The latest Morgan face-to-face poll has Labor’s lead at 63.5-36.5 – down from the record-breaking 65-35 at the previous such poll early in the month, but up from 61-39 at the phone poll conducted a fortnight ago. Other conversation starters:

• Special Minister of State John Faulkner has announced a package of electoral reforms confirming moves to cut the campaign donation disclosure threshold to $1000 (which the Howard government outrageously lifted from $1500 to $10,000 in 2005), along with bans on donations from overseas companies and various other measures. It is also announced that the government will “kick-start a green paper process to reform and modernise our electoral processes”. The first part of this, to be released for discussion in July, will look at “disclosure, funding and expenditure issues”; the second, to be released in October, will examine “a broader range of options aimed at strengthening other areas of our electoral laws”.

• Morris Iemma has taken talk of reforms to campaign donations a step further by suggesting they be banned altogether, perhaps in conjunction with caps on electoral spending. Jack Waterford of the Canberra Times presents the case against.

• A big week for the New South Wales Liberal Party: charges laid against five over the Lindsay pamphlet outrage, rising star Scott Morrison deemed too civilised for membership of his local branch, and suggestions that Peter Phelps might emerge as a contender for the party’s state directorship. Would it be overdramatic to suggest that the forces of respectable conservatism in the state should abandon the whole rancid operation and start again from scratch?

As Barack Obama weathers the Reverend Jeremiah Wright controversy, Hillary Clinton misspeaks. Compare and contrast …

Another thread for discussion of matters American. Since the last instalment we’ve seen Barack Obama win Mississippi 61-37 (19-14 in delegate terms), before running into his first bit of serious campaign turbulence courtesy of the audaciously hopeful Reverend Jeremiah Wright.

Lateline reports tomorrow’s Newspoll has Labor’s two-party lead at 59-41, down from 63-37 a fortnight ago. Kevin Rudd’s lead as preferred prime minister is down from 73-7 to 70-10 (hat tip to Blair S. Fairman).

UPDATE: Graphic here.

Antony Green is live-blogging the Brisbane City Council election count (first results should come through in about 30 minutes), so rather than set up in competition with him, I think it’s best if we all head over there.

UPDATE: Feel free though to use this thread to discuss the results if you’re finding Antony’s multiple posts problematic.

UPDATE 2: You can also feel free to discuss councils other than Brisbane.

UPDATE 3: Looks like I can’t help myself. Live blogging follows below:

7.30pm Brisbane time: ABC computer now predicting a huge win for Campbell Newman plus a Liberal majority on council, though Antony still expressing caution about the latter.

7.40pm: Although it seems Ross Vasta’s bid for Wynnum-Manly has failed with a vengeance.

8.05pm: The Liberals needed a notional gain of three seats to win the council. As I see it, they have won Marchant and Holland Park. Parkinson, Enoggera, Doboy, Central and Northgate are all in play (perhaps also Jamboree, where counting proceeds at a snail’s pace), but the Liberals only lead in the first two. I suspect Labor will pull further ahead in Central as more figures come in.

8.35pm: Further figures have moved Holland Park back to the doubtful column, but the Liberals are now home in Parkinson. So the Liberals still need to bag one more doubtful ward. Holland Park is the only one where they are ahead - they are slightly behind in Enoggera, Doboy and Northgate. Labor pulling further ahead in Central, but Greens preferences are a possible wild card here.

8.47pm: Antony Green says Jamboree is now in the Liberal gain column, but the ABC computer figures are lagging badly here. The ECQ shows a Liberal 54.25-45.75 lead on two-party preferred with 44 per cent counted, which sounds pretty convincing. So you could almost call it for a Liberal majority at this point.

8:54pm: More figures in at ABC, and the Liberals have recovered their earlier handsome lead in Holland Park, probably putting any doubts about their majority to rest.

9.04pm: Antony, who has more up to date figures, suggests the four Liberal gains are all holding firm and they are only slightly behind in Enoggera. Doboy still looks in doubt to me, but maybe Antony knows something I don’t.

Unless I’m mistaken, it looks like Roy Morgan has just unloaded two sets of poll results at once: a phone poll of 1128 respondents conducted on Tuesday and Wednesday, and a face-to-face poll of 2019 respondents conducted over the previous two weekends. The former has Labor’s two-party lead at 61-39, while the latter has it at 65-35: wider even than the 64.5-35.5 recorded in the previous published (face-to-face) survey from February 29, and probably some kind of all-time record for any agency.

In other news, the new membership of the Joint Standing Committee on Electoral Matters has been announced. The spoils are divided thus: Labor gets three MHRs (Daryl Melham, Michael Danby and Jon Sullivan) and two Senators (Carol Brown and Steve Hutchins), the Coalition gets two of each (Scott Morrison and the Nationals’ Bruce Scott from the House, Simon Birmingham and Mitch Fifield from the Senate), and one is determined by the Senate cross-benchers, which effectively means the Greens (with Bob Brown replacing Andrew Murray of the Democrats). It has evidently yet to be announced which of the Labor members will be the chair: previously the position was held by Sophie Mirabella. The only ongoing member from the previous parliament is Michael Danby.

Three, actually:

• Malcolm Mackerras has told the Heidelberg and Diamond Valley Weekly he expects the Federal Court to order a by-election when it hears the McEwen appeal on March 20 (hat tip to commenter Unicorn). Mackerras states: “The ALP does not need to prove fraud, just that enough voters were disenfranchised by no fault of their own. The court is unlikely to simply kick Fran Bailey out though. A byelection is much more likely.” Which to my mind at least raises the question: if there has to be one by-election, why not several?

• The Rudd government has earned itself some Poll Bludger brownie points with its move to cut the threshold for public disclosure of political donations to $1000. The 2005 increase in this threshold from $1500 to $10,000 was as good a demonstration as any that the Howard government had run its course. The Prime Minister has also floated the possibility of a cap on donations, although I suspect he might lose his enthusiasm for this one in the fullness of time. I have been too busy to give these matters the attention they deserve, but Michelle Grattan provided an excellent overview in Saturday’s Age.

• A Galaxy poll in Sunday’s News Limited tabloids painted a depressingly familiar picture for Brendan Nelson, who was favoured as Liberal leader by just 9 per cent of the 400 respondents, against 24 per cent for Malcolm Turnbull, 19 per cent for Peter Costello, 11 per cent for Julie Bishop and 9 per cent for Joe Hockey.

I have belatedly noticed that Saturday’s West Australian featured a Westpoll survey of state voting intention. The often volatile series (sample sizes are a little over 400) has Labor retaining most of its surprise 58-42 lead from the January poll, conducted in the immediate aftermath of Troy Buswell’s Liberal leadership coup. Looking back to mid-2006, the series suggests Labor has generally maintained solid leads outside of a slump in late 2006 and an aberrant result in December 2007.

UPDATE: I should make note of a lengthy comment left on this site recently by Christian Porter, the newly elected member for Murdoch and Shadow Attorney-General, currently gathering dust at the end of an old thread.