Tis the Season to be Mickey
Check out this Daily Telegraph piece with leaked polling by Liberal guru etc Mark Textor which got a good run on television and radio yesterday. It shows Tony Abbott is … wait for it … “more popular” then Kevin Rudd in four marginal NSW seats.
Mark didn’t measure voting intentions. Only approval. Gee that’s useful. (He [...]
Labor on skidrow? This and that
Thursday things
Asylum-seekers and the fetishisation of “middle Australia”
Me in Inside Story. Right here.
Antony Green and the mysterious case of the fading curtains
See Antony’s ranking of Queensland state electorate by 1992 daylight saving vote. Huge geographic divide.
Australia in the world: the song remains the same
Apparently Barack Obama will tell Kerry O’Brien tonight about the wonderful, meeting of the [...]
Electoral fraud in South Australia?
Every so often some attention-seeker puts their dog or something like onto the electoral roll and then brags about it. Ha ha – but they claim to be making a serious point, that the electoral laws are too lax.
Now an alleged whole family alleges they voted 159 times at this month’s SA election.
Well, someone’s written an anonymous [...]
PvO on Bruce Hawker in South Australia
Peter van Onselen gives excellent press to Hawker-Britton boss Bruce Hawker in today’s Oz.
It seems Mr Hawker was “parachuted” into South Australia where he single-handedly pulled the Rann government from the brink.
His key strategy was to – wait for it – concentrate on the marginal seats.
Whatever will they think of next?
The federal election’s favour-bin is filling up.
(Generally like PvO’s [...]
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 [...]
Greg Sheridan and Alan Ramsey
One imagines Greg Sheridan and Alan Ramsey would have little to talk about in the proverbial stuck elevator.
But there is this in common: Greg is to Tony Abbott and the Liberal party what Alan was to Mark Latham and Labor.
By the time Latham became leader in 2003 Alan had been plugging him for years. See old [...]
Reality and logic overboard
Writes Mr Milne in Oz: ” [AWU's Paul] Howes’s point is this. The Tampa sailed on to Australia’s political horizon only months after 9/11 … ”
Whoops. Make that several weeks before 9/11.
Howes is the bloke who also reckons ”[Rudd] is in a unique position to change the debate. Changing the way Australia deals with race would be [...]
Kevin Kevin Kevin, Oi Oi Oi
Gerard Henderson certainly has a point in SMH regarding Aussie journos going gah-gah about their man on The World Stage.
But such delusions of grandeur have a proud tradition in this country, and I’m sure Gerard himself kind of bought into it when the PM was a certain Man of Steel.
Some previous instances here, here and here.
Jason and Crikey: deja vu all over again
Recent Pollbludger item referred to rumination on Bradfield by-election in Crikey under “Tips and Rumours”:
The contest for preselection in Bradfield is about to get a little more interesting with international lawyer Jason Yat-sen Li to declare his candidacy. Opposition Leader Malcolm Turnbull has been working very hard to convince Yat-sen Li to run. Turnbull and Yat-sen [...]