Victorian State Election 27/11/2010

[Fmr President & Senator Polnut]

There's nothing terribly bad in those internals for the ALP.

[Fmr President & Senator Polnut]

Hmmm Libs preferencing Greens last in EVERY LA seat...

[Fmr President & Senator Polnut]

A recent Newspoll has the 2PP as 51-49 to Labor (changed from 52-48 in the previous Newspoll). Two ACNielson polls released over the same time frame shows 52-48 to Labor (changed from 51-49). The Newspoll broke down to the following primary vote:

Liberal - 39%
Nationals - 5%
     (Coalition - 44%)
Labor - 37%
Greens - 14% (as a side note, this figure is down from 19%)
Others - 5%

A link I found in a news article showed some issues polling and personality polling for the leaders and parties, which seems to be from the same Newspoll (but with additional comparison to previous polls taken just before other elections).

Here's a news story from today's Herald Sun. I don't know how accurate it is - it's always interesting to hear government MPs talking down their chances, especially when polls consistently have them leading. In Australia, people certainly like to support the under-dog, which can lead to some quite ludicrous claims at times (such as Queensland Premier Peter Beattie claiming to be the under-dog when polls had him sitting at 54% and he ended up winning 2/3rds of the seats in Parliament). Some of this may be to try to limit a protest vote against the government, although some of it may be accurate. I'm sure you can all make your own minds up.

I also heard the other day that a Morgan Poll had the Greens winning the four inner-city seats. I was of the impression his methodology involved monkies and dart boards, but according to this it was a sample of 276 voters across the four electorates... of course, that means he probably only interviewed about 70 people in each electorate...

Morgan Polls are notorious for being completely off the mark.

[Fmr President & Senator Polnut]

http://alpvictoria.com.au/labortv/

The ALP have one of the best online presences I've come across in any election. It gets that 80% of the people who actually watch videos on its website will be the party faithful, so it reinforces policy announcements but focusses on reminding people of the basic Labor ethos, and the 'good character' of the party's politicians. It's funny enough but serious enough.

Of the other 20%, 15% will have already made up their mind to vote for the Liberals and 5% just like Corinne Grant.

...and how could you not?!

[Fmr President & Senator Polnut]

I'm honestly stunned... I was not expecting this... this isn't by any real estimation a 'bad' government, the "11 years factor" clearly was at work.

http://www.abc.net.au/news/stories/2010/11/27/3078370.htm

[Fmr President & Senator Polnut]

Yey the liberals are back in Eastern Australia state government! This can't be great news for Gillard's administration.

Not entirely...

It actually makes life much easier for Gillard - when Rudd couldn't get things done through the states - he had a hard time blaming anyone since they're kind of on the same team.

Opposition tends to make PM's lives easier, rather than harder, the key, is how you deal with it.

For example, did Rudd suffer a little with the Opposition federally preventing the passing of his cap and trade Bill? Yes... but when did he commit political suicide... when he gave up on the cap and trade Bill... everyone, almost to a fault says Rudd would a) still be PM and b) would have won re-election by a much bigger margin than Gillard did, had he stuck to his guns.

Howard was at his best, when he had nothing but wall-to-wall Labor state governments to deal with.

Having a few more obstructionist Coalition state governments around the table could make Gillard's life much easier.