Steve Edwards blogs about the latest Newspoll on the standing of the federal parties and their respective leaders. I agree with pretty well everything Steve says, especially this paragraph:
The ALP is behind by two-percent in the two-party preferred stakes. This doesn't sound bad. But it is. Regardless of the fact that Howard led this country to a war that a minority initially supported, apparently could not retrospectively justify this war, and has fudged the truth on a number of occasions, the ALP has not pulled ahead at any stage. Indeed, the ALP has either been around the level of support it attracted at the last federal election, or drastically behind. And two-party preferred says nothing about the rural and regional marginals...where elections are won and lost now. This is all despite the fact that the current government is old, fairly tired, and becoming increasingly repetitive. The current government has surely undermined the universality of Medicare. The current government has (although it deserves praise for some of its higher education agenda) under-spent on R&D and higher education. Indeed, the Howard Government is stumbling from blunder to blunder, offending the electorate in many of its key concerns, and the Labor Party has not once even looked like a competitor.
There are many ways to create new blog posts without writing anything yourself, and this has been one of them. Thanks Steve!
Well yes, but the way the government is going, with the drip, drip, drip of accumulated mini-scandal - Manildra, Tuckey and Abbott/Hanson have all happened in just the past couple of months - the Labor Party might just fall over the line anyway. The Costello forces are worried about this, as Glenn Milne's story yesterday showed.
And who knows how the 8-10 % of the population that are One Nationites, newly energised by the jailing of Australia's first ever political prisoner (Bronwyn Bishop said it, so it must be true) are going to affect things. Howard roped them in last time with Tampa, but that was a one off deal. It would be a nice touch indeed if Hanson turfed out Howard from the comfort of her jail cell.
Not only that, the back side could fall out of the housing market any tick of the clock. If that happens, Simon Crean - charisma challenged, policy challenged, judgement challenged Simon - can start planning the redecoration of the Lodge with complete confidence.
I'm afraid Dave is right; and God help us all...
When you think about it, it's a sad commentary on the state of Australian politics that the only prospect more depressing than John Howard remaining Prime Minister is Simon the Unlikeable succeeding him by default.
Agree. If the opposition had any vision, it would surely be 10 points in front by now. What's mystifying is the reasons for the apparent incapacity of the ALP to find a lead. OK, there are a million piddling reasons (individual personalities, economic vicissitudes, multiple wedges, etc), but my sense is that there is something awry in a larger and more profound sense that is robbing the opposition of its historic sense of confidence and purpose.
I also reckon that Dave will be proven a prophet.
Chris - I think the reasons why are obvious ... for example, at the moment, there are basically two routes into the parliamentary ALP: through the unions and via service as a parliamentary advisor. As long as that persists, the parliamentary party is going to be mediocre, homogenous and out of touch.
Aren't we forgetting the international context? In the post-September 11 era, anything can happen: and probably will - unfortunately.
To Mork - What? And what then are the paths to prominence within the Liberal Party?
Mork, Perhaps, but it seems only yesterday that these routes were acclaimed as apprenticships within a superior political training infrastructure that would ever ensure the rise and rise of Labor ... so, personally, I'll leave that popular internal complaint (and exceedingly popular complaint by those standing outside these routes) moot at this stage, as I search for larger suspects ...
Yes the libs need a new career path too. Fishnet stockings will only take a man so far and no further.
You picking on Dolly again bargs? Actually, I thought Carlton's reference to him as a 'talking knee' was just wicked ...
I'm not so sure.... Manildra and Tuckey showed how venal and sleazy this government can be. I don't count the Hanson/Abbott episode as a negative;just a beat up by the Howard haters at Fairfax and the ABC.Whilst voters should be royally p...... off at the coalition I don't know if it follows that a loss is likely. Remember Beattie before the last Qld election? Branch stacking and electoral fraud claiming senior members of government and senior party administrators,pedophilia charges pending against one ex-minister and a landslide win! Voters seem more prepared to overlook misbehaviour these days - in favour of what I'm not sure - but Crean certainly doesn't have it.
Jim
Beatttie's win was extraordinary, but the Nationals were hopelessly divided over One Nation, plus Howard was seriously on the nose at the time over petrol prices.
Hanson/Abbott is important because it has breathed new life into all the problems that One Nation gave to the Coalition in 1998. You might think it is a beat up, and you might be right. But if the One Nationite punters think Hanson has been got at by the Establishment, they are gonna get mad, and they are more likely to take it out on the party that is in than the party that is out.
If so, this takes us to where we were in the 1998 election, where Labor was unlucky to lose, since they got the majority of the 2PP vote.
If that's all there is, Howard might squeak back in. And as Geoff said, these days anything can happen. If Al Queda blows up the Sydney Opera House when it's full of disabled school children on a mid week excursion, then we have Tampa 2, and Howard will be PM for life, or even longer.
Assuming this doesn't happen, though, if the housing market tanks, then all those aspirational voters who have geared up to the gills to buy investment properties are going to be even madder than the One Nationites, and Howard will be toast.
Carita - a breakdown of H of R Lib members' backgrounds on entering Parliament - culled from the Australian Political Almanac.
Trish Worth
Nurse/pathology services manager
Chris Pearce
IT businessman
Patrick Secker
Farmer
John Howard
Lawyer
Philip Ruddock
Lawyer
Cameron Thompson
Journo/Party Staffer
Andrew Southcott
Doctor
Brendan Nelson
Doctor
Don Randall
Teacher
Tony Smith
Party Staffer
Bruce Baird
Public Servant (Aust Trade Commission)
Fergus Stewart
Farmer
Julie Bishop
Lawyer
Phil Barresi
Psychologist
Peter Dutton
Childcare centre owner
Ken Ticehurst
Electrical engineer
Bruce Billson
Party staffer
Gary Nairn
Registered Surveyor
David Jull
Journalist
Alex Somylay
Party Staffer
Susan Ley
Public servant (ATO)/farmer
Peter Slipper
Lawyer
Greg Hunt
Party Staffer
Kay Elson
Retail Shop owner
Geoff Prosser
self-employed businessman
Joanna Gash
Tourism Manager
David Kemp
Academic
Barry Wakelin
Farmer
Ian Macfarlane
Farmer
Peter Lindsay
Electronics business owner
Peter Costello
Industrial Relations Lawyer
Chris Gallus
Journalist/Health Researcher
Danna Vale
Lawyer
Alby Schultz
slaughterman
Sophie Panopoulos
Party Staffer
Bary Haase
Air conditioning business owner
Petro Georgiou
Party Staffer
Bob Charles
Construction business owner
Warren Entsch
Real estate
Jackie Kelly
RAAF Legal Officer
Mal Brough
businessman
Pat Farmer
Landscaping copntractor
Bronwyn Bishop
Lawyer
Kerry Bartlett
High school teacher
Trish Draper
Nurse
Alexander Downer
Public servant (DFAT)
Fran Bailey
Goat breeder
Margaret May
Education administrator
Kevin Andrews
Lawyer
Alan Cadman
Rural property management
Steven Ciobo
Party staffer
Mal Washer
Doctor
Gary Hardgrave
Journalist
Sharman Stone
Sociologist
Joe Hockey
Party Staffer
Wilson Tuckey
businessman
Ross Cameron
Lawyer
Bob Baldwin
businessman
Judi Moylan
Real estate
Teresa Gambaro
Marketing Tutor QUT
Jim Lloyd
Service station operator
Michael Johnson
Law lecturer
Chris Pyne
Party staffer
Daryl Williams
Lawyer
Neil Andrew
Farmer
David Hawkner
Farmer
Tony Abbott
Journalist
Peter King
Lawyer
Dave, what if Costello manages to convince those who thought the bubble would last forever (and let's face it, they aren't difficult to convince) that the reason for the burst was those damn Labor state govts?
Ken, there was a time I would have agreed with you. However, Federal Labor at this point seem to be nothing more than ineffective losers. The Coalition, on the other hand, appear more and more dangerously regressive with every passing year.
John Howard can thank Paul Keating for the dream run he has had as PM:
- Keating's mad Kultur Kampf against mainstream Australian values on the three R's: Republic, Reconciliation, Reffos
- Keating's brilliant economic policy particularly the freeing up of financial markets: floating of the dollar and opening up credit
The former gave Howard a cultural free kick in front of goal.
The latter has meant that all economic problems have been solved by free market windfalls.
- depreciating dollar saved exporters in the Asian crisis
- appreciating property has saved homeonwers since the stock market crash
You everything that has been said about Simey here was said about Johhnee back in 1994/5.
Newspol and Morgan are only different because of sampling error. ( I believe Morgan is on the money at present)
Also remember Howard has a lamentable record in campaigning in elections even though you would think he performs like Menzies.
At the end it will depend whether people are scared and security dominates or they aren't.
If they aren't then Jack maybe walking around in a barrel!!
Geoff, One small addition... Peter Dutton was also a policeman.
Yes, he had been previously Jim. But I decided to use the "last identified occupation prior to election" for the sake of consistency.
Well, they might have been at a time when the union movement represented a large section of the community. When unionism was a genuine representative expression of the working class, as a by-product, it did enable the ALP to collect the cream off the top of the system.
It seems to me that these days, unionism is really only representative of workers in a small number of industries, which represent a tiny fraction of working Australians. Nowadays, pretty much the only reason anyone becomes a union official is because they want to be an ALP politician ... how often these days do you come across a union official that has actually been employed in the industry they cover?
Instead, the union officialdom is full of middle class kids looking for a short-cut to political power.
Of course, the real elephant in the room of the modern ALP is the fact of union control itself, which, apart from the funding it provides, has become an enormous dead weight on the party's electability. It lowers the quality of the candidates, consistently inhibits the party from aligning its priorities with a large enough segment of the population generate wide support, and alienates a section of the community that would otherwise support a social democratic party.
Of course, in a two horse race, you can always end up winning if your opponent trips over, but waiting for that to happen is not, in my view, a very sound strategy.
I lost the top off that post. I was meaning to respond to this sentence:
but it seems only yesterday that these routes were acclaimed as apprenticships within a superior political training infrastructure that would ever ensure the rise and rise of Labor
Dave , Agree the opposition (to Beattie) in 2001 was conflicted and hopeless.Much the same as federal Labor now. My point is that despite some pretty serious mishaps - more serious than those facing Howard when you consider their criminal nature - Beattie still won a landslide.At the end of the day I just don't feel that Howard has committed a serious enough offence (in the electorates eyes) to warrant being turfed out. The shame of this is that the dishonesty and double standards we have seen probably won't get punished sufficiently to change future behaviour - on either side. That's my lament.
OK Mork, as someone who is given to thinking of the ALP as an often wayward political child of the union movement, can we just jump to agreeing to disagree on that one, and thus save both of us a lot of time debating?
I don't think anyone is going to make you debate anything you don't want to debate on your own blog, Chris.
That said, I am a little curious. I don't dispute the historical truth of your description, but I don't know that I have ever heard anyone defend the status quo who didn't have a vested interest in maintaining it.
I can't really guess what the argument would be.
Beattie won a landslide in 2001 because of many factors (hopeless opposition, Howard on the nose, etc). One of these was the stand he took on the electoral rorts at the time.
From memory, he did not try to cover up the electoral rorts at all. People hated the rorts, but Beattie straight away did the right thing: he demanded resignations, said anyone found guilty would be kicked out, etc etc. He turned a negative (rorting in his party) to a positive (dealing with rorting in an honest and open way).
It was not the case that the voters returned him despite the negative impact of the rorts. It's because he was clearly doing the right thing and the voters thought they could trust him (whether he lived up to that trust is another matter).
That may be the difference between Beattie's situation and Howard's. Howard has had problems, but the public perception is that he tries to excuse or gloss over such problems.
I'm not confident that the voters will care enough about it to turf him out, though.