Apr 30 2008
Newspoll: 51-49 to Labor in NSW
Newspoll has released a survey of New South Wales state voting intention, showing Labor pulling ahead to a narrow two-party lead in March-April after the parties were locked together on 50-50 in January-March. However, the headline figure is Morris Iemma’s satisfaction rating of 28 per cent, which is the lowest recorded for a Premier of New South Wales since Newspoll began in 1985 (compare it with Brendan Nelson’s current rating of 38 per cent). This has transferred directly to his dissatisfaction rating, up from 52 per cent to 56 per cent. However, Iemma still retains a narrow lead over Opposition Leader Barry O’Farrell as preferred premier, of 36 per cent to 33 per cent. The Coalition has maintained a lead on the primary vote, of 38 per cent of 35 per cent. The Greens account for most of the balance, being on 14 per cent compared with 9.0 per cent at the March 2007 election. This is the first poll conducted entirely after the Wollongong City Council scandal became known to the public.
April 30th, 2008 at 2:39 pm
How long before Rudd tells Iemma to buck up or f** off?
A week or two after the budget is bedded down?
April 30th, 2008 at 2:55 pm
Thomarse@1
No - it’ll be if Rudd doesn’t turn up this weekend at the State ALP Conference. But I reckon there’s a deal brewing and it wont be for Nat Exec intervention (that’d lose them the next state election for sure and potentially cripple the party in the lead up to the next federal election as well). Watch for Costa announcing his impending retirement, and then a renewed rally round Iemma, perhaps some pre-election goodies (although gawd only knows where the money will come from), another cabinet reshuffle…or then maybe they’ll just try and shove it through without anybody’s help (and lose on the floor of parliament), or get Nat Exec help and then watch the state ALP fall apart as people desert the branches.
Fascinating…
but then the really interesting thing about the Newpoll is - where’s O’Farrell in all of this???? It really does start to look like the dumb and dumber…
April 30th, 2008 at 3:11 pm
How does Newspoll factor in Optional Pref Voting? DO they just take the results from last time? It’s likely, given the dire state of the government, that even more Green preferences will exhaust in 2011, meaning a 38-35 primary lead might be enough to get the Coalition above 50-50 2PP. This still probably wouldn’t be enough for them to win- since their entire vote seems locked up in safe seats, although if the Greens adopted a formal no-preferences strategy in 2011 it could be interesting.
April 30th, 2008 at 3:16 pm
MDM - yes, they do just take the results from last time (which is the least bad of the available methods), and yes, it could very well be that the general odium surrounding the government will transfer into a higher exhaustion rate among Greens voters.
April 30th, 2008 at 4:07 pm
How many years to go now? Just long enough for the Libs to work out another way of losing. Let’s face it, if this is the best the Libs can do given the recent trials and tribulations they are in trouble. It doesn’t get any better than this for an opposition.
April 30th, 2008 at 4:11 pm
Interesting.
The Greens have gone from being the 4th party at the 2007 election, 9% cf Nationals 10.1%, to the 3rd party, 14% cf Nationals 3%.
That’s a big change for both, one up one down.
Can locals comment on this?
April 30th, 2008 at 4:14 pm
Oh my dog! I had no idea Brendan Nelson was a member of the chair sniffing faction of the Liberal party:
“FEDERAL Opposition Leader Brendan Nelson says the chair-sniffing Western Australian Liberal Leader has his “full support and confidence”.
http://www.news.com.au/story/0,23599,23622805-2,00.html
April 30th, 2008 at 4:15 pm
Stewart J #2
I suppose Barry O’Farrell might draw some comfort from the Newspoll primary vote for the Liberal party being 35 (at the 2007 election, the Liberal primary vote was 26.9). He may also be pleased that the ALP primary vote is down to 35 (compared to 39 at the last election). Since the so called Wollongong City Council scandal, the Liberal ‘brand’ has also been tarnished by factional ugliness in the NSW branch associated with matters like Jeff Egan and the Lindsay leaflet scandal, and the refusal of one branch in the Cook electorate to accept Scott Morrison’s application for membership. It is also a time when the ALP ‘brand’ is, generally speaking, looking very good and very relevant with its ‘coast to coast’ governments and an ALP Prime Minister who has a 71% approval rating.
Perhaps some of the increase in the Liberal primary vote for this NSW Newspoll comes out of the Nationals’ likely primary vote, on the basis that interviewees for the Newspoll sample but particularly those who live in National-held electorates or marginal ALP electorates in regional NSW, think of the Liberals and the Nationals interchangeably (Newspoll: 3 for the Nationals, compared to an actual vote of 10.1 in last year’s election). I guess ALP insiders would be hoping that to be the case because if, in fact, the likely National vote is under-represented in the sample of 1,260 interviewees, then that must affect Newspoll’s 2PP estimate . Such a factor is, of course, in addition to the other peculiar factors of an OPV voting system (like the exhausting of Greens’ preferences, as discussed above), which seem to skew in the ALP’s favour, estimates of the 2PP vote.
As to preferred premier, O’Farrell is at 36/33 with Iemma (a lead to Iemma but within the 3% margin of error), and (most importantly) much more competitive than Iemma/Debnam in the 22/23 March 2007 Newspoll, which was a (very sad) 58/24. The present Liberal leader is relatively unknown in the electorate and at this time in the electoral cycle (remember the next election is not until 26 March 2011), none of the low involvement voters are paying too much attention to the Opposition. I think these figures tell us more about the extent Morrie’s rating has fallen (but particularly with low involvement voters) since last year’s election.
April 30th, 2008 at 4:19 pm
The statewide 2-party vote at the 2007 election was absolutely crap, as is any attempt to calculate a state 2PP from this opinion poll.
In 72 of the 93 electorates at the 2007 election, the final contest was between Independents or Greens and one of the major parties. So a quarter of electorates were not 2PP contests. Which means a statewide 2PP is just a bit of bookkeeping, it is utterly irrelevant as a measure of statwide vote. Just like Queensland in 1998 when One Nation won 11 seats.
The poll has the major parties on 73% primary vote and everyone else on 27%. The same figures in 2007 were 76% and 24%. On that level of minor party vote, you can bank on a third of seats not being non-2PP contests. Measures of 2PP are just mathematically irrelevant in that sort of situation.
2PP voting models only make sense when most seats are 2PP contests. When the vote for the major parties decays, then preferential voting systems become wildly unstable in terms of who wins, because it will depend on the order that the candidates will finish 2nd and 3rd. It’s just as well its optional preferential voting or we’d be looking up Arrow’s imposibility theorem, which is the nonsense you get with compulsory preferential voting in multi-party systems.
April 30th, 2008 at 4:29 pm
I really think this poll indicates “a pox on both your houses”. The opposition should be a mile in front at the moment whether people are engaged or not. Think of Rudd last year, from the time he became opposition leader the PPM and Labor’s vote climbed significantly and stayed there. We are a long way from that in this poll.
April 30th, 2008 at 4:41 pm
The high Liberal vote and low National vote is irrelevant. Look at the combined Coalition primary vote. 38%. Only up 1% from 2007.
Most of the shift in vote went to the Greens and Independents/Others. The Greens polling 14% two Newspolls in a row is remarkable. We’ve never done as well in Newspoll than in other polls, although I’d put more of the blame for the discrepancy with other polls than with Newspoll. Prior to the two 2008 polls, the Greens hadn’t cracked 8% since late 2005, after hovering around 8% for most of 04/05. I couldn’t find a single double-digit Newpoll result for the Greens.
Considering Newspoll gave us 6% for all of March 2007 and we polled around 8-9% on election day, 14% is astounding.
I can think of plenty of reasons, but still.
April 30th, 2008 at 4:46 pm
Just to clarify a few things, in 2007 there were 72 Labor/Coalition contests, 11 Coalition/Independent contests, 6 Labor/Independent contests, 2 Labor/Green contests and 2 Liberal/Green contests.
A rise in the Liberal vote in its own seats at the expense of Independents, and a loss of Labor primary vote to Greens and Independents in Labor seats might shift the election in favour of the Coalition with no change in the Coalition 2PP. Labor got less than 10% in five electorate that were Coalition/Ind contests, and the Libs got less than 10% primary in one ALP/Ind and one ALP/Grn contest. 2PP estimates in these sorts of seats just become irrelevant.
The NSW Coalition has sufferred for years at the hands of Independents in its own seats. In 2007, the Libs won back two urban seats from Independents. The current crop of rural Independents might find it best not to associate too closely with Labor by 2011, which would work in the Coalition’s interest, even if it doesn’t deliver extra seats.
If in 2011 it is Labor’s primary vote that suffers in its own seats at the hands of Independents and Greens, Labor has a problem. That was one of the reasons the Unsworth government was smashed in 1988, the collapse of Labor vote in the Hunter and Illwarra, and in a bunch of western Sydney seats, where the beneficiary was Independents, and sometimes on preferences, the Coalition.
It ends up like trying to analyse a UK election. The UK has a 3 party system, 4-party in Wales and Scotland, but most seats are 2-party contests. Labor-Conservative in the urban south, Labor-Liberal in the urban north, Conservative-Liberal in the Shires, and generally Labor-Nationalist in Scotland and Wales. You have this multiplicity of party contests, each of which has a dynamic which does not match the nationwide 2-party contest.
On polls like todays, that’s how i’ll be trying to analyse the 2011 NSW election. Break down the seats to contest type, not by trying to force them into some imaginary 2-party structure.
April 30th, 2008 at 4:52 pm
If people think back to the days after the last state election, I think that none of the “too-close-to-call” seats were in Sydney, and only one (Port Stephens) was a straight Labor-Liberal contest. I can’t remember if Tweed or Murray-Darling was in that group, but all the rest involved independents. Says a lot about NSW politics now.
April 30th, 2008 at 4:55 pm
http://www.pollbludger.com/473
These seats were:
-Lake Macquarie (Hunter, ALP-IND)
-Port Stephens (Hunter, ALP-LIB)
-Newcastle (Hunter, ALP-IND-IND)
-Goulburn (South-East NSW, LIB-IND)
-Maitland (Hunter, ALP-IND)
-Dubbo (Central West, NAT-IND)
April 30th, 2008 at 5:13 pm
OoOOOoooOh, this just gets creepier and creepier;
Nelson backs chairsniffing leader:
http://www.smh.com.au/news/national/nelson-backs-chairsniffing-leader/2008/04/30/1209234938341.html
is this supposed to boost his popularity?
are they into mutual chair-sniffing???
now that’s creepy…
April 30th, 2008 at 7:47 pm
Um, who cares about chair sniffing? People are up in arms as if the human race is appalled by sexually explicit acts.
April 30th, 2008 at 8:08 pm
GP@16: You have to admit GP it is pretty bizarre behaviour from a leader of an opposition..
Personally, I couldn’t give a rats whether he did or didn’t, I wouldn’t vote for the conservatives anyway, but there are many female electors that will find this obscene or a little bizarre. As women make a large portion of the vote it’s their votes they should be worried about.
I wonder how many females would want to be in room with this guy.?
April 30th, 2008 at 8:15 pm
Generic Person
It was an occupational health and safety issue. He lifted the chair above waist height and didn’t keep his back straight. This makes the man totally unelectable.
April 30th, 2008 at 8:22 pm
Antony @ 12 - More power to the genuine independents at the next NSW election I say - whatever we might think of the individuals themselves, the hung parliament in the early 90’s when Moore, Hatton and McDonald had the balance was the most honest and transparent period of government I remember in NSW. There was no legislative steamrolling, there were inquiries on issues, there was attention focussed on proposals. We can only dream wistfully about that now.
I take the point about how close some of the ‘independents’ might appear to be to Labor in some seats. Being thoroughly on the nose (unless there’s a miracle in the next 3 years), I guess Labor will attempt to put up tame independents preferencing Labor, but with optional preferential voting a lot of voters won’t go down the ticket and the coalition will benefit.
April 30th, 2008 at 8:42 pm
Poor NSW .. such a choice between two crazy parties!!
April 30th, 2008 at 8:43 pm
I wonder if the TV stations will give the Liberals their money back for the barage of Troy Buswell ads they’ve been running lately. In politics timing is everything. Well almost. Despite or perhaps because of the scandal driven clean out of the WA parliamentary party, the Carpenter government has quite an effective ministry at present. The Libs seem to have no one to match the likes of McGinty, McTirenan or Logan.
April 30th, 2008 at 9:34 pm
16 Generic Person - so you didn’t care about Rudd going to a strip club? That’s great.
April 30th, 2008 at 9:36 pm
If the Liberals had a good leader in New South Wales they would win the next election in a mega landslide.
April 30th, 2008 at 9:38 pm
It seems Nelson sees merit in sniffing chairs so maybe O’Farrel could take up this party trick.
April 30th, 2008 at 9:38 pm
I agree sniffing is such a trivial issue but in this case he has a history and this as result solidifies him as having a problem with women. Is it possible for a snap poll?
April 30th, 2008 at 9:48 pm
Check this out Marky for a timetable of elections. Note that this was compiled in 2005.
http://www.aph.gov.au/library/pubs/rn/2005-06/06rn04.htm
April 30th, 2008 at 9:54 pm
Snap poll yes, i would announce it in as soon as possible. Carpenter would win in a landslide, and he would deserve it. He is leading a visionary government unlike many of his other State counterparts who seem to be asleep.
April 30th, 2008 at 9:55 pm
As said the date in June.
April 30th, 2008 at 9:57 pm
This is the wrong topic, but the details of WA election dates is at: http://www.waec.wa.gov.au/state/pdfs/Date_Info.pdf
Constitutionally, you cannot have a WA Legislative Council election until 21 June, so there won’t be a Legislative Assembly election before then either. They’ll still have to wait a bit longer, as if they hold an election, they can’t have the Parliament sit until after 31 August or they will only get a 3 year term and put the Assembly and Council out of step. The Olympics is mid-August, football finals in September, though WA teams don’t look likely to feature. September-October looks a more likely earliest date.
April 30th, 2008 at 11:20 pm
Not that anyone will be surprised.
http://www.abc.net.au/news/stories/2008/04/30/2232064.htm
May 1st, 2008 at 12:04 am
Ironic that the putative challenger to Buswell’s position is a vet.
The Liberals have a lot to put down.
May 1st, 2008 at 12:18 am
This is all so fantastic. Buswell was a clown, but a good media performer that appealed the WAs stupidity and ignorance of reality. Now that hes lot any last shred of credibility has put a smile on my face. How on earth Lab can still be in front in NSW is mind boggling.
May 1st, 2008 at 1:40 am
Paul Lennon (30% in last EMRS) is not Australia’s least approved premier anymore! I predict many suicides in despair if this becomes known to the good folk at tasmaniantimes.
May 1st, 2008 at 3:50 am
C’mon, give Buswell a break, it’s not as though he ate his own earwax, people! Now THAT is truly disgusting!
In his television interview, Buswell looks like a dead man walking, uh standing …
May 1st, 2008 at 8:33 am
Maurice Iemma’s only redeeming feature is that he has resisted sniffing chairs or flicking Bra’s. Or maybe that hasn’t come out yet ?
May 1st, 2008 at 10:51 am
The poll is not flattering to either O’Farrell or Iemma. Basically, in a two horse race, 31% of people don’t like either choice.
May 1st, 2008 at 11:20 am
regarding Buswell’s behavior,
I guess we will stand to see if WA will have a hot-chair-sniffing Premier.
hahahhahhh That is, a hot-chair-sniffing Premier.
On the same note, John Poodle Howard must had had a hard time to resist the temptation to sniff his master Bush’s chair when Bush visit Australia last year.
May 1st, 2008 at 1:11 pm
Buswell’s behaviour would have completely humilated the woman involved, since he did it infront of the whole office. This behaviour reduces women to sexual objects, for the titilation of men and nothing more, and is absolutely reprehensible in any situation.
Not only does Buswell’s behaviour lose him any respect from women, it also loses him any respect from most men, too. It is ridiculous that such a person should have been elected the leader of a parliamentary party, since I’m sure we can assume his supporters knew about this behaviour, or even a local representative.
Disgusting.
May 1st, 2008 at 2:19 pm
I have only just caught up with the Buswell incident but WTF! I don’t think lightning strikes twice so after the bra/brain snap incident with the Labor staffer, it seems reasonable to conclude he is a misogynistic idiot. There go the votes of 51% of the electorate. Now John Day is calling on him to resign:
http://www.thewest.com.au/default.aspx?MenuID=145&ContentID=70784
On top of Andrew Robbs pathetic unregistered candidates smear and the fake anti-Islamic pamphlets in the past Federal election, the Liberals really have descended into a pathetic mob. I am starting to hope that a few of these people are reminded that they are not above the law. Because they seem to be breaking a few.
May 1st, 2008 at 2:53 pm
Antony@9 & 12 is of course quite right. NSW is a state with a multitude of different 2pp contests, with potentially more in the pipeline. I would in fact expect more inner-Sydney seats to go to ALP-GRN 2pp contests than last time, but in the end my issue is that while O’Farrell does indeed have a wait until 2011 for an election, it will be held now in under 3 years, meaning he would want some good momentum going within the next 2. O’Farrell is still much of an unknown in the electorate, as are most of the Libs - prior to the last election they were far more visible in the lead-up years than they are now, in part because of Brogden, then his implosion, then Debnams rise, but also because some of their MP’s got out and worked the electorate (Peta Seaton comes to mind).
Take the case of Coogee. At the last election the ALP got 39%, the Libs 35% and the Greens 21% - would seem a straightforward win, and the ALP did manage 57%:43% 2pp - but at the next election it will be much worse - especially if the Greens were to exhaust instead of directing to the ALP on their HTV’s. If the Libs wanted to pick up that seat they’d be working it hard starting from right now, especially in the lead up to the Council elections in September, but its just not happening. I know that Pearce (the ALP MP) is actually working his electorate as best he can, even though his preselection is by no means secure (the curse of being from the Left in NSW). But the Libs aren’t being seen.
SO, while Iemma, Costa, Tripodi, Hay etc get themselves in hot water, they’re also the ones being seen on TV day-in, day-out, NOT Barry O’Farrell or the rest of the Libs. Iemma & co might be on the nose, but if they are seen as the only viable alternative they will still have a chance come March 2011.
As for WA, I understand that the WA Libs have been spending up big on profiling Buswell that would appear to now be a complete waste of time and, more importantly, money. this would seem to imply Carpenter will have a bigger war chest (with or without Govt advertising budgets) than the Coalition.
Now try this on for size (as suggested to me by a local) - what if the Libs and Nats decided to merge prior the election, and put up Brendon Grylls as Leader? An electable, moderate, competant person as leader of the LIB/Nats? Might cause everybody some problems!
May 1st, 2008 at 3:00 pm
[Now try this on for size (as suggested to me by a local) - what if the Libs and Nats decided to merge prior the election, and put up Brendon Grylls as Leader? An electable, moderate, competant person as leader of the LIB/Nats? Might cause everybody some problems!]
Will NEVER happen as the Nats have vowed NEVER to enter into a coalition ever again and are running candidates against the libs in rural seats, which makes Buswell’s own seat even more tenable prior to sniffgate.
May 1st, 2008 at 3:26 pm
“Budget cuts threaten aged care bingo sessions”
ABC at it again with more scary pensioners being done the dirty on by Rudd headines.
Cor! when will they get over themselves and stop greiving Ratty’s loss?
“Last month carers and pensioners were reeling for days when it was feared they would lose their annual payments, which likewise were not listed in the forward budget estimates.” http://www.abc.net.au/news/stories/2008/05/01/2232428.htm
May 1st, 2008 at 3:31 pm
Stewart J @ 40 is similarly ‘quite right’. Barry O’Farrell does need to lift his profile and show the public that he and his colleagues offer an alternative. This is fundamentally important because NSW needs competent, vital and forward thinking governance.
Stewart J also makes an excellent point about a seat like Coogee, which fits in with the observations Antony made @ 12. As the Saturdays tick away between now and March 2011, the members of the NSW parliamentary Liberal Party and their National Party Coalition partners will need plenty of diligence, stamina and (particularly) campaign funds to wrest away seats like Coogee from the ALP. They owe it to themselves and (most importantly) to the people of NSW.
May 1st, 2008 at 4:06 pm
I’m not sure Coogee is that important. It hasn’t been held by the Liberals since 1974, and in 1988 it was one of the seats that on the pendulum should have fallen to the Liberals but didn’t. Since then it has been merged with Waverley, which hadn’t been held by the Liberals since 1940. The election will be decided in the outer suburbs, and if the Liberals pick-up inner-city seats like Coogee and Drummoyne as well, it’s a bonus. I know there’s barely a property left in Coogee that’s under a million these days, but it has been that way for years and the Liberals have made little headway. As property prices have gone up in that seat, it seems Labor has lost votes to the Greens. In 2007, the Greens ran second to the Liberals in both Vaucluse and North Shore. Maybe Coogee is headed the same way.
We might get a better idea on Coogee at the local government elections in September. It is in Waverley Council, where there was a three-way split in 2004, Liberal 34%, Labor 28%, Green 21%.
May 1st, 2008 at 4:20 pm
Agreed Antony the Liberals need to pick up seats like Menai, Miranda and Camden. They can become the government without winning Coogee so, as you say, picking up that seat would be a ‘bonus’. I will look at the local council election results in September.
May 1st, 2008 at 5:09 pm
There is still 3 years to go. A lot can happen in that time to both sides of the political fence. Too early to write either side off.
May 1st, 2008 at 5:13 pm
Anyone interested in the local council elections in Britain?
http://www.theaustralian.news.com.au/story/0,25197,23628754-601,00.html
May 1st, 2008 at 5:41 pm
I am hearing reports that Della Bosca thinks he has a chance to take over, after Iemma is rolled at conference this weekend. Heaven help us! Where does he think he can find an assembly seat that will elect him!
I think Watkins is the only senior minister who is untarnished by the whiff of incompetence/ corruption and he of course can’t be premier unless he apostasises from the Left.
May 1st, 2008 at 6:46 pm
Gary Bruce at 47 - I am! Looks like Ken Livingstone may lose the mayoralty of London. God help us if Boris Johnson gets in, he’s a fool.
May 1st, 2008 at 7:44 pm
Antony & David Charles
My point is that if the Libs ever thought they could pick up the seat they would be on the ground campaigning. Just focussing on the edges (the most ‘marginal’ seats) may win them the election, but wont necessarily make Government comfortable. BTW, while Coogee hasn’t been Coalition held since 1974, it went down to 51.2% in 1988 & 51.6% in 1991. These are close, and it was Ernie Page’s personal vote that held it up. Back then the electorate was not $1m houses like it is now. The electorate has rapidly gentrified in the past 10 years, with the ALP’s vote sinking over that period. Page’s primary in 1999 was 49%, Pearce’s in 2003 was 44%, and 39% in 2007. Continual drops in primary can only threaten the ALP’s viable hold on the seat.
But again, my point is that you would expect some Liberal campaigning in a seat that is slowly falling into their grasp - but they are not. Half the seat is now in the Randwick City Council area, and while the ALP can boast a healthy primary across Randwick, its vote in the north of the Council has been falling. I would also watch the Council results very closely in Sutherland Shire to see if the Libs pick up extra seats, but also further west to Penrith, Cambelltown, Camden.
May 1st, 2008 at 7:46 pm
Oh, and looking at Council-wide results wont work - Dover Heights in Waverley Council is strongly Liberal (and in Vaucluse state electorate), just as South & central wards in Randwick are strongly ALP (and in the Maroubra seat). looking at ward results might provide a better ‘feel’ for what might happen.
May 1st, 2008 at 9:38 pm
The Rudd haters will really hate this.
http://www.news.com.au/couriermail/story/0,23739,23629148-952,00.html
May 1st, 2008 at 9:48 pm
Maybe if this high Green vote continues then they could have a seat or two and therefore a leader in the Legislative Assembly. That would mean more profile and a chance at a share of the balance of power.
May 1st, 2008 at 10:50 pm
Stewart J, everything you say about Coogee is correct, except I’ve been writting the same thing about Coogee at every election since 1991 and it has stubbornly refused budge out of the Labor camp. Already at the 1991 census, Coogee had the highest proportion of high-income earners of any Labor-held seat. Admittedly, the bad Liberal results in 1988 and 1991 owed a lot to the factional wars that saw local Liberal branches dominated by the far-right. The Liberal Party had control of Waverley Council for a period in the 1980s, so those factional wars were well known to the public and damaged the Liberal cause.
In 1988 and 1995 they stood Margaret Martin, a Randwick Councillor. They were wrong to stand Allan Andrew in 1991, him being MP for Heathcote and forced to move across the city. In 1999, they stood Kevin Junee, a dual rugby international, admittedly at an election where the LIBs got thumped. In 2003 it was David McBride, son of William McBride, a barrister, ex-UK SAS officer, documentary maker and explorer, though he had also unfortunately been a Labor Party member till 2 years earlier. And in 2007 they stood Jonathan Flegg.
As I said, nothing the Libs have done in Coogee for two decades has worked. Where the LIBs need to be active now is where the marginal seats are, Sutherland Shire and The Entrance. They need to be hammering Penrith, and Camden, and working out links with conservative Independents in the Hunter. Hammer the areas where the public is sick and tired of the government. Stick to the bigger issues and let the Greens hammer Labor on local issues in Coogee and run a campaign that aims to garner some of this local anger.
And remember, anything the Liberals do now will be swamped in 2010 by the run up to the Federal election, which will probably be some time in October, before Victoria at the end of November. So you can count on 6 months where the Federal Liberals will run negative against state Labor Iemma, but the state Liberals will be invisible. I’m afraid you won’t hear much positive from the state Liberals till after the Federal election, as no one will remember any positive message put out now by the time the Federal Libs have finished running against the state Labor government.
May 2nd, 2008 at 2:58 am
ron is this you on Thom
Perth
Wed 07 Nov 07 (11:47am)
Just wanted to say I enjoy reading your comments. Clear, concise and shrewd.
Thanks
Ron
blog on caroline overington pre election
May 2nd, 2008 at 7:39 am
@52
Indeed the Rudd-haters are spitting chips, if the comments are anything to go by. They must be feeling more and more marginalized with each passing day.
May 2nd, 2008 at 8:51 am
“Indeed the Rudd-haters are spitting chips”
They have been hit twice recently Meng.
Howard did not get the knighthood that was so sought after, it went instead to a lord chamberlain and a lord liutenant, whatever those blokes do they were obviously considered better people for the knighthood than Howard.
And then a short while later Rudd gets international recognition through the Time magazine.
It must hurt, I feel their pain.
May 2nd, 2008 at 10:08 am
Rod and Meng, Bolt is hurting. He is certainly feeling the pain.
May 2nd, 2008 at 10:32 am
Antony, having sat on a booth with a local Lib campaigner, and had to listen to him complain about the party putting nothing into Coogee, I’m sure that even a moderately funded campaign could pay dividends. Flegg was also perceived as a Queenslander and not local. But you are right - like Wentworth, Coogee has a long history of just not moving. But I personally think that a better gauge of its likely move is to be found not with its high income earners, but their professions of those earners. Just as Balmain, Marrickville, Heffron and Vaucluse now see sizable Green votes, this is where you find inner-urban professionals living and working. If you want to a post-materialist viewpoint, these are the people who are comfortable enough, and educated enough, to be now considering issues beyond their hip pockets. I note that Keneally in Heffrom won 56% on primary, but a bad election could change that - with the Greens on 19% and the Libs on 21%, preferences could become very interesting.
So, you are of course right, in that the election will be won and lost in the outer-urban and regional-urban seats on the Central Coast, but the shift in voting in the inner-city and east could open up new possibilities for both Libs and Greens - if they are prepared to grasp them.
May 2nd, 2008 at 10:38 am
It is fascinating to note the evolution of the old Sydney middle-class seats, look at Strathfield & Drummoyne going opposite ways; NESBs vs. Anglo water front yuppies? Question for Greens is whether they can go beyond an appeal to left-wing Labor voters to an appeal to disillusioned Labor voters more generally as the Democrats once did. Does their increasing vote suggest this? NSW is so socially diverse that different political systems emerge in different regions. Labor’s collapse in rural NSW created a political vacuum that the independents filled.
May 2nd, 2008 at 11:12 am
It is the rise in the Green vote which is the reason why the Liberals will be doubtful at throwing money at Coogee. It seems that gentrification in the inner-city of Sydney, which is causing a huge lift in average incomes in traditionally Labor suburbs, results in a rise in Green vote rather than Liberal vote. The Coogee problem for the Liberals is voters deserting Labor for the Greens rather than the Liberals. But, with optional preferential voting, a ding-dong battle between labor and the Greens in Coogee could benefit the Liberals with the highest primary vote.
As for Heffron, if the Greens have their heads screwed on, they will contest Botany Bay Council rather than leave the Hoenig Labor team to have another walkover. Botany Bay Council is the only Sydney council that doesn’t use Proportional Representation. But it was also the Heffron booths in Botany Bay where the Greens got less than 10% in 2007, where their vote was above 30% in the more gentrified areas from Erskineville through St Peters and Alexandria to parts of Redfern.
It’s the same pattern in Marrickville. The Green vote dominates around Newtown, but areas in the west of the electorate that have not been less gentrified see Labor still dominating over the Greens.
It will be interesting to see how Marrickville Council goes in September. Labor lost control because of a botched attempt to gerrymander the ward boundaries. Labor had the highest vote, but the Greens got more seats.
May 2nd, 2008 at 11:43 am
In respect of Botany Council - if the ALP let through the changes to the LG Act this may yet change, but it all hinges on them accepting an LC amendment on having elections within 12 months of sacking a Council - this Govt has a like for long periods of administration under Govt-appointed (and potentially compliant) Administrators…
And yes the Greens should run in Botany…finding candidates may be the issue of course, as less than 10% means its a tough area to find good candidates to stand as a Green!
May 2nd, 2008 at 12:00 pm
Also remember that, unlike state and federal, you actually have to live in a council area to run in the area. But it’s true that Botany stands out amongst the councils on the inner sydney peninsula, the other six councils nearby have all had Green mayors or deputy mayors: Sydney, Woollahra, Waverley, Randwick, Leichhardt and Marrickville.
But I don’t know Botany council area that well. Is it really demographically similar to the councils around it? I know a lot of its territory is covered by the port and the airport, but is it’s population undergoing the same gentrification as those around it?
May 2nd, 2008 at 12:08 pm
Since council elections have been raised again, I might mention again that it might be good to have an open local council thread. Sure, it’s not reasonable to expect William to stay on top of all the councils up for the election this year (all of NSW and Victoria, over 50% of Australia), but so many people on here would have knowledge about their local council that I reckon it would be really informative.
May 4th, 2008 at 7:38 pm
Iemma grows some, as Colbert would say, either that or he watched Andrew Bolt suggest he stands up against the unionista and goes ahead with the power privatisation.
Gotta say, he didn’t have much choice.
May 5th, 2008 at 11:07 am
For those still interested, here’s the final 3 pars from the SMH this morning:
“In the end Mr Costa took to the stage on Saturday. His arms were flailing, his voice rising. On ABC TV yesterday it was referred to as a “Mussolini-like” performance. The vote went 702 votes to 107 against him.
“Just before the negotiations ended, Mr Tripodi, outside the meeting room, turned to the assembled unionists and said: “We’re dead, anyway.”
“Asked whether Mr Tripodi was referring to the union or the Government, a union source said: “I think he meant the whole shebang, the conference, the party, the lot.”
Gotta love “Mussolini-like performance” and Tripodi’s commentary on the NSW ALP…
May 5th, 2008 at 7:51 pm
Wrt Coogee
I wonder if a portion of the inner city, affluent Green vote is actually due to Liberal voters who vote tactically against Labor. They know the Liberals can’t win, and the party puts zero effort into these seats, so register their anti-Labor protest in this manner.
I’m thinking of Wenworth at the last election where the Liberals got a substantial hike in their vote around Darlinghurst and Paddington which were previously in ultra-safe Sydney. Clearly, when the party actively campaigned and gave them a genuine option, they were prepared to vote Liberal. It’s possible that areas like Randwick, Clovelly, Bondi and Coogee could see a similar shift if the party got its act together.