Via Lateline (which will not be broadcast for another two hours in the Poll Bludger’s remote western outpost), Blair in comments informs us that Newspoll has jumped on the 61-39 bandwagon set in train by ACNielsen and Morgan. An appropriate note on which to open another exciting new instalment of Idle Speculation.
You overrate your own importance, bill. In 2004 the Green got 5% in Kingston and 74% of her preferences went to Labor. You will poll about the same, maybe less if the disgrunted left vote goes back to Labor, and 70-80% of your voters (depending on ballot paper order) will preference Labor whatever you say or do. You could spend the next eight months in China and it wouldn’t make more than 1% worth of difference.
Adam if Labor stays at this poll level id still expect to get 6 % but i doubt that will happen and i should get more. As my wifes prefs gave Bignell the seat of Mawson. FF could do the same for Richardson. There is a chance three unsuccessful Mayor candidates in the local council area running as independents. I doubt very much if they will be pro ALP as one of them is a local who has anti ALP signs outside his house and the other two i would say are right wingers ( i could be wrong) Kingston could be more of a fight than you realize and Richardson is everywhere.
I wouldn’t have voted above the line under normal circumstances, Bill. I *thought*, however, that I would be fairly safe going for the ALP with the expectation that my vote would help a Democrat or Green get the last spot.
Never again. Lucky, too – the Victorian Branch tried to do it to me again in 2006… thankfully, my vote was not one of those that helped resurrect the DLP, but it was in my region.
Bill you are right that the ALP will need greens help in Kingston, many religious people respond well to strong individuals who can talk about politics as a battle of morals in a sincere manner, which Bob Brown does better then anyone.
The greens can be remarkably effective at blunting any advance by FF, which will be an issue in Kingston.
You are also right that the ALP struggles to play nicely with any other groups, but I think you would have to admit Bill that bagging the SDA and the Labor Left on a public website hardly makes you an exemplar of the generosity that is required to make inter party cooperation work
Union solidarity brother
Snow Says:
but I think you would have to admit Bill that bagging the SDA and the Labor Left on a public website……
Sorry but i cannot make any apologies about bagging the SDA and its ways but if you read my posts you will see i have never bagged the ALP left and its the right i have a problem with. At a YR@W meeting last year there where right ALP members praising Howards economic policies. Sorry but to me that is sickening. I was asked to join the ALP left by Kris Hannah in 2001 ish and both him and Bolkus said we need leftists like you. I went to the Greens and Hannah did what he did. What leftist need to realize is that they have no say in the ALP anymore. In the Greens I have a say and satisfaction in agitating the major parties and local council to do what they have promised. I have seen the sheer frustration of the ALP left in Kingston. The best candidate missed out and we will suffer that loss as he is an excellent comrade and brother. My wife and i, new to politics where treated as non important by the ALP candidates in our electorates in the state election That wont happen again. An interesting side piece was the help i received from Robert Brokenshire (ex lib MP for Mawson) putting up my Green signs at the polling booth. He gave me extra tape, Ladder and showed me the legal and illegal areas for signs etc. This was at 3 am in the morning ,my daughter (11yo) and i covered all the booths in the two electorates. My wife and i delivered approx 15000 leaflets on our own in both electorates and where totally bushed after visiting every booth and giving out chockys and drinks to the green booth workers. all this for just 4.7 and 5 percent and we loved every minute of it. This is involvement from corflutes, handing out HTV cards to meetings and running a branch. I love it . I have received bagging on here by some ALPers but that all part of the game and after the election i would have a beer or coffee with any of the candidates in my electorate. Pity that never seems to happen
“The honeymoon for Rudd ended with the Brian Burke allegations. What has been most telling since then is that Rudd has improved in the polls and Howard has plummeted. The preferred PM polls are very different in this regard.”
Ed the pseph.
As are the primary vote polls. Which is very important.
“This is not following the 2001 & 2004 patterns.”
Ed the pseph.
Absolutely correct. It is a very different game this time around.
Bill,
The Greens and the ALP are not comrades-in-arms. The Greens have voted in every vote in the Victorian Legislative Council against the ALP. That is more than 30 votes. By contrast the two Labor parties have voted together on five occasions. Lucky for the ALP that it helped elect a DLP MLC so that the Greens and the Opposition cannot defeat everything it wants!
You and I are never going to agree on the SDA. You expect its leaders to turn its members into something that they are not. I expect the members to elect leaders who follow what the members want. I see the SDA as representing its members. You see it as not doing so because it does not follow your agenda.
Teachers whinge about the AEU. The opposition group attacks the leadership but comes nowhere near winning a vote. I point out that the leaders represent the members and that it is the members who are weak, not the leaders. You, I guess, would expect the AEU leaders to take a more militant stance, even though the members will not follow.
You probably think of the AEU as a left-wing militant union. If it affiliated with the ALP, it would undoubtedly join the left faction. No teacher in the state of Victoria would be better off as a result, but the symbolism would be “rightâ€. Commentators, teachers and their enemies would all think everything fitted, but the reality would be that the AEU would become less willing to fight for decent conditions. It would gain nothing for its members, but perhaps a few pre-selections for its officials. I think the SDA is more effective.
I’d get over the idea that the “left†is progressive. It’s just another tribe in the Labor clan.
I had cordial relations with just about every other candidate in the six elections I contested. I think politics is a little theatrical, though there are some real hatreds in it too.
Labor has to win and it has to reach the right compromise between principles and pragmatism to do so.
Posted in the NSW election live thread probaly should be here
Edward StJohn Says:
Of course IR is finally being revealed for what it is – job protection and career advancement for union officials. I guess its such a vital issue that at least 4 union secretaries have reluctantly decided to leave their unions to run for the federal poll – what a joke
That is exactly how the swinging working class voters see it. The hostility the rank and file non activist union members have against the union bosses is big. People cannot believe that Doug Cameron from the AMWU is promoted by them to the hilt but a grass roots unionist who has no ambition to be a union boss has to fight to get acknowledged. The YR@W has been promoted as a anti Howard grouping yet in some of the marginals it has been totally hijacked by the ALP with a arrogance that smacks of Howardism. I have been involved in the YR@W and its predecessor here in Kingston for over 18 months. Thank god the ACTU organizer and The Fire Fighters union see the need to promote the Greens and others against neo conservatism. It would be interesting if i was a union boss running for the Greens how the Union hierarchy and ALP would react. I have the feeling that i am now being ignored by some union members as being too, how should i put it, non towing the ALP Union boss line. What they dont understand is that AMWU and other left union members are watching to see how they treat one of their own, someone who is known around the traps. The Union movement has a chance to become strong again or give it self up to the ever right moving ALP. I believe that the workers will suffer under Labor but by stealth and thats the message i am getting from members. Howards on the nose but it more to do with a tired government and arrogance rather than any real issue. I dont think we have ever had a opposition that is so similar to the Government ever and the same is happening in the States. Theres seems little choice anymore. I will be expecting a huge change for the workers when the ALP win as we have suffered enough
Cris said
You and I are never going to agree on the SDA. You expect its leaders to turn its members into something that they are not. I expect the members to elect leaders who follow what the members want. I see the SDA as representing its members. You see it as not doing so because it does not follow your agenda.
I dont expect the leaders to turn its members into what they are not. I would hope they would educate them on activism in light of work choices and not expect the activism of the AMWU and the Greens to do the union bosses jobs for them. Ironic really that the activist is normally a low paid worker doing the job that a union boss should do considering the activists union fees pays the boss
ALP – Union -Activism
Why is it that when the need for ALP candidates and MP’s support for Anti work choice actions ( re-Radio Rentals) was needed they hide? I have been to many actions over the years and its always minor parties that do the leg work. E.G. The last action we had in Kingston I organized Green members and supporters to attend, i had it advertised internally and through this the Greens MLC came and spoke. My work bolstered the action by at least 25% possibly 35 % and as anyone would know the bigger the crowd the bigger the support outside. The Unionists where amazed at the Greens support and have been ever since. This has grown to the stage that the YR@W group here are trying different avenues to have Bob Brown come and speak. We are not insignificant or commies or Hippies ( havent met one in the Greens yet) we are activists not scared to support in trenchers.
When are the respective Parties’ pre-selections for NSW due to take place?
The Sunday Age reports that Combet has backflipped on whether he is going to run, and is now looking like a sure thing to displace Kelly Hoare in Charlton.
Julia Irwin in Fowler and Michael Hatton in Blaxland also look like they’re in the gun – one of them, at least, will almost certainly make way for Mark Arbib. George Campbell is apparently unlikely to hold on to his spot on the Senate ticket, where Warren Mundine is seeking a winnable position. Ursula Stephens’ term is also expiring at this election. Unfortunately, Michael Forshaw and Steve Hutchins are both at liberty to pollute the ALP backbench until 2011.
Pure speculation on my part, but Daryl Melham (Banks), Roger Price (Chifley), Jill Hall (Shortland) and John Murphy (Lowe) are others that might enter calculations when the faction bosses put their heads together. All have had plenty of time to make a mark in Federal politics and with the exception of Melham have failed to do so.
On the Coalition side there are a number of members at retirement age, whether they acknowledge it or not. It’s currently unclear whether Phillip Ruddock (Berowra) intends to seek yet another term. Alan Cadman (Mitchell) and Bronwyn Bishop (Mackellar) must be on borrowed time. Aside from those three (and, obviously, John Howard), Danna Vale (Hughes), Alby Schultz (Hume) and Joanna Gash (Gilmore) are over 60. So is Ken Ticehurst (Dobell) but it’s hard to see a two-term member in a marginal seat getting rolled. Ian Causley is retiring for the Nats in Page. Lastly, Kerry Bartlett (Macquarie) now sits on a notional ALP majority and has lost the area where he enjoyed strongest support.
Adam,
Re your March 23rd, 2007 at 1:09 am post: I taught in a school with a large TTUV/FTUV branch, and one of its members was an ex-La Trobe Maoist. The school had the most unfair teaching loads I have ever experienced, but the TTUV/FTUV branch was more interested in destroying the VSTA branch than in actual teaching conditions, so I don’t think getting those unionists back would be helpful to teachers. Luckily for the industrially awake and committed teachers, the school had the good sense to appoint a former DLP official as its acting vice principal and timetabler, so conditions on the ground improved and the VSTA prophetic shock minority had another victory over the Maoist-influenced TTUV/FTUV.
Charlie,
They wont touch Shortland (Jill Hall) after the debacle of Newcastle especially if they are intent on parachuting in Combet.
Roger Price would be a definite for the chop, Banks is shaky margin has declined for the last decade and its a big risk to role Melham for a new candidate – even though he only started door knocking last poll. The left’s likely candidate is weak and was rolled off the Local council by pro Iemma forces.
I’ve just come across this article from yesterday’s SMH.
Andren is to announce this Thursday which seat he’ll contest.