past few weeks. The Attorney-General had to have seen Slipper's texts, would have to have known there would be calls for Slipper to resign as Speaker, must have realised that the government would back Slipper in order to defend its numbers in the house, and yet thought it a good idea to create a double standard by attacking Abbott for misogyny. There is no way they could attack the way they did, and defend Slipper, without seeing up a hypocritical double standard, which I think is blatantly obvious, and why it demonstrates such poor political judgement. When you know you're going to be having to defend on a particular issue, it's stupid to deliberately raise the profile of that issue in advance.

[Smid]

All the usual caveats for internal polls and constituency polls (and for that matter, why if ReachTel conducing Liberal internal polls, not Crosby-Textor?). I view these with some degree of scepticism - although they'd be roughly in line with the 2004 election results (and although I suspect that the election will somewhat resemble that election), and although the Labor state government may be something of a millstone around federal Labor's neck, the past couple of Newspolls which have broken down to state level have shown the government strong in South Australia.

 http://www.adelaidenow.com.au/news/south-australia/liberals-buoyed-by-federal-poll-results/story-e6frea83-1226497373986

[Smid]

Crikey is predicting that the upcoming federal election (the deadline is Nov 30) will occur in September.

Thoughts?

Not the weekend of the grand final of AFL our NRL. Antony Green has an article on it, too.

[Smid]

Here is a bit of a dictionary of Australian words (link goes through to "W" for "Wowser").

Also recently listed is The Pirate Party

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Labor will lose about 12 seats federally is it continues the way it's going.

And you agreed with the notion that there would not be much change in the Western Australian Election.

While I think a change to Rudd could change the direction they're heading in... but for how long? Who knows?

I think it's the ALP brand that's the problem...

Galaxy poll today would support your position - the PM outpolled Rudd as preferred Labor leader, although I think she was outpolled by a combined "Shorten or Combet"

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The Coalition's support really has little to do with them... and they know it.

This has traditionally been true in Australian politics at both state and federal levels. It's the old saying that oppositions don't win elections, governments lose them.

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The Coalition's support really has little to do with them... and they know it.

This has traditionally been true in Australian politics at both state and federal levels. It's the old saying that oppositions don't win elections, governments lose them.

Isn't that pretty much the case everywhere in the world?

Quite probably. I'm just making the point that the issue raised by Max and Polnut is far from being unique.

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Antony Green says there is a path to partial Senate control. Enough for repeal, not much else.

http://blogs.abc.net.au/antonygreen/2013/03/could-western-australia-deliver-the-coalition-control-of-the-senate.html

The Australian also ran a similar story yesterday (behind a pay wall). I think Labor or the Greens are probably pushing the line and the journalists have picked it up (not saying it isn't true - I actually haven't looked at the numbers, but I respect Antony Green and would take his analysis at face value). The story certainly does the Coalition no favours, however. It sends the message to Labor supporters "we're done and can't win, but don't protest vote against us because you'll give the Liberals too much power. In fact, there's no need to protest vote against us, because we're going to lose anyway."

[Smid]

If Gillard goes or is challenged, then I think it has to be Rudd... I can't think of anyone else who could cut through in this time and, at the same time, can't be tied to everything this Government has done.

Smith is too boring, Shorten is too green and tied to Gillard (despite his attempts to suggest otherwise) and is known as a faceless man, Crean is past it, Carr is in the Senate... Swan, just no... Plibersek? no... so that leaves someone like Combet or perhaps someone like Clare as a dark-horse.

Combet is too closely tied to the Carbon Tax.

I disagree with you on one of the other ones you've declined, but that would just be my opinion.

I think that if anyone wanted to take over, they would have to be someone who was not concerned with leaving a legacy, because they would likely expect to have about six months in the job to leave their mark, and not likely to become PM again after that. They'd really want to be someone who was willing to have their name in the history books as a PM, but barely a footnote beyond that. They might be willing to do it as a favour to the party, to save the furniture, so to speak, and probably hope that they could turn things around - but would need to be realistic about their chances and realise that they'd likely only be holding the job this year, so not harbouring long-term ambitions.

[Smid]

Apparently there is to be a Labor caucus meeting at 4pm?

[Smid]

Apparently there is to be a Labor caucus meeting at 4pm?

''It would be silly to tell people watching your program that there is nothing going on,''

Comment from Joel Fitzgibbon a short time ago...

A senior Rudd backer... will be interesting to see if that means there won't be another third candidate rise up through the middle.

[Smid]

...but he also said numbers for a challenge are not being counted.

Perhaps a deal has been done and so there is no need to count? Bit of a pedantic interpretation, but he could be saying it like that to sort of hose down speculation while still being technically correct?

Could be something else entirely, of course.

[Smid]

How long before the Coalition bring back their Kevin O'Lemon crap?

I got it in my inbox yesterday.

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A Senate majority is unlikely - I'm pretty sure 2004 was the first time since 1979 - and it only happened at the 2004 election only after good election results for the Coalition in 2001 (where the Coalition was able to get 3 Senators elected from each state and one from each territory) and 2004 (where the Coalition was able to get 3 Senators elected from each state - and four from Queensland and one from each territory). In 2010, the Coalition failed to win half the Senate vacancies - only winning two Senators in Tasmania and Victoria. In order for the Coalition to have half the Senate seats - remembering that you need more than half to be able to legislate (since it only takes half to be able to block legislation/motions) - the Coalition would need to win four Senate seats in two states, plus three in the remainder, plus one from each territory - and that's just to end up with half the Chamber... they'd need to win four Senate seats in three states to obtain a majority.

[Smid]

Newspoll

Primary
ALP: 32% (+2)
Coalition: 48% (-2)
Greens: 11% (+1)

TPP
ALP: 45% (+3)
Coalition: 55% (-3)

Abbott remains preferred PM... not sure about the numbers.

All within margin of error from previous poll, but I think this one is closer to reality than it was.

[Smid]

Abbott the only leader brave enough to take questions. Abbott = real leader, real solutions.

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Yes, I always found it "interesting" (not really the right word) that a seat that was a Liberal gain from Labor had roughly the same margin as Malvern, the safest Victorian Liberal seat (which is a commentary on the NSW margin/swing, not a statement that Victorian Liberals only have marginal seats, for those who are unfamiliar with the seats in question).

[Smid]

I think you can put Senator Conroy in the Shorten camp. He made comments in an interview a couple of weeks ago, I think I commented on them higher up the thread.