Bets, Opinion polls  | 20 March 2010 By Peter | 3 comments

Newspoll in SA says 52 to 48 to Libs

Tables here. Large sample of 1594, taken over the five days from Sunday to Thursday.

A  big 9.1 percent “others” compared with 3.4 at the 2006 election. Probably overstated, and along with low primary numbers gives flexibility to that 2pp.

Could go either way. There’s a small chance of a hung parliament but most likely a majority for one side or other. Let’s say 40% chance of a Labor majority, 25% of a hung parliament and 35% of a Liberal majority.

My bets: offloading

Have offloaded on the February $4.75 on Libs ($7X placed) with $1.38 wager on Labor (20X placed). So $27X placed in total.

If Rann is next premier I’m up a tiny amount ($.6X); if it’s Redmond I’m up $6.25X. Modest returns for large outlay, but no risk.

[11am: oh, and Tasmanians Liberals to win a plurality.]

Bets, Electoral, Opinion polls  | 19 March 2010 By Peter | 4 comments

Twitter election and my bets

Tweet this

Wednesday’s Parliament House talk about new media is up on Library website: MP3 here, Powerpoint here. Great audience, lots of good comments.

Found out later that a couple (at least) of them tweeted it. One wrote:

listening to a briefing about twitter at Aus parl library. Speaker’s “initial impressions” unfortunately miss the point & opps :/”

She (and others, who weren’t actually there) had more cross words. 

But got some nice tweets too. And several caffiene appointments.

[Update: one MP in audience was quite candid.]

Saturday’s state elections

Lots of people are predicting two hung parliaments this Saturday in Tasmania and South Australia.

The first is close to a certainty, but the second is not really that likely. The most recent poll said 50:50, so folks are just plotting a 7 percent 2pp swing on the pendulum, but it doesn’t really work that way. A swing of 6 or 7 percent could conceivably take in the safer Adelaide and/or Florey. It could fail to sweep in a more marginal seat. Large swings usually go all over the place.

William Bowe has gone on the record with a specific one seat majority for Rann. He usually does put his hand up, and good on him.

I’m being more vague: I reckon the odds are around 45% for Labor majority, 25% for hung parliament and 30% for a Liberal majority.

Will likely be laying off on the $4.75 I got for a Liberal win in early Feb. But am waiting for Newspoll tomorrow (assuming there is one).

History  | 18 March 2010 By Peter | 9 comments

Tom Switzer must apologise

[Tongue placed in cheek] This man is Tom Switzer, former Australian op editor, Brendan Nelson staffer, currently an IPA chap and editor(?) of Spectator Australia. Often mentioned as a possible Liberal candidate.

In November 2008, in the Australian, Tom gave the nation a solemn assurance. He wrote that John Howard, unlike Paul Keating, would be a silent ex-PM, content in retirement. He would not feel the need to regularly pontificate on political events.

If Howard privately observes the future political scene with disgust, frustration and the latent yearning of a former campaigner, it’s a fair bet he won’t air his views publicly … Relevance Deprivation Syndrome, the term coined by Gareth Evans shortly after his retirement in 1999*, is not likely to afflict our second longest-serving prime minister.”

We have the greatest respect for Mr Switzer and it gives us no pleasure to declare him a liar. But on this issue, a liar he was. For it has turned out that Mr Howard, like his predecessor, kept his head down for a while but then found the temptation too much. He now puts his two cents in regularly, on just about everything under the sun: stimulus spending, boat people, relations with China – you name it, he talks about it.

This week we got another spray about what the Rudd government is doing wrong (answer: everything), including this self-third-personing formulation:

I think a lot of people are now saying, `OK, you’ve had two years, you’ve spent a lot of Howard’s money — well it’s not Howard’s money, it’s our money Howard saved for you. What else have you done?’”

Seventeen months ago we, like millions of Australians, took Tom Switzer at his word. We were wrong to do so.

Mr Switzer must now apologise to the country for his misleading 2008 statements. [Tongue removed from cheek.]

*Actually coined in 1996.

Uncategorized  | 17 March 2010 By Peter | 4 comments

Me and my other hat: the “twitter election”

I’m giving a wee talk on my Parliamentary Library Project (tentatively called “The Twitter Election”) in Parliament House Library Conference Room at 12:30 today.

Am looking at use of the new media in this election year by federal pollies and journos. Project is in early stages, so will be soliciting advice and ideas.

Hon Dick Adams introducing. More info here.

[Update: this page has MP3 and Powerpoint of the talk/discussion.]

Uncategorized  | 16 March 2010 By Peter | 9 comments

Newspoll says 52 to 48

In the Oz (tables at bottom).

A difference between Latham v Howard (2004) and Abbott v Rudd (2010): Latham generated the (at the time) highest approval ratings for an opposition leader. Abbott hasn’t (and won’t) done that.

But Latham also pushed the then PM’s approval up, while Abbott has dragged his opponent’s down. Well, Rudd has done much of that himself with his manic insecurity.

Opinion polls  | 15 March 2010 By Peter | 2 comments

Rudd’s approval at lowest point ….

… writes Mr Shanahan in the Oz.

No mention of voting intentions, which probably means Labor’s 2pp lead has increased. [Update: no change.]

More tomorrow in the paper (or, perhaps, on Lateline).

Electoral, History  | 14 March 2010 By Peter | 6 comments

On Labor state premiers

Over the period of the Howard government, state ALP governments around the country won elections by huge, often record-setting (for Labor) amounts and the premiers had huge approval etc ratings. Close politics watchers in every state would assure you that this particular premier was a brilliant strategist and communicator - and the opposition was hopeless, of course – but to the casual observer this star quality was often difficult to discern.

For example, Bob Carr’s biographer Andrew West believed his guy was the best politician in the country; I had a different opinion.

(I reckon the only one out of the box was Peter Beattie.)

Anyway, last week’s Galaxy poll in South Australia (see Pollbludger) really shows the Mike Rann gloss is no more. (Newspoll wasn’t great for him either, but it was presumably taken over three months and asked “if an election was held today” rather than “who will you vote for on Saturday 20 March?”)

The headline 51 to 49 2pp is, as you know, estimated from the primary votes, and with such low total major party primaries (78%) there’s lots of leeway there. (Same applies to Newspoll.)

But Labor is in trouble, for sure, and it’s not really correct that the Libs will need 53% to govern in their own right as Dennis Atkins asserted on Insiders. That’s taking pendulums too literally.

All of December and early January’s predictions anticipations still stand (including the increased federal Labor majority, despite continuing prime ministerial dysfunction – most recent exhibit being the Kristina Keneally encounter).

Electoral  | 12 March 2010 By Peter | 9 comments

Senate obstructionism? Notes on Senate election

There’s no doubt that, as the Rudd government says, this is the most difficult Senate in living memory. But it’s not really the opposition’s fault; Abbott and co are probably no more difficult than Labor was during the Howard years. The reason is the make-up of the rest: for anything to pass it has to be supported by the Greens and Steve Fielding and Nick Xenophon. Is there much these three would agree on?

These equations were anticipated prior to the 2007 election (before Xenophon had announced his run).

If those seven cross-benchers constituted one party, like the Democrats, then a majority of them (ie a partyroom decision) would do it. But it’s very difficult as it stands.

As Antony Green has shown, it is extremely likely that the next election will result in a Labor-Green Senate majority. Doesn’t matter if it’s a half-Senate one (with HoR) or double dissolution. But under a double dissolution there’s a tiny chance that Labor plus independents also = a majority, so the government could have option of dealing with Greens or the independents (much better than and).

And a reminder of the other big difference, that after a double dissolution the fresh Senate would come into effect immediately, while a half-Senate one would have to wait until July 2011.

End of Senate election notes.

[Update: Lenore Taylor in SMH reckons:

it's not like no one's had a difficult Senate before. Keating had to win over the Democrats, the Tasmanian independent Brian Harradine and the two West Australian Greens, Dee Margetts and Christabel Chamarette."

But I think Lenore needs to replace an "and" with an "or". Going from this Wikipedia article (as memory hazy), Labor plus the Democrats plus the Greens formed a majority, without Harradine.]

Electoral, History  | 10 March 2010 By Peter | 2 comments

The politics of debt

Me in Inside Story on politics of debt – today and two governments ago. Here.

Opinion polls, Pig's bum!  | 8 March 2010 By Peter | 6 comments

Nielsen says 53 to 47; union leaders in HoR

Nielsen says 53 to 47

From primaries of 42 each. Here and here. And high initial approval for hospital plan.

Study reveals former ACTU leaders make best candidates

[Parody on]

Former ACTU leaders who become candidates in the House of Representatives attract very high levels of voter support, a new ANU study has found.

The research compared the primary votes received by former ACTU secretaries or presidents Greg Combet, Simon Crean, Martin Ferguson and Jennie George with those of other candidates and found that running a former ACTU leader adds an average 14 percentage points to the Labor vote in that electorate.

The research unit leader, Professor Frank Putthecartbeforethehorse, explained:

“At the 2007 election, these four people received from 53.1 to 65 percent of the primary vote in their seats. Their average vote was 57.6 percent, compared with 43.6 percent for Labor candidates overall. This is a statistically significant difference, to say the least.

“These numbers show that if the ALP were to preselect a former ACTU leader in every seat across the land, it would win 100 percent of elections.”

His colleague, Dr Henry Lovesquotingnumbersbutnotterriblynumerate, admitted that they were “surprised by the findings. We controlled for everything we could think of, including educational background, gender, length of time in parliament and hair colour. The results remained.”

They also “tested for the existence of preselection bias, running x, y and z coefficients and other fancy stuff  over data that has little to do with anything, and found little or no evidence for this – certainly not enough to explain these numbers.”

Other recent findings from the same research unit include that: John Howard’s 24 November 2007 loss was caused by the the 3 December 2007 swearing in of the Rudd ministry; incumbency is worth 2.694 percent; every billion dollars in election promises adds 0.7 percent to a party’s support; and “conviction” and “John Howard” contain ten letters each but “Kevin Rudd” contains only nine.

[Parody off]

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