Federal Election 2010

[Keith]

Where to for the party leaders?
  
http://blogs.theaustralian.news.com.au/mumble/index.php/theaustralian/comments/where_to_for_the_leaders/

Mumble Blog | September 07, 2010 |


Soon after he took the Liberal leadership last December, Tony Abbott made the assessment that if he lost the 2010 election he would soon become political roadkill.

That was a long time ago. Victory for the Coalition looked like wishful thinking.

Now victory almost came to be, but not quite. What might the future hold for the two major party leaders?


Taking the counterfactual first: if the Coalition had formed government today, Julia Gillards days as Labor leader would be numbered.

Think back to the aftermath of Mark Lathams 2004 defeat, multiply that and add buckets of blood.

And as with any party just turfed out of office, the ALP would have likely churned through several talented individuals before eventually, a few elections hence, taking government again.

Bill Shorten would surely be in the list and so perhaps would Wayne Swan. You can probably think of a few yourself.

But it didn?t turn out that way. Instead Abbott is opposition leader again. Just.

Will he, as he predicted, become political roadkill?

There are reasons to believe he wont. He did, after all, take his party to almost-victory. It turned out opposing the ETS did the political trick, although not in the ways envisaged.

But we need to consider the brutal reality of modern politics. If this parliament goes a full term, three and a half years is a very long time for a federal opposition leader. None has lasted that long since Kim Beazley 1996-2001, and apart from Beazley none had has led their party to two elections in a row since Gough Whitlam in the 1970s.

In the twenty-first century there are so many opinion polls, so many commentators passing judgement. Abbotts approval ratings, never high, are likely to eventually drop. He will become another opposition leader.

People will note that Gillard defeated him last time. We cant win under him is the inevitable cry.

That?s politics, and no its not fair.

On the Labor side it is difficult to imagine Gillard not remaining prime minister at least until the next poll. Her hungriest leadership rival, Shorten, was culpable in the leadership change fiasco that led to this mess.

Possibly the biggest unknown is: when is the next election? If its early enough, Abbott might live to fight another one after all.

 
Declaration votes: why Labor won the 2pp
  
http://blogs.theaustralian.news.com.au/mumble/index.php/theaustralian/comments/declaration_votes/
Mumble Blog | September 07, 2010 |


Beneath the human drama of the last seventeen days, something happened in the unfolding count of the election?s declaration votes.

It influenced expectations of where those much-hyped national two party preferred numbers will end up.

?Ordinary? votes those cast on the election Saturday, in person at a polling place. They comprise the vast majority. Declaration votes are most of the rest, and they are either absent, prepoll, postal or provisional.

At every election, more people vote by declaration vote because its more convenient. However, for the first time this year most pre-poll votes were treated as ordinary votes, which changed the numbers.

The overall results of the count so far can be found at the AEC here. Note the current two party preferred figures of 49.99 to Labor and 50.01 to Coalition.

As we know, this is not complete, but it is now getting jolly close. However, for the 2pp numbers eight seats are excluded. (See this from last week.)

Eventually those missing eight will be included for the national 2pp count.

You can see total votes by vote type at the bottom of this page.

The first table below has Labors 2pp votes by vote type at the 2007 election.  (Coalitions is always 100 minus Labors.) Next to it is the same, but with this year?s missing eight taken out to give us apples and apples.


 
The bottom right number, 52.70, is Labors 2007 national 2pp.

But with the eight seats extracted, it?s only 52.57 (second table) because those seats overall favour Labor.

Table at left below has the corresponding numbers in 2010 (for counting so far). Once the missing eight are included (and factoring in likely swings) we know that Labor?s 49.99 will rise.


 
And unless something totally unexpected happens in the rest of the count, it will go up to something that rounds to 50.1 percent.

What is odd (to me) is how the declaration votes are favouring the ALP more than expected this time.

In 2007 total declaration votes brought down Labor?s ordinary, Saturday vote by about 0.5 percent. This time it looks to be brought down by about 0.3 percent.

In the last table Ive shown swings by vote type. The ordinary vote swing of 2.82 percent was moderated to 2.58 by declaration votes. Most important in this moderation were postal votes and absent votes. Both of these inclu

Ok, these are tiny numbers. But it meant the ongoing count didnt favour the Coalition as much as expected.

And once the eight seats are included, Labor will have won the two party preferred vote.

If declaration votes had behaved like their 2007 counterparts, the Coalition would have won the 2pp. So for a while it looked at least possible that the Coalition had won the national vote.

But they didnt. Labor did.

So this was the second federal election in history (the first was in 1987) which saw the loser of the national primary vote win the two party preferred.

But with numbers that round to 50 50 it was pretty much a dead heat.

(For the minutia-inclined, see declaration votes issues issued and received.)

[Keith]

Labor clings to power
By online political correspondent Emma Rodgers

ABC NEWS

Independents Tony Windsor and Rob Oakeshott have broken Australia's political deadlock by agreeing to back Julia Gillard in a Labor minority government.

After more than a fortnight of suspense, Mr Oakeshott and Mr Windsor today revealed their intention to give Labor their crucial votes, meaning it has secured the 76 seats needed to rule.

Their decision came hot on the heels of Bob Katter, who earlier confirmed he would back the Coalition, putting it on 74 votes.

Mr Oakeshott's and Mr Windsor's decision to swing behind Labor is a bitter blow for Opposition Leader Tony Abbott, who came closer than anyone expected to winning the election. In recent days he pleaded with the country trio not to forget their conservative roots.

Having spent just three weeks in the job before she called the election, Ms Gillard has narrowly avoided becoming one of the shortest-serving prime ministers in Australian history and instead will lead Labor to govern in the country's 43rd Parliament.

When it sits, the new Parliament will be subjected a major overhaul, as brokered by the independents.

Question Time will be revamped, an independent speaker will be installed and there will be new powers for committees.

Today's decision comes 17 days after the federal election resulted in the loss of a swag of Labor seats in Queensland and New South Wales and left both major parties short of a majority for the first time since World War II.

Mr Oakeshott and Mr Windsor join newly elected independent MP Andrew Wilkie and Greens MP Adam Bandt in pledging their support for a Labor minority government.

Parliament is unlikely to sit for several weeks until the results from the election are finalised by the Australian Electoral Commission and the writs are returned.

[Keith]

Gillard finally has incumbency
  
http://blogs.theaustralian.news.com.au/mumble/index.php/theaustralian/comments/gillard_finally_has_incumbency/

Mumble Blog | September 06, 2010 |


Julia Gillard seems to have belatedly become that which she studiously avoided for weeks after she toppled Kevin Rudd on June 24: the prime minister.

Given her tenuous hold on the actual position, thats quite a feat.

Saturdays Newspoll, the one that had a big plurality of Australians wanting the three independents to back a Labor governments, was a bit of a jaw-dropper.

It was taken over a week ago, before the announcements that locked support from the Greens Adam Bandt and independent Andrew Wilkie behind Labor.


According to the report, 47 percent wanted the independents to support a Labor government as against 39 for the Coalition.

Thats one-sided enough, but there was another question about party support. We dont know what it was, or the precise results, but can get an idea from the cross tab data in the right hand columns of the table and these words from Dennis Shanahan: There is almost unanimous partisan support among voters for the party they supported being given the support of the independents and the minor parties.

Presumably the question went either to who people supported last week or how they voted on election day. [Update: the latter.]

Either way the results indicate a big shift in sentiment towards the Gillard government.

In a post soon after the election, I noted the importance of voters collective view of what they did on election day.

Usually they had either re-elected the government or elected the opposition. And whatever was done is generally seen to have been right.

Back at time of writing, things were looking favourable for Tony Abbott and the Coalition. He was a giant-slayer and Gillards stature was diminished.

But things have moved along since then.

If last weeks Newspoll has Coalition support back down from election days 44 to around 39 percent, and Labors way up, thats a huge turnaround.

But it is also possible that the question went to how people voted on August 21. [Update: it did.] If so, then obviously lots of them are telling porkies by saying they voted Labor instead of the Coalition.

Yet that, as noted in the earlier post, is also what happens after elections: more voters tend to say they voted for the winner than actually did.

Either way, Gillards remaining in the prime ministers office has done wonders for her ownership of that thing she never seemed to want when she first took the job: incumbency.

From the day she got the job she seemed to believe popularity and values would get her through.

Tony Abbott wisely grabbed much of the incumbency - he was the carrier of the Howard government?s economic record - and it did wonders for his persona.

Half way through the campaign, Gillard started taking back as much incumbency as she could. It got her into contention, but not quite across the line.

Unfolding developments since the election - the press conferences, public statements from all players, clips of meetings with independents and Treasury costings fiascos - seem to have finally, belatedly, made her appear to be prime minister.

And Abbott looks more like an opposition leader than he has ever has against Gillard.

Put another way, Gillard seems, strangely, to now be on a honeymoon.

But of course the three independents can rudely end it any minute.

[Keith]

Newspoll: ALP favoured for government 47-39
http://blogs.crikey.com.au/pollbludger/2010/09/04/newspoll-alp-favoured-for-government-47-39/

Saturday, September 4, 2010 12:31 am, by William Bowe
 
http://blogs.crikey.com.au/pollbludger/

The Australian has published a Newspoll survey of 1134 respondents which finds 47 per cent of respondents want the rural independents to back Labor, compared with 39 per cent for the Coalition. There is, predictably enough, almost unanimous partisan support among voters for the party they supported which can only mean primary vote support for the Coalition has taken a solid hit since the election, at which they polled 43.7 per cent. Hopefully more to follow.

UPDATE: We also have another JWS/Telereach robopoll courtesy of the Fairfax broadsheets, this time of 4192 respondents, which has 37 per cent for Labor, 31 per cent for the Coalition and 26 per cent for a new election. However, on voting intention the Coalition leads 44.9 per cent to 35.4 per cent on the primary vote and 50.4-49.6 on two-party preferred, suggesting most of those in favour of a new election are Coalition supporters.

UPDATE 2: Full JWS-Telereach release here, courtesy GhostWhoVotes. I gather the poll targeted 55 seats with post-election margins of less than 6 per cent, and the vote results above extrapolate the swings on to the national results. On Coalition costings, 40 per cent of respondents professed themselves very concerned and 19 per cent somewhat concerned, with only 35 per cent showing little or no concern. People are more concerned about the Greens balance of power in the Senate (49 per cent say bad for Australia against 39 per cent good) than the value of the Labor-Greens alliance (opinion evenly divided). Julia Gillard only just shades Tony Abbott as preferred prime minister, 43 per cent to 41 per cent, and respondents are evenly divided on which party would prove more stable and competent.

[Keith]

Hung parliament in wartime was one of our best

Rodney Cavalier
From: The Australian
September 02, 2010


AUSTRALIANS disconcerted by our hung parliament should take comfort in the hung parliament of 1940: it served Australia well.

Men and women entered politics because of what they believed in. They advocated causes because of conviction. If measures were unpopular, they sought to persuade. They suffered defeats in the cause of what they believed in.

If two weeks seems a long time to form a government in 2010, bear in mind that five weeks passed after the federal election of September 21, 1940, before the incumbent prime minister, Robert Menzies, felt able to advise the governor-general that the situation in the House of Representatives enabled him to resume full executive authority. The two conservative parties had emerged from the election with the same number of seats as the Labor forces. Two independents had won safe conservative seats. The delay was caused in part by the closeness of counting, including the seat of the opposition leader, John Curtin, who was in dire peril on election night and not secure for several days. Menzies invested considerable effort in trying to persuade Labor to join a government of national unity.

Yet from this parliament emerged Australia's greatest prime minister, John Curtin, and this parliament also taught Menzies the lessons of a lifetime. Three prime ministers led three governments during these years of war in a parliament that served a full term of 32 months.

This parliament was also responsible for the passage of two statutes that reshaped Australia's constitutional arrangements and the basic assumptions of our governance. The parliament adopted the Statute of Westminster, the assertion of Australia as a sovereign nation, and legislated for a uniform income tax by which the commonwealth assumed a monopoly over income tax collection. Out of those arrangements, the commonwealth has gained ever more power over the public policy of our nation. Australia in 2010 lives in the shadow of the 1940 parliament more than any other.

The election had returned a diverse group of political forces. The conservative parties, then as now, were in coalition. The United Australia Party held 23 seats. The Country Party won 13. The Australian Labor Party held 32 seats supplemented by the four seats held by Lang Labor in NSW. Although the Langites had voted to bring down the Scullin government nine years earlier, Labor was in the process of healing.

The caretaker period had effectively began before the election, when an aircraft crashed near Canberra, killing three senior ministers - each loyal to Menzies - and the chief of the general staff.

Menzies called the election on August 20. Ten weeks passed before Menzies felt able to resume full executive authority: proof that the basic functions of government tick over because of the loyalty and competence of the public service and our military forces. The great strategic decisions for the war had been made in London, where Australia held a seat in the War Cabinet. While the election took place, the RAF won the Battle of Britain.

The UAP and the coalition were fragmenting as Labor united. The Langites rejoined Labor in March 1941. The undermining of Menzies was ruthless, unceasing. Unlike the strike against Kevin Rudd, it was a public campaign of whispered calumnies. Menzies made one final attempt at a national government. He offered to serve under Labor's leadership. Caucus unanimously rejected the offer. In May Curtin issued a searing demolition of the merits of a national government in the circumstances facing Australia: "Labor has pledged its all. It is giving its all".

The caucus minutes contain another offer from Menzies to serve under Curtin or a third person. Curtin's reply nailed the source of Menzies' difficulties as the "dissensions that have emerged between your government and certain of its nominal supporters". If you are unable to achieve stability, wrote Curtin, you are duty bound to resign. Menzies handed the leadership of the coalition parties to Arthur Fadden, who reigned for 40 days and 40 nights, "like the Flood" he joked. The treachery caused the independents to transfer their support. Curtin had not cultivated them and did not waver as Labor critics castigated him for not wanting to take power.

In October the independents were ready to move. The mechanism to destroy Fadden was an amendment to the budget bills, and for three days the house debated the amendment. Independent Arthur Coles made clear he would support Labor. The other independent, Alexander Wilson declared his hand ahead of Coles's speech. Labor's amendment passed 36-33. Fadden did not seek to deny Curtin office. The governor-general summoned Curtin and invited him to form a government.

Fadden and Menzies served in the Advisory War Council. A relationship that became a friendship developed across party lines. Two governments fell during the course of this parliament. The parliament passed 208 acts. Much of the work of government was pursued via regulations. Curtin endured sniping for the pace of reform and immersion in the war from elements of the ALP Left.

The Senate was hostile to Labor 21-15, yet Labor suffered few defeats and none that mattered. The integrity of Curtin persuaded those who dealt with him that he was a leader of a kind that a nation is blessed with rarely. In 1943, against a divided opposition, Labor recorded its greatest electoral victory. The two independents held their seats comfortably, a detail worth noting given the contemporary fantasy that any of three ex-Nationals independents would be subject to Coalition revanche. Labor in 1940 and 1943 offered a program, a coherent set of beliefs and a distinguishing ideology. By 1943, Labor's leadership demonstrated that it had the people capable of providing good government.

Curtin continued as prime minister until his death in July 1945, a passing that stopped the nation. The totality of the 1943 defeat enabled Menzies to kill off the UAP with a view to forging a new conservative party under the unlikely name of Liberal.

Rodney Cavalier is a former minister in NSW Labor governments. His book, Power Crisis, on the crisis of organisation and belief facing the ALP, will be published in October

[Keith]

Independents paradise
  
http://blogs.theaustralian.news.com.au/mumble/index.php/theaustralian/comments/independents_day/
Mumble Blog | September 03, 2010 |


Many countries routinely experience hung parliaments, but they usually involve minor parties. Australias current situation, with four or five individuals making the numbers, is unusual - and not likely to be stable.

Australia is actually an independents paradise. Compared with other countries, we have had lots of them.


Its mainly because of our voting system, and also the nature of our major parties.

See, for the House of Representatives, this parliamentary library table http://www.aph.gov.au/library/Pubs/cib/1998-99/99cib10.htm#appendix from 1946 to 1998. .

Note from the last column that most were previously involved with a major party.

Proportional representation (which we have in the Senate and Tasmanias House of Assembly) is good for minor parties, but not independents.

First past the post (which we have nowhere) generally favours the major parties full stop (although in both Britain and Canada it has seen the emergence of other geography based ones).

But preferential voting in single member electorates, which we use nationally and in every mainland state and territory, is best for independents. And better than first past the post for minor parties.

An exception is when the parties/voters put the minor party/independent last on the how to vote cards, as happened to Pauline Hanson in 1998. She would have won the Queensland seat of Blair under first past the post.

But thats rare. The big parties usually prefer to see anyone elected other than the other side. And major party voters tend to follow the cards.

Adam Bandt won Melbourne and Andrew Wilkie won Denison thanks to Liberal how to vote cards. The same, probably, for OConnors Tony Crook.

Most independents fall into one of two categories. First is the sitting party MP who is kicked out of or leaves the party. See Kennedys Bob Katter (formerly National) and before him Kalgoorlies Graeme Campbell (Labor).

Then they win an election and forget that if it wasnt for that dreadful party they wouldnt have held the seat in the first place.

The other sort of independent achieves the Herculean task of taking a seat from scratch.

The late Peter Andren was in that category. Unusually for first try at a general election, he won the primary vote in 1996.

Tony Windsor did too, but he had represented the same area in state politics. Rob Oakeshott the same, although he came to parliament in a by-election.

In 2001 Andren became the first federal independent to win more than 50% of the primary vote. Windsor did the same in 2004. Last month he got 62 percent.

Back in 1992, Phil Cleary won Wills at the by-election following Bob Hawkes retirement, where he topped the primary vote (which is more likely to happen at by-elections)

But at the 1993 general poll Cleary relied on Liberal preferences to overtake the Labor candidate.

And of course Andrew Wilkie in Denison last month came third in the primary vote.

Rural electorates are particularly susceptible to electing independents, which probably says something about the types of voters there, the individual MPs involved and the National Party, who would usually otherwise hold those seats.

And like government itself, its the incumbency that matters. Once you clear that hurdle, all the good stuff - authority, respect and gravitas - follows.

[Keith]

The Coalition election campaign included a promise to change the indexation of the DFRDB superannuation payment. This was a very popular promise among the comparatively few DFRDB recipients. Most Australian Veterans and ex Service members are not in receipt of DFRDB. In light of the Treasury costings of the effects of the Coalition position on the budget bottom line which have been released by the Independents the question naturally flows " Does this error in the Coalition costings include the DFRDB promise?".
 
Keith Tennent.
 

THE AGE

Coalition had a less-than-awesome foursome

Peter Martin

September 3, 2010

THE Coalition made four kinds of mistakes in its costings, according to Treasury: the inexcusable, the inexplicable, those resulting from a failure to comprehend the nature of the process, and some understandable errors.

The decision of independent MP Andrew Wilkie to back a Labor government partly on the basis of costings suggests those mistakes have come at a price.

The inexcusable. According to Treasury, the Coalition counted the interest to be saved on debt from selling Medibank Private, but not the dividends it would lose as a result of the sale.

It's a bit like deciding to sell a rental property without noticing you will no longer be able to collect the rent.

Also inexcusable was double-counting savings to be made by increasing the efficiency dividend, effectively double-counting savings already factored into the Pharmaceutical Benefits Scheme, measuring the wrong time period when calculating money to be made from the parental leave levy, and failing to update its savings from abandoning the National Broadband Network to reflect the smaller amount spent. All up, those mistakes are worth $2.7 billion.

The inexplicable. The Coalition announced spending from the Health and Hospitals Fund, the Education Investment Fund, the Building Australia Fund and the Nation Building Fund without apparently checking that there was enough free money in the funds. Treasury and Finance examined what had already been allocated and found that adding on the Coalition's promises would push the funds $3.3 billion into the red. The departments acknowledge that it may be possible to cancel or defer projects to make room for the $3.3 billion but says the Coalition provided no such details.

The nature of the process. The Charter of Budget Honesty sets out guidelines for election costings, in order to make sure they are done on the same basis. One forbids the counting of proceeds from expected ''second-round effects'', such as a saving on the dole from a jobs program. The Coalition counted such an effect because it says the National Centre for Economic Modelling told it its program would take 51,000 people off the dole. Yet NATSEM said yesterday it had had no communication with the Coalition and would have only worked for it indirectly as part of a contract with the Parliamentary Library.

All up, these mistakes are worth $3.5 billion.

And the understandable. The Coalition used an interest rate of 5.5 per cent in calculating savings on debt repayments. Treasury says it should have used 4.9 per cent, the same as was used in the pre-election outlook. But Treasury never actually included the figure in the outlook. Without a lot of digging, the Coalition wouldn't have found it out. Unless, perhaps it took Treasury into its confidence early, as it might now believe it should have.

[Keith]

 
Wilkie backs Gillard government
ABC NEWS

Andrew Wilkie says a future Gillard government will have his vote on matters of supply. (AAP: Joe Castro)

Independent MP Andrew Wilkie has announced he will back a Labor minority government.

His decision means Labor has 74 definite seats, two short of the majority needed to secure power.

The Coalition is at 73 seats if West Australian Nationals MP Tony Crook is included.

Mr Wilkie's decision comes as the other three independent MPs are locked in meetings today while they consider who they will back.

Rob Oakeshott, Tony Windsor and Bob Katter are today locked in back-to-back meetings in Canberra with Labor and Coalition figures as they work out which party to back in a minority government.

The trio have also had lunch with mining magnate Andrew "Twiggy" Forrest, who is strenuously opposed to Labor's mining tax.

Mr Oakeshott says he is likely to use the weekend to come to a final position.

"I've been quite open about more than likely pulling something together over the weekend," he said.

"I think we're all looking to hopefully at the latest be home by Monday or Tuesday, but there are some realities in regards to funerals of returning soldiers from Afghanistan, so tomorrow is going to be a difficult day for negotiations to take place."

Mr Oakeshott also wants a document on parliamentary reform to be finalised by tomorrow before he makes a final decision.

Negotiations continue today after the independents released Treasury analysis that showed a $7 billion to $11 billion shortfall in the Coalition's election policy costings.

Mr Oakeshott says Treasury's advice will influence his decision.

"I'm a believer in Ken Henry," he said.

Mr Windsor says he will also factor the Treasury advice into his decision.

"Treasury have their way of doing it. They've come up with this number of between $7 billion and $11 billion."

"We can only take their word for it."

But Opposition treasury spokesman Joe Hockey says he stands by the costings.

"The vast majority of our policies were ticked off," he said.

"We submitted more than 300 policies totalling in excess of $90 billion. The number of policies is nearly three times what Labor submitted."
 

[Keith]

The Coalition election campaign included a promise to change the indexation of the DFRDB superannuation payment. This was a very popular promise among the comparatively few DFRDB recipients. Most Australians Veterans and ex Service members are not in receipt of DFRDB. In light of the Treasury costings of the effects of the Coalition position on the budget bottom line which have been released by the Independents the question naturally flows " Does this error in the Coalition costings include the DFRDB promise?".
 
Keith Tennent.
 
$10b Treasury blow to Opposition Leader Tony Abbott

Phillip Hudson
From: Herald Sun
September 01, 2010


Independent MP for New England Tony Windsor has labelled the Coaltion's alleged costing error as a $10b 'black hole'. Picture: Alan Pryke Source: The Australian

TONY Abbott's budget credibility was under fire last night with Treasury saying there was an error of up to $10.6 billion in his election promises.

Tony Windsor, one of the three independents who asked for the costings, last night described it as ``a black hole''.

But Mr Abbott stood by his election costings and insisted he would improve the Budget bottom-line by more than $11 billion.

The Treasury documents released at 10pm by the independents found the Coalition would improve the Budget bottom line by $863 million over the next four years - well below the $11.5 billion improvement predicted by the Liberals.

The Liberals would deliver a Budget bottom line that was eight times better than Labor, but only a fraction of what they had promised.

Treasury's five-page report on the Coalition's costings suggested the bottom-line could rise from $863 million to $4.5 billion if other assumptions were made. Mr Abbott said those other assumptions could be ``responsibly achieved through prudent economic management''.

Treasury said Labor would improve the bottom-line by $106 million - double its prediction of $44 million.

The Coalition had refused to submit its costings to the Treasury during the election campaign and Mr Windsor last night said ``I think we understand now why he wasn't interested in releasing the numbers''.

``(It's) what I call a black hole anyway of probably somewhere between seven and 11 billion in terms of difference between what the Coalition said their costings were and what the Treasurer would suggest in terms of an incoming government s to their bottom line,'' Mr Windsor told the ABC's Lateline program.

He said the issue would be ``in the mix'' in deciding whether to support Mr Abbott or Julia Gillard for Prime Minister.

He said the independents were trying to decide who to trust and would demand answers from shadow ministers during meetings scheduled for today.

Mr Windsor said Treasury discovered the Coalition planned to cut $3.3 billion worth of spending but did not tell anyone during the campaign.

Mr Windsor said Treasury as the ``independent umpire'' had assessed the promises of both applicants for the job of PM.

Mr Abbott said Treasury and the Department of Finance had confirmed that 95 to 96 per cent of Coalition policy costings were correct, covering 304 decisions worth $90 billion.

``The Coalition maintains that our election policies will deliver a Budget bottom line that is improved by more than $11 billion over the forward estimates,'' he said.

He said under Treasury's ``worst case scenario'' the Coalition's bottom line would be $7 billion better than Labor.



The release of the documents caught both Labor and the Liberals by surprise and came after Mr Windsor, Bob Katter and Rob Oakeshott met with Treasury officials in the Cabinet room.

The briefing was part of their demand to be better informed about whether to choose Mr Abbott or Julia Gillard as PM.

A spokesman for Treasurer Wayne Swan said: ``This huge costings blackhole finally proves why Mr Abbott and Joe Hockey abandoned Peter Costello's charter of budget honesty.

This costings shambles is damning evidence of the risk the Liberals pose to the budget and to the economy.''



Earlier,  Mr Swan had boasted that other world leaders ``would kill'' to have the economic report card delivered yesterday for the Australian economy.

The Gillard Government's economic credentials were boosted by the Bureau of Statistics saying the economy posted its best quarterly growth for three years of 1.2 per cent to be humming at an annual rate of 3.3 per cent.

CommSec economist Savanth Sebastian said the economy had ``hit the sweet spot'' and was one of the strongest economies in the advanced world.

``While other countries are still attempting to artificially stimulate their economy, Australia has clearly moved into third gear,'' Mr Sebastian said.

But he said without the mining boom in WA, national growth would be about 2.5 per cent.

Mr Swan said the figures were outstanding and the mining boom was supported by household spending, building investment, strong exports and more jobs.

``It's a strong outcome when you consider the shaky conditions that exist in countries like the United States and Europe,'' Mr Swan said.
 
``Prime Ministers elsewhere would kill for a set of outcomes such as these.''

Economists said with inflation under control, the Reserve Bank was unlikely to consider increasing interest rates before its November meeting on Melbourne Cup Day.

Mr Swan said business plans to inject $123 billion into investment in the year ahead would be a ``massive'' boost.

He said the figures were ``an endorsement of what the Government has done over recent years to support our economy'' and why Labor should stay in power.

Mr Abbott said the Howard Government had set up the good result.

``I think that the strength of the Australian economy is fundamentally due to the reforms of previous governments, not to the spending spree of the current government,'' Mr Abbott said.

Full report: Coalition Treasury costings
http://resources.news.com.au/files/2010/09/02/1225913/045634-coalition-treasury-costings.pdf

[Keith]

August 31, 2010
Who Won the National 2-Party Preferred Vote?

http://blogs.abc.net.au/antonygreen/2010/08/who-won-the-national-2-party-preferred-vote.html

Answer, we don't know and we won't know for several weeks.

But one thing I do know is that the figure currently displayed on the front page of the Australian Electoral Commission's (AEC's) Virtual Tally Room is NOT the national 2-party preferred vote.

The vote displayed on election night was not the national 2-party preferred vote, it was not the national 2-party preferred vote last week while Labor was leading, and after yesterday's 're-calibration' of the numbers, it is still not the national 2-party preferred total.

What is now displayed on the AEC's website is a total of the 2-party preferred vote in the 142 electorates that have finished as 2-party contests. It excludes the eight electorates that did not.

That the 2-party preferred total displayed on the AEC's website is meaningless can be seen if you tally the members elected in these 142 electorates. You get Coalition 72, Labor 70. Missing are four Independents, a Green, a WA National and two Labor MPs.

The reality of forming government in the newly elected House of Representatives depends on those eight elected members, but the AEC's total of 2-party preferred vote currently excludes all votes cast in these eight electorates, the eight electorates whose elected members will determine who forms government.

Which illustrates why the AEC's incomplete 2-party preferred vote is pointless.

So what's going on here? Why is the AEC publishing an incomplete 2-party preferred vote?

The answer is that the AEC is always under pressure to produce a 2-party preferred vote on election night, and it has unwisely given in to providing such a number, even though AEC does not have the data available to produce such a number.
Let me make clear I am not attacking the AEC here. I am having a go at unrealistic demands being made on the AEC for data, and the AEC having been unwise enough to attempt to mollify demands rather than simply state it cannot provide an accurate 2-party preferred count this soon after an election.

The national 2-party preferred vote is a sidelight to the real job of the Electoral Commission, which is to return the writs stating the names of members elected to each electoral division. That is the legislated job of the Electoral Commission.

To determine the winning member, the AEC tallies the votes and distributes preferences. It does this under the watchful eyes of scrutineers appointed by the various candidates and parties. It must conduct the count with a thoroughness capable of withstanding any court challenge after the election.

After this count is completed and writs returned, the AEC does a second 2-party preferred count in all electoral division that did not finish as 2-party contests. However, this count has nothing to do with electing a member for each seat, and is done entirely for information purposes.

At the 2010 election, in 142 of the 150 electoral division, the final two candidates in the distribution of preferences represent Labor and the Coalition. In these divisions, the count of preferences can also be used as a 2-party preferred total.

It is the current totals in these 142 divisions that have been accumulated to provide the totals on the front page of the AEC's Virtual Tally Room.

In the other eight electorates, the final two candidates do not represent the Labor and the Coalition.

Three seats are contests between Labor and the Greens (Batman, Grayndler, Melbourne) and one between Labor and an Independent (Denison). Three are contests between the National Party and Independents (Kennedy, Lyne, New England ) and one between the Liberals and the WA Nationals (O'Connor).

At some stage after the writs have been returned, these eight districts will be re-counted to provide a 2-party preferred vote. At that stage we will know the national 2-party preferred vote.

As a guide to what the final result might be, let me use the 2007 election result when Labor recorded 52.70% of the national two-party preferred. If you excluded the results of the eight 2-candidate contests for 2010, the Labor 2-party preferred percentage in the remaining 142 districts is reduced to 52.57%.

In other words, the total Labor 2-party preferred percentage in the 142 electorates was lower than the national 2-party preferred vote and is also likely to be lower than the national figure in 2010.

Which is why anyone arguing that the AEC's current Labor 2-party preferred vote of 49.99% is significant is wrong. It is likely that Labor's current national 2-party preferred percentage is higher than this, but we won't know for several weeks.

The result could eventually be so close that whether the AEC chooses to re-count the seat of O'COnnor for 2-party preferred between Labor and Liberal or Labor and National could have an impact on who wins the national 2-party preferred vote.

Anyway, as we know from constitutional law, stable government is determined by the numbers on the floor of the House mof Representatives, not by the votes at the election.

In 1990 the Hawke Labor government was re-elected with a majority of seats having won only 49.9% of the national 2-party preferred vote. In 1998 the Howard Coalition government was re-elected in majority with only 49.0% of the 2-party preferred vote. At this stage the Gillard government looks likely to record a higher 2-party preferred vote than Bob Hawke in 1990, and is certain to have a higher 2-party preferred vote than John Howard in 1998.

Earlier this year the Rann Labor government in South Australia was returned with a majority of seats in the House of Assembly, but only 48.4% of the two-party preferred vote.

On the same day in Tasmania, the Bartlett Labor government lost its majority. Premier Bartlett had promised before the election that if he finished in minority with fewer seats than the Liberal Party, or with equal seats but fewer votes, he would resign his commission as Premier.

The Labor and Liberal Parties finished equal with 10 members and the Liberal Party recorded more votes than Labor. Premier Bartlett advised the Governor that Liberal Leader Will Hodgman should be appointed the new Premier.

Constitutional experts warned that Bartlett had no right to offer such advice to the Governor and in the end the Governor declined to accept the advice, instead re-commissioning Bartlett as Premier pending the first sitting of the House. Bartlett subsequently came to an agreement with the Greens and formed a Coalition government.

Tasmanian Governor Peter Underwood published the reasons for his decision and critically made reference to the issue of the vote received by each party. As Governor Underwood put it:

"In view of certain public statements made by some candidates in the lead up to the election I express my view that the commissioning of a person to form a government is entirely the Governors prerogative and it is not within the gift of any political leader to hand over, or cede to another political leader the right to form a government, whatever the result of the election. For the same reason it is also appropriate to express my view that the total number of votes received by the elected members of a political party is constitutionally irrelevant to the issue of who should be commissioned to form a government."

If you look back at the recent examples of hung parliaments, the only Independent to use the 2-party preferred result in deciding who to back was Queensland Independent Liz Cunningham in 1996. After Labor lost the Mundingburra by-election in February 1996, the Legislative Assembly was tied 44 Labor, 44 Coalition, with Cunningham holding the balance of power. Despite holding the traditionally safe Labor seat of Gladstone, Cunningham chose to back the formation of a Coalition government because of the Coalition majority of the 2-party preferred at the 1995 state election.

Despite putting a Labor government out office, Cunningham has been returned by the traditional Labor voters of Gladstone at every subsequent state election.

There have been nine cases of a hung state parliament since 1989. These were Tasmanian 1989, 1996 and 2010, New South Wales 1991, Victoria 1999, Queensland 1996 and 1998, South Australia 2002 and Western Australia 2008.

With the exception of Liz Cunningham in 1996, the Independents made their choice based on the likelihood of stable government rather than the vote. Most interestingly, the Rann Labor government was formed after the 2002 state election when Independent Conservative Peter Lewis chose to back the party with the lower 2-party preferred vote but greater likelihood of forming stable government.

So while yesterday's change to the AEC's 2-party preferred vote has excited comment, two things need to be remembered.

First, the AEC's currently displayed 2-party preferred vote is currently wrong for the reasons I've explained.

Second, the formation of government depends on the numbers in parliament. The first preference or 2-party preferred vote might provide a talking point, but both are constitutionally irrelevant to the formation of government.

[Keith]

Moral majority
http://blogs.crikey.com.au/pollbludger/
 
Tuesday, August 31, 2010 5:47 am, by William Bowe

Yesterday, the Australian Electoral Commission performed an act which in a rational world would have excited no interest. Since last weekend the commission has featured a national two party preferred result on the front page of its Virtual Tally Room, which has assumed tremendous psychological interest as Labors margin has steadily eroded from 0.6 per cent to 0.4 per cent. However, the tally had a flaw which biased it in Labors favour: there were no Labor-versus-Coalition figures available from strongly conservative Kennedy, Lyne, New England or OConnor, where the notional two-candidate preferred counts conducted on election night involved independents. This was only balanced out by left-wing Melbourne, where Labor and the Greens were correctly identified as the front-running candidates for the notional count. For whatever reason, the AEC decided yesterday to level the playing field by excluding seats where the notional preference count candidates had been changed since election night, which in each case meant left-wing seats where the Liberals had finished third to the Greens (Batman and Grayndler) or Andrew Wilkie (Denison). The result was an instant 0.4 per cent drop in Labors score, reducing them to a minuscule lead that was soon rubbed out by further late counting.

In fact, very little actually changed in yesterdays counting, which saw a continuation of the slow decline in the Labor total that is the usual pattern of late counting. The media, regrettably, has almost entirely dropped the ball on this point. Mark Simkin of the ABC last night reported that Labors lead had been eradicated by the latest counting, as opposed to an essentially meaningless administrative decision. Lateline too informed us that Labors two-party vote had collapsed, and Leigh Sales opening question to Julie Bishop on Lateline was essentially an invitation to gloat about the fact. Most newspaper accounts eventually get around to acknowledging the entirely artificial nature of the 50,000-vote reversal in Labors fortunes, but only after reporting in breathless tones on the removal of votes that will eventually be put back in.

The reality is that nobody knew who had the lead on the two-party vote yesterday morning, and nothing happened in the day to make anybody any the wiser. The Prime Minister equally had no idea on election night when she made her ill-advised claim to the two-party majority mantle. Only when all seats have reported Labor-versus-Coalition counts, which is probably still a few weeks away, will we be able to say for sure. The best we can do at present is to construct a projection based on the votes counted and our best assumptions as to how the gaps in the vote count data will be filled when all the figures are in.

At present we have completed ordinary polling day totals for all electorates and advanced counts of postal votes in most cases, but there has been no progress yet on absent or pre-poll votes in roughly half. Where counting of any of these three categories has been conducted, I have projected the party results on to the expected total of such votes (derived from the declaration vote scrutiny progress for absent and pre-poll votes, and from the number of applications for postal votes discounted by 16 per cent as per experience from 2007). Where no counting of a particular category has been conducted, I have compared the parties? 2007 vote share in that category with their ordinary vote share, and applied that difference to the ordinary vote from this election. For example, the 2007 Liberal two-party vote in Canberra was 7.19 per cent higher than their ordinary vote share, so their 40.54 per cent ordinary vote at the current election has been used to project an absent vote share of 47.73 per cent.

For Batman, Grayndler and Denison, I have used the figures from the two-party Labor-versus-Liberal counts that were conducted in these seats from ordinary votes on election night, calculated the swing against the ordinary vote in 2007 and projected it over the expected absent, pre-poll and postal totals. For Melbourne, New England and Kennedy, where no Labor-versus-Coalition figures are available, I have used preference shares derived from the Labor-versus-Coalition counts from the 2007 election to determine the swing on ordinary votes, and projected that swing through the other categories. Its with Lyne and OConnor that things get crude, as we have no case study of how Rob Oakeshotts or Wilson Tuckeys preferences split between Labor and Nationals candidates. For O?Connor, which has at least been a Labor-Liberal-Nationals contest at successive elections, I have crudely arrived at a 7.9 per cent swing against Labor derived from the primary vote swing plus moderated by a 70 per cent share of the swing in favour of the Greens. The best I could think to do for Lyne was average the two-party swings from the neighbouring electorates, producing a 5.14 per cent swing against Labor.

Plug all that in and heres what you get:

Labor 6,313,736 (50.02 per cent)
Coalition 6,307,924 (49.98 per cent)

In other news, Andrew Wilkie says the two-party vote total is not relevant in determining which party he will back. Good for him.

[Keith]

The missing party in Australian politics
Tim Dean

Amidst all the huff over the appalling state of politics in this country of late, and blame-slinging over the thoroughly uninspiring campaigns mounted by the Liberal and Labor parties, there's a particularly salient point that risks being missed.

This was a 20th century election campaign that happened to be held in the 21st century.

I'd suggest that one key reason why neither major party was able to resonate with a significant proportion of voters is because they're both resoundingly 20th century political parties. Political anachronisms, both.

One is a reformed socialist party that is still dominated by unions that no longer play a significant role in most workers' lives (even the term "worker" seems ill suited to describe many of today's highly-skilled professionals).

The other is a socially conservative party that embraces the free market but (particularly under the current leadership) is overtly guided by a religious values.

They're both relics of a bygone age. And a growing number of Australians, particularly those under 40, simply don't identify with the core values of either party. That leaves these voters torn between choosing one obsolete political ideology or another, and leaves the parties looking disingenuous when they try to appeal to them.

That's why what this country needs is a new political party. A 21st century political party. One that is in step with post-baby boomer values. One that can better represent the outlook of the growing number of people who have grown up in a world without unions and without religion.

But what might such a party look like? Well, we've already seen two tantalising hints: Kevin Rudd's Labor; and Malcolm Turnbull's Liberals. Yet, it was the very redefinition of values that these two leaders represented to their parties that so antagonised the lumbering dogmatists who operate the party machinery, and ultimately caused them to be turfed.

Rudd was never a staunch unionist or a factional player. His faction, so they said, was Newspoll. His very presence at the top weakened the creaky union-infected Labor machinery - a phenomenon only exacerbated by his unfortunate penchant for centralising power around his office.

Yet the party needed Rudd, at least to oust Howard. And Rudd did capture the affection of the nation, not because he embodied old-school Labor values, but because he represented a modern and sensible fusion of free market economics with the safety net of social democracy.

Turnbull was also a victim of his own progressiveness, although ironically it was his turning back the clock to the original small "l" liberal roots of his party that put the social and religious conservatives offside.

In fact, the Liberal party has always been something of an oddity on the political landscape. It was founded as a centre-right party, opposing the socialism of the left, but was not intended explicitly as a "conservative" party. But when you're in a two-party world, and the God-hating communists are in one party, the social and religious conservatives had only one place to go: Liberal. As such, the party - particularly under Howard - became a more old-school conservative party.

And it was into this environ that Turnbull brought his economically liberal, socially progressive politics. (Ask a few progressive Labor voters what they thought of Turnbull, and you're likely to hear a few coy admissions that he was actually quite admired.) But, again, the Liberal party machinery was too entrenched in its conservative funk.

Clearly, the Labor and Liberal parties are not equipped to transition into the new ideological landscape of the 21st century. Their machinery is too entrenched, too rusted in place. They have little hope of redefining their values to fit with the growing number of voters who are both in favour of economic liberalism as well as being socially progressive. Instead, they defy their core values by playing to the middle, but do so in a dissonant and disingenuous way.

My vote - and I suspect the votes of many others - would lie with a new party, headed by the likes of Turnbull or Rudd (although not necessarily them), that is truly of the 21st century. This would be a party that embraces the market, although believes in regulation to prevent exploitation by employers and big business. It would believe in sustainability and climate change, yet would encourage innovation and enterprise to solve these problems. It would be tolerant of cultural diversity, comfortable with same-sex marriage and strongly secular. It would believe that the government plays a crucial role in society, and that we need to pay sufficient tax for it to execute that role effectively, but government should be only as big as necessary and as small as possible. Moreover, the party wouldn't be tied to unions or the church.

Yet we live in a two-party system, not a three-party one. So I'd suspect that such a party would draw adherents from both Labor and Liberal, and we would settle in a new equilibrium with a truly socially conservative (and still inaptly named) Liberal party, with the Greens to capture the far-left vote.

Really, who's to say exactly what our political landscape would look like after such a shift. But all I know is that if there's been any time in the last 30 years that would be conducive to a new force in Australian politics - a force that might reinvigorate voters, that could present a vision of the future that actually accords with many Australians' values - now is that time. I just wonder if anyone will step up?

Tim Dean is a science journalist and philosophy PhD student.

[Keith]

ABC NEWS
Wilkie wants troops out of Afghanistan
By Sarah Collerton
 
Mr Wilkie says politicians need to be honest about the reasons Australia is still in Afghanistan. (ABC News: Simon Frazer)

Incoming independent MP Andrew Wilkie has described the justification for the war in Afghanistan as "one of the great lies of the election campaign".

Mr Wilkie has claimed victory in the Tasmanian seat of Denison, but he will wait a few more days before declaring who he will support in a hung parliament.

He met Prime Minister Julia Gillard in Melbourne yesterday and presented her with a list of 20 issues that are important to him.

While his stance on the Afghanistan war is not part of that list, Mr Wilkie has made it clear he is against troops staying there.

"The war in Afghanistan and what is being said by the Coalition and the Labor Party is one of the great lies of this election campaign," he said.

"Both Labor Party members and Coalition members continue to perpetuate this nonsense, that we're only there to fight terrorists to prevent them coming to Australia, to prevent them committing terrorist attacks here."

He says politicians need to be honest about the reasons Australia is still in Afghanistan.

"They at the moment are trying to implement a policy put in place by, I think, incompetent politicians and this continuing lie about why we are there," he said.

"Let's be honest: let's say we're there to help the people of Afghanistan and to bolster our bilateral relationship with the US."

He says he did originally support the invasion in November 2001 and he still backs Australian soldiers "100 per cent", but there is no need to stay.

"I don't know the solution from here. If we stay people will die, if we go people will die," he said.

"But I do know peace will only come to Afghanistan when foreign troops are out and I think they should get out as soon as possible."

Two more soldiers died last week in Afghanistan, taking the total number of Australian troops killed in Afghanistan since 2001 to 21.


Abbott's apology

Mr Wilkie also says Mr Abbott has apologised on behalf of the Coalition for his treatment when he was a whistleblower over the Iraq war in 2003.

Mr Wilkie, who was working as a government intelligence analyst, said there was no intelligence to suggest Saddam Hussein had weapons of mass destruction and resigned.

"I was heartened by the fact that Tony Abbott, the other day in a telephone conversation... he did apologise on behalf of the Coalition for the way I was treated," Mr Wilkie said.

"I suppose he had to do that but I'll assume it was genuine."

Mr Wilkie is meeting Mr Abbott in Canberra tomorrow.

His list of 20 concerns includes a $20 million assistance package for Tasmanian forest contractors, concerns over the fate of the Royal Hobart Hospital and a betting limit on poker machines.

[Keith]

Leave the Independents alone. They will make their decisions when they have the facts they need. Mr Abbott put on one of the biggest fronts I have ever seen a politician do during a campaign. The truth is Tony Abbott is the same old Tony Abbott who will always be aggressive and confrontational and indeed quite silly and immature. Tony Abbott wants power for him alone and on his terms. He is not a team player.
 
Get off your high horse those who don't like me confronting Tony Abbott. And you can blame me. I didn't vote for either major party.
 
Keith Tennent.
 
Alby Schultz tirade against Independents hits Tony Abbott's prospects of prime ministership
Simon Kearney and Linda Silmalis

From: The Sunday Mail (Qld)
August 29, 2010

A LIBERAL MP has threatened one of the men who will determine the next government, unleashing a torrent of abuse and accusing the Independents of being arrogant, naive and "holding the nation to ransom".

In an outburst that will undermine Tony Abbott's chances of forming a stable coalition government, Goulburn-based Liberal Alby Schultz said the three rural Independents were acting like a law unto themselves.

Mr Schultz rang two of the Independents, telling them to pull their heads in and support the Coalition.

One of the calls, to Tony Windsor, was so threatening Mr Abbott had to later apologise to the Tamworth-based Independent.

Further adding to the problems facing Mr Abbott's bid to become prime minister, one of the other likely kingmakers, the Port Macquarie-based Rob Oakeshott, has accused National Party Leader Warren Truss of running a smear campaign against him.

And Mr Oakeshott has issued a stinging ultimatum to Mr Abbott: "It's time to step up. Does he want to be PM or not?"

Mr Oakeshott told The Sunday Mail he is conservatively minded, but will warn Mr Abbott that if he doesn't rein in his MPs there will be no deal.

"The question that I will put to Tony Abbott next week is whether he is in control of his troops," Mr Oakeshott said.

"If this is what it's going to be like for the next three years, then forget it."

Mr Schultz's attack, which he admitted would not please his colleagues, comes after Nationals Senate Leader Barnaby Joyce had a go at Mr Windsor on election night.

"I don't have a problem with them extracting some benefits for their electorates, but to hold the rest of the country to ransom simply because they've got a lot of power is wrong," Mr Schultz said.

"They've lost their way. They're getting lost in their own self-importance.

"They are strutting the stage with an arrogance I can't believe."

The blue between the conservative parties and the conservative Independents comes as the first Aborigine to be elected to the House of Representatives revealed he had received hate mail from people who said they would not have voted for him if they knew he was black.

Ken Wyatt, 58, said his near-certain triumph in WA's ultra-marginal seat of Hasluck had been tarnished by a racist backlash.

The upset Liberal candidate said his office had received at least 50 emails and telephone calls from angry voters, accusing him of being interested only in indigenous issues

[Keith]

Though this is the final count, a challenge has been lodged in the SA seat of Boothby where irregularities were noted by Labor and Liberal scrutineers with an AEC member's handling of the ballots.
 
Keith Tennent
 
Gambaro grabs Brisbane for the Coalition
ABC NEWS

ABC election analyst Antony Green says the Coalition has snatched Brisbane, the final seat to be called in the federal election.

Liberal candidate Teresa Gambaro is ahead of Labor's Arch Bevis by more than 800 votes.

Mr Bevis has held the inner-city seat since 1990.

The win takes the Coalition's final seat tally to 73 seats, compared with Labor's 72.

But the Coalition figure includes West Australian Nationals MP Tony Crook, who wants to be considered an independent.

Prime Minister Julia Gillard says Mr Crook has pointed out that he should not be counted with the Coalition.

"I do note, and these are his words and not mine, that he said today in every news report and press report we see 'my number is being allocated in with the Coalition and it shouldn't be'," she said.

"He is an independent and should be treated as such."

Three incumbent independent MPs - Tony Windsor, Rob Oakeshott and Bob Katter - have together put a set of demands to the major parties as they consider which side to support.

But Greens MP Adam Bandt has indicated he will side with Labor.

However, the independent MP for the Hobart seat of Denison, Andrew Wilkie, has kept his distance from the other independents.

He is meeting Ms Gillard on Saturday and Opposition Leader Tony Abbott on Monday.

[Keith]

Abbott doesn't want to reach a deal, he wants another election
Lenore Taylor
August 27, 2010

SMH

Tony Abbott is hedging his bets for another election.

The Opposition Leader is an uber-competitor - not the type to baulk at the finish line.

But there is a view in parts of the Coalition - depending on how the final seats fall - that it might be in the interests of conservative politics to play a longer game, either by manoeuvring to return to the polls immediately or allowing Julia Gillard to form a shaky minority government with ''the extreme Greens'' and the ''flaky'' independents that would fall apart, preferably just in time for the federal poll re-run to get caught up in next year's NSW state election Labor bloodbath.

Another election was also being pushed by some commentators yesterday who were writing off the possibility of a minority government before the final seat count was even determined and before the independents had even begun negotiating.

It was with an eye to the possibility of another election that Abbott refused to submit his costings to the Treasury - a reasonable request from the independents who will be asked to guarantee supply. Abbott's excuses were not convincing.

On Wednesday he said it was because the Treasury was incapable of costing opposition policies - even though it would presumably have been capable of costing them if that opposition had become a government and even though - as the independents put to him - he could provide the Treasury with all his own workings and assumptions, the absence of which is something that puts oppositions at a disadvantage during the election campaign costings procedure.

By yesterday the Coalition was saying that a leak to the Herald left them worried that the Treasury would ''tamper with'' their assumptions. It's strange that this one leak has apparently, in the Coalition's view, tainted an entire central agency of the bureaucracy, while the flood of leaks to the Coalition from their ''mole'' Godwin Grech apparently did not.

The Coalition is really worried that Treasury will come up with a different - bigger - answer to what its policies will cost, which would be a big disadvantage when it came to re-running the ''debt and deficit'' argument in another election campaign.

It remains a real possibility that stable minority government will be out of reach for either side. The public statements from the Queensland independent Bob Katter indicating different views from the other independents and from each of the major parties makes it hard to imagine a government that was absolutely dependent on his vote.

But the way the seats have fallen, it is most likely that a government formed by either side would require three or four of the five crossbench votes in the lower house.

Since one of them is a Green, that makes Abbott's job harder, but by no means impossible.

Surely it's worth having a shot at working with what the people decided before thinking about going back to the polls in search of a more favourable outcome.

[Keith]

From: Keith Tennent
To: RSL Nat President ; President Capricornia & Rockhampton Region RSL Sub Branch ; Defence Force Welfare Assoc ; Veterans Email List ; ESO List
Cc: Federal Parliamentary List ; Media List
Sent: Thursday, August 26, 2010 2:11 PM
Subject: Independents round on Abbott in costings row


Veterans, ex Service members and War widows have a stake in the figures from both sides. We need to see if all figures add up. Surely leaks are one thing.Remember Godwin Gresch? Implying that Treasury cannot be trusted to impartially do it's job is extraordinary. 

Keith Tennent.

ABC NEWS

Independents round on Abbott in costings row
By online political correspondent Emma Rodgers
 
'Not a good start': The independents have criticised Tony Abbott for not complying with one of their key demands. (AAP: Mark Graham)

Key independent MPs have described Tony Abbott's refusal to hand his policies over to Treasury for scrutiny as "extraordinary" and "silly".

Rob Oakeshott, Tony Windsor and Bob Katter are expected to hold the balance of power in a hung parliament and yesterday gave a list of demands to Mr Abbott and caretaker Prime Minister Julia Gillard.

Among another requests, they want the Coalition's policies to be examined by Treasury - a key demand which has already been rejected by Mr Abbott.

Member for New England Tony Windsor says Mr Abbott has been "silly".

"It's not a good start," he said. "I can't see why an independent authority such as Treasury can't be trusted."

Speaking from Townsville, Member for Kennedy Bob Katter said Mr Abbott's decision was "extraordinary".

"Obviously every person in Australia at the present moment believes that he's got something to hide," he said.

"He's been very ill advised to take this stand."

During the election campaign the Opposition refused to submit its policies for costing because a Treasury document which revealed a shortfall in one of its polices was leaked to the media.

Mr Abbott has described the leak as "utter political bastardry".

He has also accused Ms Gillard of trashing the Westminster system by agreeing to make changes to caretaker conventions, if needed, to accommodate the requests of the independents.

"This is a desperate Government further debasing our polity in a desperate attempt to hang onto power," he said.

Both Labor and the Coalition now hold 71 seats, with three still hanging on a knife edge.

Ms Gillard is expected to hold talks in Melbourne this Saturday with the likely fourth Independent, Andrew Wilkie, who is set to pick up the Tasmanian seat of Denison.

[Keith]

Please read the requests the independents have asked of both sides. Yet to fit into the equation is Mr Wilkie, who looks like being elected an Independent member from Tasmania. Wilkie is formerly a 6 RAR Platoon Commander and Adjutant. If you look at the seats being counted for the Coalition in the media the list includes Mr Crook http://www.abc.net.au/news/stories/2010/08/23/2991170.htm  Crook has made it clear he will not be part of the Coalition. Therefore at this stage the Labor Party has 71 seats, the Coalition 70 and three seats are in doubt.
 
Please click here to read the requests by the three elected Independents http://resources.news.com.au/files/2010/08/25/1225910/039916-request-for-info.pdf

Keith
 
Abbott refuses key demand

Michelle Grattan

August 26, 2010

THE AGE

Independents demand economy briefing

The three federal Independent MPs have told both Julia Gillard and Tony Abbott to come clean on the real cost of their election promises.

TONY Abbott has baulked at one of the key demands of the regional independent MPs who are expected to select the next prime minister, refusing to submit opposition election policies for costing by Treasury and the Department of Finance.

But Mr Abbott and Julia Gillard have both bowed to a demand that they serve a full parliamentary term - a move that would entrench the power of the independents for three years under either a Coalition or a Labor minority government.

Mr Abbott has also put forward the radical idea of making Labor's existing parliamentary Speaker, Harry Jenkins, an independent speaker on the British model, as part of an extensive overhaul of Parliament.

Four days after the federal election that delivered Australia its first hung Parliament in 70 years, the kingmaking independents - Rob Oakeshott, Tony Windsor and Bob Katter - put seven detailed requests in letters to Ms Gillard and Mr Abbott as part of their quest to determine who should govern. Mostly, their wishes were met.

Opposing the independents' call for official costing of his policies, Mr Abbott said that, instead, he would make all shadow ministers available to discuss policies, as well as the accounting firm WHK Howarth, which the Coalition used during the election campaign.

Ms Gillard agreed in principle to provide official costings of election promises. This requires a change to the ''caretaker'' convention - under which a government does not make substantive decisions, and Ms Gillard said she had sought advice about this. She also urged Mr Abbott to support the change.

Mr Abbott said: ''The public service is not in the same position vis-a-vis opposition policies to provide advice and insight as it is to provide advice and insight on government policies.''

He said he would like to see the advice Ms Gillard was obtaining on the caretaker convention. ''When I see that advice, then I'll come to a conclusion.''

The independents said they wanted ''a written commitment that whoever forms majority government will commit to a full three-year term, and for an explanation in writing in this same letter as to how this commitment to a full term will be fulfilled, either by enabling legislation or other means''.

They also sought a timetable and plan for reform of political donations, electoral funding, and truth in advertising. Other demands included:

■ Access to the heads of Treasury and the Department of Finance for economic advice, and briefings from the secretaries of eight other departments, as well as briefings from ministers and shadows ministers.

■ Advice and a timetable on parliamentary reform to increase the authority of the committee system and procedures giving more power to individual members. ''Wise elders'' from both sides were sought to help with this, including ALP campaign strategist Bruce Hawker.

■ A commitment to explore the options for ''consensus'' politics for the next three years, a willingness to explore all options to boost the government's majority in the House of Representatives beyond the bare minimum of 76, and ideas on how to improve relations between the House of Representatives and the Senate.

Ms Gillard said she had responded ''positively'' to all the demands. In her reply she wrote: ''I am fully committed to serving a full three-year term ? I am prepared to work with you to nominate a date for the next election in three years, which would be in the period August through October 2013.''

She said she would obtain advice on a suitable date and ''would be happy to discuss options for setting a date ? with you as soon as I have received this information''.

Mr Abbott said his talks had not got into ''the precise level of specificity as to talk about whether it would be on the second weekend or the third weekend of October 2013.

''But I did make a commitment to serve a full term should I become prime minister. I did make a commitment that there would be no election prior to August 2013 should I become the prime minister.''

Ms Gillard has promised by next Monday a timetable and reform plan on political donations, electoral funding and truth in advertising. Parliamentary reform plans would also be available on Monday.

''I am fully committed to instituting reforms that maximise the opportunity for understanding and consensus across all parties and members of parliament,'' she wrote, pledging to give details on how this could be achieved.

In addition to agreeing to all the briefings requested, she offered an additional one from Mike Quigley, the chief executive of the company set up by the government to establish the broadband network, NBN Co.

Ms Gillard also spoke by phone to Tony Crook, the maverick Western Australian National who unseated controversial Liberal Wilson Tuckey.

She said Mr Crook had told her he did not consider himself part of the ''Truss Nationals'', but would sit on the crossbenches. Although she could not meet his demand to abandon the mining profits tax, she promised information to him on what the government's infrastructure plan would mean for his electorate.

Ms Gillard also plans to meet newly elected Tasmanian independent Andrew Wilkie, who yesterday condemned the country independents for operating as a bloc.

Ms Gillard said she believed costing details - even on policies that the opposition had not submitted to Treasury - would be in the red and blue books that the public service has ready for an incoming government.

At a joint appearance at the National Press Club with the new Green MP Adam Bandt Mr Windsor stressed that he would not support a party likely to go off to an election as soon as it suited it.

 
THE AGE

Apology to Wilkie over war stand

Andrew Darby

August 26, 2010

THE likely key independent MP Andrew Wilkie said Opposition Leader Tony Abbott had apologised for the Howard government's vilification of him over his opposition to the Iraq War.

Mr Wilkie said the apology came as both Mr Abbott and Prime Minister Julia Gillard began to court his support as a key player in the shape of the next parliament.

The former intelligence analyst was pursued by the Howard government in 2003 after his decision to quit its Office of National Assessments and speak out as a whistleblower against the war.

Prime minister John Howard claimed at the time that Mr Wilkie was ''guilty of distortion, exaggeration and misrepresentation'' in his attacks on the government's use of intelligence.

Liberal Senator David Johnston went further, describing Mr Wilkie as ''unstable and flaky'', earning a rebuke from Mr Howard, who also expressed regret for a suggestion out of his office that Mr Wilkie was ''unbalanced''. Seven years later, the one-time army lieutenant-colonel is beginning what he pledges will be ''transparent'' talks with both Mr Abbott and Ms Gillard, though Mr Wilkie is still stopping short of claiming victory in the Hobart seat of Denison.

Mr Wilkie said that in a telephone conversation yesterday Mr Abbott noted the way he had been treated over the war by the Howard government. ''And he said that although he is still a strong supporter of the Iraq War, he did apologise for the way I was treated ? Members of the Howard government vilified me publicly, both in the House of Representatives and the Senate, and he was trying to build a bridge with me.

''I said thank you. That's over. The way I was treated by the Coalition and the Howard government, that is history.''

A spokeswoman for Mr Abbott said she would not comment on what was a private conversation.

Mr Wilkie insisted he had a ''blank sheet of paper'' over his choice of whether to support Labor, the Coalition or to remain unaligned.

Ms Gillard personally arranged, through Mr Wilkie's wife, Kate Burton, to meet him on Saturday in Melbourne. Mr Abbott will see him in Canberra on Monday.

Mr Wilkie said he was uncomfortable with the way the three ex-National Party independents appeared to be operating as a bloc, but he has asked the advice of fellow anti-pokies activist, Senator Nick Xenophon.

''I think we have an unprecedented opportunity to energise the debate about poker machines, and bring about some genuine reform nationally,'' Mr Wilkie said.

He also outlined key policy objectives, including increased Hobart health funding, and the national broadband network, but said there were countless other issues.

In Denison, ALP candidate Jonathan Jackson all but conceded, congratulating Mr Wilkie, who held a steady 1290-vote lead as the count moved into postal votes.

ABC NEWS
Abbott's hidden costings a 'bad look'

 
Tony Abbott says Treasury should not be providing costings advice on the Coalition's plans. (AAP: Mark Graham)

Independent MP Bob Katter says it looks like Tony Abbott has something to hide, after the Opposition Leader refused to submit his costings to Treasury for analysis.

Mr Katter and fellow independents Rob Oakeshott and Tony Windsor say they want Treasury to be allowed to cost both party's election promises, as part of a seven-point list of demands to both Prime Minister Julia Gillard and Mr Abbott.

However Mr Abbott says Treasury should not be providing that advice on the Coalition's plans, and says the Opposition instead wants to hand in its own costings analysis.

Kennedy MP Mr Katter told ABC TV's Lateline that Mr Abbott's refusal makes it look as though he has something to hide.

"The reaction of everybody in Australia would be, what's Tony got to hide here?" he said.

"I most certainly think that it is our duty as responsible Members of Parliament to have costings done on both sides, the promises of both sides of the Parliament.

"It would be very irresponsible of us not to go to the public service of Australia, to assess what is being put forward by Tony Abbott.

"I just can't understand Tony Abbott's intransigence on this issue and of course he's the one that looks so bad."

Mr Katter says Mr Abbott's refusal on the issue is a bad move if he wants the support of the Independents.

"Now if he looks so bad, and he's got something to hide, it makes it much more difficult for us to give him the gong to become prime minister," he said.

Mr Katter says this is a terrible blunder on the part of the Coalition.

"If you think the Australian people are going to put up with this sort of tomfoolery, you've got another thing coming," he said.

The independents say Treasury should be given a chance to show it can analyse the Coalition's policies.

Mr Windsor says Mr Abbott's position is not acceptable.

"I think it's appropriate that both sides be costed by the same person," he said.


Not the end

Mr Windsor says it is not the end of the negotiations with the Coalition, but he stresses Mr Abbott should change his mind.

But Mr Abbott says he will be providing the Coalition's own costings instead.

He says Treasury cannot provide adequate advice about the Opposition's policies.

"It is very difficult for the public service to understand the Coalition policy, Opposition policy with the same degree of insight and depth that it has of Government policy, I mean that's just the nature of these things," he said.

He says instead the Opposition will provide its own costings and allow extensive access to shadow ministers.

"I want to be as candid and as upfront with the non-aligned independents as I can be," he said.

Prime Minister Julia Gillard says she is keen to assist on the issue.

The independents spent over an hour with each leader on Wednesday afternoon in an attempt to decide which party they will help form a minority government.

The independents want briefings from the heads of 10 government departments, including Treasury, Education, Broadband, Health and Defence.

Both Ms Gillard and Mr Abbott say they will meet the independents' request to serve a full parliamentary term.

[Keith]

A very good move and sound thinking by the Independents. They do indeed need to see the costs from the campaign promises from both sides and be briefed on the State of the Economy and Finances/National Accounts. If this happens we will find out if anybody has been telling porkies and we will find out if anybody needs to go back to school to learn how to add up and subtract. These men, and now probably Mr Wilkie from Tasmania and Mr Bandt the Green from Victoria have onerous responsibilities and should indeed get all the information they need and take all the time they need.
 
Keith Tennent.
 
It's the economy, as independents issue demands
ABC NEWS

 
The three federal independent MPs have told the Prime Minister and the Opposition Leader they want a briefing on the economy before they decide who should form government.

Bob Katter, Tony Windsor and Rob Oakeshott are about to start negotiating with the two sides of politics, with the aim of deciding whether to support one party or the other.

A Coalition briefing paper obtained by the ABC lays out its plans to offer negotiations on parliamentary procedure, including allowing debate on private member's bills.

Mr Oakeshott says they have a list of seven demands, on which the economy is the first.

He says they also want both sides to finish having their election policies costed.

"We think it is appropriate that we do get access to the Treasury Secretary Ken Henry and the Secretary of Finance David Tune," he said.

"We do think this is about the economy and we do think the next three years need some consideration of things such as election costings and election commitments."

All seven of the issues will be released after meetings today with the party leaders.

"It would be rude to start articulating what those seven issues are when we're only just delivering at this moment to the two potential prime ministers," Mr Windsor said.

"This is the first step we need to establish what the budget bottom line is - what are we actually talking about here in terms of the promises that were made on both sides during the election campaign."

Mr Oakeshott says today's talks with his independent colleagues have been purely about getting organised.

"This is a process exercise at the moment and we are trying to get a roadmap ... we have agreed to stand shoulder to shoulder to make sure we get this process right," he said.

He reiterated that negotiations are yet to officially begin.

"The negotiations haven't started ... counting is still underway and potentially this could all mean nothing. This is only preparation work for potential negotiations," he said.

Fellow independent Tony Windsor says nobody should assume that the men are acting in unison.

"I'm not in any bloc," he said.

"This is very much the start of a process. If there's not good will displayed by both leaders and party members and we can't see a future in terms of longevity for the parliament itself ... I won't support either of them."

He also says going back to the polls is still an option.

"If there is not goodwill displayed by both leaders and their party members and if we can't see a future in terms of some longevity in terms of the parliament itself from one government or the other, I won't support either of them," he said.

"So there is a third option and that's another poll."

Mr Katter says he sees a "different paradigm" in the new parliament, adding that Australia is now seeing democracy in action.

"You're looking at a situation where we've had a party system, a 17th or 18th century model at work; now you're seeing a different model at work," he said.

Mr Oakeshott says the trio has invited fellow independent Andrew Wilkie, the likely member for the Tasmanian seat of Denison, to be part of negotiations.


'Take your time'

Earlier, Independent Senator Nick Xenophon met the trio and invited Mr Katter to South Australia to highlight the plight of the River Murray.

Mr Xenophon says Mr Katter accepted the invitation.

He also says he advised Mr Katter and the other independents to take their time in deciding who they will support.

"A very wise person told me once that no-one's your friend in this business," he said.

"They all want to be your friend but the advice I gave them was to take their time and really, we won't know what the composition of the Parliament will be for another week or so."
 

[Keith]

Nah no bad blood here. I didn't vote Labor or Liberal. I just believe in doing what's right and legal.

From: Keith Tennent
To: ESO List ; Veterans Email List
Cc: Media List ; Federal Parliamentary List
Sent: Wednesday, August 25, 2010 11:58 AM
Subject: MPs under scrutiny over council positions



These candidates are either greedy or stupid.They should now have their names removed from the poll. Do you mean to tell me they did not know the Law?

Keith Tennent.

MPs under scrutiny over council positions
ABC NEWS

Several candidates elected at last weekend's federal election could face a challenge over holding council positions.

It is believed Liberal MP Russell Matheson, who won the seat of Macarthur, and Country Liberals' Natasha Griggs in the seat of Solomon nominated for federal Parliament while being employed as local councillors.

A Professor of Constitutional law at Queensland's Bond University, Patrick Keyzer, says according to the Constitution, candidates cannot hold an 'office of profit under the Crown'.

"If a person who's in the public service is elected to the House then there's a belief - and this has been expressed in High Court judgements - that membership of the public service may impair their duties to the House of Representatives," he said.

"There's very considerable risk that the public servant would share the political opinions of the minister of his or her department and that would mean that they wouldn't bring a free and independent judgement to their role in the house."

The LNP's George Christensen could also be facing a challenge if he is confirmed at the winner in the seat of Dawson in Queensland.

[Keith]

NSW a bad swinger
  
http://blogs.theaustralian.news.com.au/mumble/index.php/theaustralian/comments/nsw_gives_bad_vote_value/
Mumble Blog | August 24, 2010 |


Saturday night showed again that the countrys biggest city is a vote-guzzler. Sydney gobbles up big swings and spits out few seats in return.

Usually the Labor party is on the receiving end but this time it was the Liberals.

The national swing to the Coaltion looks around 2.3 to 2.5 percent, which plotted against the pendulum should have given the Coalition a two to four seat majority.


Instead it appears to have 73 seats out of 150 (if you include the WA Nationals Tony Crook in its tally).

Queensland did as its portion of the pendulum predicted, with a five percent swing delivering nine seats.

The swing in NSW was 4.1 percent. Plot that against the states portion of the pendulum and you get 8 seats changing hands. But only 4 did.

In pre-election posts I noted we shouldnt get too hung up about uniform swing http://blogs.theaustralian.news.com.au/mumble/index.php/theaustralian/comments/todays_cumulative_newspoll/ and it was particularly unlikely to apply to NSW.

And western Sydney soaks up votes http://blogs.theaustralian.news.com.au/mumble/index.php/theaustralian/comments/the_western_sydney_myth/

It turned out to be not just the west, but Sydney overall.



This table shows swings in NSW (excluding the independent seats).

Read more about this table here http://blogs.news.com.au/images/uploads/tableexp.gif

Numbers are to Labor, so most are negative. (You can check out the Australians electorate map http://www.theaustralian.com.au/national-affairs/electorate-map

Pro-Liberal swings were biggest in safe Labor and Liberal seats. Hence the poor seat per vote ratio for the Coalition.

Labors ultra-safe Fowler took a ferocious hit, and Malcolm Turnbull in Wentworth and Joe Hockey in North Sydney racked up their seats biggest two party preferred votes for many years. (In Malcolms case since at least the 1970s.)

You have to go down the table to find seats that mattered, Gilmore and Bennelong.

One of the surprising features of this election was the relatively moderate behaviour of Sydneys outer middle. Macarthur is usually up for a bit of drama, leading NSW in both the 1996 and 2007 changes of government.

But at Saturday it languished at number 30. Which as this was only a semi-change was perhaps appropriate.

Its neighbour the famous swinging Lindsay went by about 5.5 percent, which was more than the state average but about a percent less than the Libs needed.

The Coalition didnt do as well as the pendulum predicted because its NSW swing was concentrated in the capital.

[Keith]

From: John & Ann
Sent: Tuesday, August 24, 2010 7:28 PM
Subject: Re: THE PROCESSES OF THE PARLIAMENT

Keith
I couldn't agree more,it takes very little effort to be civil, when dealing with others. Similarly, it takes no effort to give credit when credit is due. Point in case, are those who put themselves forward to take elected office, they are no less feeling beings, than you or I, who can be equally hurt, by unthinking and more to the point comments of a vindictive/denigrating nature.
 
It seams to me that Vietnam Veterans, have a plethora of individuals in their midst,who are lacking in the fundamental social skills and attributes of the larger community, this group is ever ready to denigrate others at the drop of a hat, and to go off half cocked on a witch hunt.
Ok, we are all guilty of going down this track,at one time or other.  It is the persistent flogging of individuals or issues by these Vets and in some cases the Veteran ESO leadership within our community itself  - who by intent, have destroyed the enthusiasm and commitment of some very talented individuals (at a major cost to the global issues of Australian Vietnam Veterans issues), that have given use all a bad name - particularly in political and media circles.
 
I think, this situation may well have its roots in the concept that every digger has the right to bitch, and bitch they will. This right neither gives, nor condones or lends itself to assassinations of character/ individuals/ beliefs or station in life.
 
Personally, I have no time or interest in those individuals or groups who purport to be the voice of the Vietnam Veterans, whilst peddling vindictiveness and denigrating those who put their all on the line, for the betterment of our disabled colleagues and a basic standard of living.
 
You are right Keith, we need a wake up call, before it is to late.
 
Regards
John Hevey

[Keith]

From: Keith Tennent
To: Veterans Email List ; ESO List
Cc: Media List ; Federal Parliamentary List
Sent: Tuesday, August 24, 2010 10:02 AM
Subject: THE PROCESSES OF THE PARLIAMENT



Dear Readers,

Over the last couple of years the Veteran community has been unfortunate enough to see a very small yet vocal minority raise it's ugly head and make fools of the vast majority of us who are decent, sensible people. This group has made a habit of proffering abuse, threats, stupidity and incoherent rabble rousing opinion to politicians and others.

While many people in the Veteran and ex Service communities hold strong views on many matters which affect us and serving members the behaviour we have seen over the last couple of years is unacceptable.

Not only is this type of behaviour unacceptable in the Veteran community online it is unacceptable in the general community.

Unfortunately many see the internet and email as their chance to vent their stupid spleens and to express their irrational stupidity.

Nobody, not even politicians, has to put up with this rabid, frothing nonsense. The parliamentary internet systems have the capability to ban email addresses. This should be used for serial pests. If anybody from any walk of life continues to send insane, abusive and incoherent emails to the Parliament their email address should be blocked. and NOBODY in mainstream Australia would disagree with this.

However after the last election some of the newly elected MPs and Senators did not publish contact email addresses. This means they hid from accountability to the public. If politicians choose public life they must provide an email address. After all emails are simply electronic surface mail. Instead of writing a letter most people now send emails and thank goodness for the technology. The funny thing is that quite a few members who were defeated at the election had never provided an email address.

I call on the Speaker of the House of Representatives and President of the Senate and the Party leaders to insist that all members in the Parliament provide a contact email address. I also call on the same people to instruct the Parliament House technicians to block serial pests' email addresses. Two warnings should be given to pests and if they continue to send their inane rubbish they should be advised that their email address is blocked from the Parliament House systems. Let them moan and whine. Nobody will listen to them.

Keith Tennent.

[Keith]

I absolutely agree with the opinion of Malcolm Turnbull. This has been my position on campaign funding for some years. The public purse should pay for election campaigns, no outside funding at all , the formula CAN be worked out regarding amounts and party entitlements and then let's have a level playing field. It could be like the salary cap in rugby league. In any case I believe if it was explained to the people accurately and honestly they would agree. While we are at it let's get rid of Government by staffers giving advice to Ministers instead of Departmental heads and let's get rid of lobby groups bribing Governments with threats and coercion. Keep the big lobby groups away from Government decision making. Let those with agendas present their positions to the public and thus the Parliament and if need be let Governments call in business, unions, churches and others to explain just what they mean. Can it work. YES. All that is needed is the key of willingness in the door.
 
The Liberals are good at spinning the faceless Labor men and hitting Union donations BUT the Liberals have their own faceless people in big business and the elites in the community. No side can claim the moral high ground and changing funding arrangements not just for elections but for the operation of parties will get rid of this problem.
 
Keith Tennent.
 
Turnbull calls for campaign funding crackdown
ABC NEWS

Former Opposition leader Malcolm Turnbull says all unions and corporations should be banned from making political donations.

Mr Turnbull was going to retire at this election but was convinced to recontest his Sydney seat of Wentworth, which he won with a swing of 11.5 percent.

He says while it is not Coalition policy, he thinks there needs to be major changes to the way campaigns are funded.

"We should get rid of unions, we should get rid of corporations, we should get rid of huge donations, level the playing field," he said.

"If you have to increase public funding, that might be part of the price you've got to pay. But that would restore a great deal of integrity and public confidence in our political system.

"We need to have absolutely comprehensive root and branch campaign finance reform," he added.

"My view is that we should ban all donations to political parties other than from individuals who are on the electoral roll - that's to say human beings - and with an annual cap."

 

[Keith]

ABC NEWS
WA Nationals push for federal split
 
The WA Nationals say the federal party should consider a split from the Coalition.

Nationals candidate Tony Crook is expected to win the seat of O'Connor from long-standing Liberal MP Wilson Tuckey.

He has vowed to act as an independent WA National and says he will not form part of a Coalition.

Mr Crook campaigned on a commitment to try to implement the state's Royalties for Regions scheme at a national level.

Nationals state president Colin Holt has told the ABC Mr Crook will be putting WA first.

"Unless the needs of Western Australia are met in this parliament, then you can't expect Tony Crook to just freely give support," he said.

The WA Nationals are allied to the federal party but are not required to vote along party lines.

In WA the Nationals are also in an alliance with the Liberal Party in a minority government.

Mr Holt says it is a model that works.

"We've stamped ourselves as an alternative in WA and we think that's what the federal guys should be doing and looking at it more closely," he said.

"I think the voters out there want a third independent voice and I think that's probably shown with the Green vote in this election."

[Keith]

Readers this thread will be deleted in a few days. If you wish to keep anything please do it soon.

Yes Terry I have a clear conscience. I didn't vote for either Liberal or Labor for the reasons you mentioned and more .

Keith.

THE AGE

Pollsters out in front with forecasts
Mark Davis
August 23, 2010

THE government may hang in the balance but Australia's pollsters have notched a victory in the election.

Election-eve predictions produced by the main pollsters forecast the national vote to within 1.3 percentage points of the actual result, well inside their statistical margins of error.

The Australian Electoral Commission's latest count last night had Labor on 50.7 per cent of the two-party preferred vote to the Coalition on 49.3 per cent.

On this result, the most accurate of the election-eve polls were Morgan's phone poll and Essential Media's online poll. Each predicted a national two-party preferred vote of 51 per cent to Labor and 49 per cent to the Coalition.

This meant Morgan and Essential were out by just 0.3 percentage points - and makes them spot-on if the result is rounded to the nearest percentage point, like most of the published poll predictions.

Newspoll's election-eve phone survey predicted Labor would secure 50.2 per cent of the two-party preferred vote to the Coalition's 49.8 per cent.

This meant Newspoll's error was only 0.5 percentage points, making it the third-most accurate after Morgan and Essential. Rounding its election-eve prediction would make the difference 0.7 percentage points.

The large ''robopoll'' of 28,000 voters carried out by JWS Research and Telereach notched up an (unrounded) error of 0.9 percentage points.

The Nielsen and Galaxy phone polls and Morgan's face-to-face poll predicted a 52-48 split of the two-party vote, meaning they were out by 1.3 percentage points.

Nielsen's research director John Stirton said yesterday the unrounded figure from the company's election-eve poll had put Labor on 51.8 per cent of the vote. This gave Nielsen a 1.1 per cent (unrounded) error from the result of 50.7 per cent, as it stood last night.

All seven polls were well inside their margins of error, which range from 2 to 3 percentage points depending on the size of the voter samples.

The seven polls used four survey methods - by phone, online, in person and by interactive voice response phone technology.

Morgan and Essential were also the two most accurate in predicting the primary votes of the two major parties.

[TJMALLIGAN]

Keith
Is this a chance to change the mindset of the Canberra crowd !  Possibly not but to see the People of Australia
tell both parties we have had a gutful its great whether the Greens and the Inpependants can change things may
be too much to expect, but we the People of Australia have had enough!

All the best
Terry

[TJMALLIGAN]

Hi Hans
   I know what you mean My First Born a Son  was born in a service environment no names no pack drill due to
legal problems, I tried to sue the Government of the day about what had happened to him and under freedom of
Information got his docs and it looked ok at first but we had friend who was a theatre Nurse she said "It's been
doctored" and no doctor will put pen to paper so be very careful with medical documents what the Doctors write
can be "Doctored"

[hans]

Well Keith I am for one that is thoroughly opposed to the idea of an "E- Card" or whatever. Why? I believe that the civillian community are no where near as scrutinised by health care providers and departments as ex service and service people. I am pretty well aware of the dirt that sits on my service medical records and  so as to enlighten everybody. I am percieved as a naughty boy all them years ago because I sprang a duty MO shooting up on pethidine meant for the clients. It is little consolation from former work colleagues that I was stuffed if I hadn't done nothing about it either. Would you people out there want somebody like that working on you?,Me thinks not. So the dirty grubs that were the powers that be at the time closed ranks of their own. And singled me out as an A%^$Hole and from I could gather from the heavily censored Personal file and Med records they did a job on me. To make matters worst so I have learnt recently an advocate whom is no longer in my employ has been happy to "mouth off " to lending ears about the dirt on  my records. Not happy about that either. As I am not happy to have any quack in the 21 st century pouring over my Service Med Documentation and  because of privacy concerns and I dont think I am "robinson crusoe" there. If many of your readers out there could read the amount of medical and Nursing documentation as I have you may discover some doctors that are spineless resort to medical confidentiality to hide the dastardly deeds and thats  why I strongly OPPOSE!!!  to this kind of technology.

[Keith]

Dear readers,
 
Many of you have had enough of my sending out election 2010 material. Today I will not send out anything unless it is new data. The following is new and may apply to all Veterans, ex Service members and War widows who receive entitlements from the Government.
 
Keith Tennent.
 
THE AGE

Coalition to revive card
Tim Colebatch
August 20, 2010

A COALITION government would revive the controversial Howard-era plan for a national access card to identify every individual receiving government benefits, shadow treasurer Joe Hockey has revealed.

On the eve of what Prime Minister Julia Gillard says will be a ''cliffhanger'' federal election, Mr Hockey has told The Age that giving everyone a single identifier for access to health and welfare benefits could lead to ''massive improvements in productivity in health and welfare''.

But instead of everyone having a card, this time the identifier could be in electronic form.

In other developments as Australians prepared to go to the polls tomorrow:

■ Ms Gillard rushed out a new policy in a bid to win the family vote, sweetening her parental leave plan with the additional promise of two weeks' paid leave for new fathers.

■ The Coalition revealed plans to cut a further $1.5 billion from the federal education budget, including programs to help the poorest students succeed at school and enter university.

■ Internal emails seen by The Age revealed the Greens had been trying to ''stack'' calls to Melbourne talkback radio kings Neil Mitchell and Jon Faine with pro-Bob Brown messages.

■ Liberal leader Tony Abbott launched himself into a final campaign marathon, vowing to keep going for 36 hours until poll eve tonight.

Mr Hockey, revealing plans to revive the access card, said it would open the way for e-health systems to allow diagnosis using the internet, and give doctors access to patients' records.

The lack of an identifier and suitable software had left Labor's e-health initiative becalmed, despite heavy spending on development. ''We've got to have a single identifier for each patient, and software systems that can speak to each other, and get GPs and other professionals to have a computer on their desk to access the system,'' Mr Hockey said.

As human services minister in the Howard government, Mr Hockey led the drive to introduce the access card over objections from privacy advocates. The plan ran into trouble in the Senate, and was then dumped by the Rudd government, which cited cost and privacy concerns.

Mr Hockey said the failure to get the card introduced was his biggest regret in politics. Asked if he would try to introduce it again if the Coalition wins, he replied: ''Absolutely - but only if we get fair dinkum consolidation (of agencies' IT systems) to give better use of technology.

''Whether you go a card or not, I don't know. Everyone has a Medicare card already, but that's old technology. We're spending $140 billion to $150 billion a year on health and welfare, but what productivity improvements have there been in service delivery? None.''

In recent months Health Minister Nicola Roxon and Human Services Minister Chris Bowen have revived aspects of the access card plan, floating a single system to store individuals' health information, and to allow government agencies to share a single IT platform.

Mr Hockey nominated tax reform, increasing workforce participation by young people, mothers and older people, and reform of Commonwealth-state relations as priorities if he becomes treasurer, along with getting the budget into surplus.

He said an Abbott government would bring in a tax specialist from the private sector to head its tax reform task force over the next year, rather than leave it to Treasury secretary Ken Henry.

But he expressed confidence in Dr Henry and Reserve Bank governor Glenn Stevens.

Ms Gillard used her final address to the National Press Club ahead of election day to announce the extension of Labor's 18-week paid parental leave scheme with an extra two weeks' leave for fathers.

From July 2012, fathers and secondary carers who meet work and income tests will receive two weeks' leave paid at the federal minimum wage, currently $570 a week.

The opposition said the announcement showed Labor was panicking. ''This is a very, very small step to boost an impoverished scheme,'' said Coalition spokeswoman for the status of women, Sharman Stone.

Leaked internal research by Labor, reported last night, suggested the party was ahead nationally, but could lose the election due to big swings in New South Wales and Queensland.

Ms Gillard said in her Press Club address: ''We are in one of the closest election contests in Australian history with the starkest of choices to be made.

''I present to the Australian people the better plan for a strong economy and for the benefits and dignity of work. I present with a better plan to help you manage your cost of living.''

Mr Abbott likened the race to a cricket match. ''It's as if there's five minutes to go in a test match, the scores are level and we've got to make sure we win.''

He wanted to give Australians the ''best possible chance'' to change a bad government.

With AAP

[Keith]

The commentariate and pundits are always out in force during elections. Those who make predictions based on emotion and party loyalty have no relevance to any debate and any predictions.
 
I have no intention of telling you how I will vote BUT I have made up my mind where my pencil will make the marks. I will not be voting Liberal or Labor in the House or Senate. Don't try guessing who I will vote for because there are many other parties out there. Suffice to say I am sorry to disappoint those who think I have a bias to one of the major parties. I pride myself on being a thinking voter and not a party clone who votes the same way every election.
 
Keith Tennent.

There is something strange going on regarding the figures the Liberals have produced in relation to the cost of medicines and the list of free drugs available on the Repatriation Benefits Scheme. When I read The Australian yesterday there was an extract from the Coalition audited budget plan tables which were presented by Mr Hockey and Mr Robb which clearly showed that they intended removing some medications from the free list and also showed the savings they would make by doing this. This part of the table has now disappeared from the table which the Coalition is sending around the country.
 
Over to you for tomorrow.

Keith Tennent
 
Libs in damage control over cuts to pharmacy benefit

David Uren and Patricia Karvelas
From: The Australian
August 20, 2010  


THE Coalition, in damage control over its cuts to the pharmaceutical benefits scheme, has reassured pharmacies they will not carry the cost

University and school groups, as well as public servants, also protested at fresh budget cuts included in the $10bn of savings unveiled on Wednesday night.

Tony Abbott fiercely defended his budget costings yesterday, vowing that the price of medicines would not rise and no programs would be slashed beyond what had been outlined.

"I make no apologies for wanting to get the best possible price from the drug companies," he said.

An email from Coalition health spokesman Peter Dutton's email to the nation's 5000 pharmacists arrived yesterday alongside one from Health Minister Nicola Roxon claiming the cost and availability of drugs would suffer.

"It is simply not possible to make further cuts to the PBS of the magnitude that the Coalition is proposing without this having a major impact on community pharmacies and consumers," she said.

However, Mr Dutton said the Coalition was relying on financial modelling showing savings from reforms already implemented would be greater than the $2.5bn estimated by the government.

He said the Coalition was booking those savings, but was not changing policy on the scheme.

Both the Pharmacy Guild and Medicines Australia, which represents the drug companies, believe reforms to the benefits scheme, which cut the pricing of drugs when their patent protection expires, will produce savings far larger than the $3bn written into the forward estimates.

However, Treasury has argued that realising those savings depends on new drug suppliers entering the Australian market and driving prices lower, and the timing of this is far too uncertain to bank the savings in the budget.

Pharmacists remain concerned that if a Coalition government failed to realise these savings, it would seek to recoup them by changing the scheme.

The Coalition was also under pressure over the $1.5bn in cuts to education and training included in the budget figures released on Wednesday, which added to the $3.5bn in cuts to education programs already announced.

The Coalition plans to abolish a $330 million scheme for disadvantaged schools and a $227m program to help low-income students to gain university entry.

The Coalition is also cutting $950m from apprenticeships.

The chairwoman of the National Catholic Education Commission, Therese Temby, said disadvantaged Catholic schools would bear the brunt.

"This funding is helping schools to serve disadvantaged communities and to address the learning needs of students and families," Mrs Temby said

[Keith]

From: Paul Isr
Sent: Thursday, August 19, 2010 5:02 PM
Subject: Re: PBS/RPBS REPLY

Well done Keith you seem to be the only Veteran Web that is not covertly
pushing a political agenda.
Regards
Paul

[Keith]

From: Keith Tennent
To: Federal Opposition Leader ; Australian Defence Assoc ; AWM Gen Gower ; Defence Force Welfare Assoc ; ESO List ; President Capricornia & Rockhampton Region RSL Sub Branch ; RSL Nat President ; Veterans Email List ; Robert.Hardie@
Cc: Federal Parliamentary List ; Media List
Sent: Thursday, August 19, 2010 4:44 PM
Subject: Re: A VETERANS POLICY QUESTION FOR THE LIBERAL PARTY


Dear Robert,

Thank you for your email. I remain confused about the Coalition policy on medications.

In my original email I referred to this article

http://www.theaustralian.com.au/national-affairs/coalitions-surplus-claims-sunk-by-attack-on-hollow-log/story-fn59niix-1225907049110

 which appeared in the Australian newspaper of today Thursday 19 August 2010 and extracted this quote from that article.

"The Coalition will also cut back the drugs allowed under the Pharmaceutical Benefits Scheme, yielding a $1.2bn saving."

unquote

You have now said that there will be no change under a Coalition Government to the medications currently listed on the PBS/RPBS. From this it sounds to me that any further and new drugs may not be included on the free list, and I note this is usual assessment practice for new drugs coming online for treatment.

However what I cannot understand is this. That article in the Australian seemed to be an extract from the documents which Mr Hockey and Mr Robb distributed to the media at their costings media interview yesterday. If that quote from the Australian is not part of the documents which the Opposition released yesterday where did the Australian newspaper obtain the information/quote from?

Could you send that part of the Hockey/Robb documents which refer to the PBS/RPBS policy which were released yesterday please?

Thank you.
Keith Tennent.

[Keith]

From: Hardie, Robert (L. Markus, MP)
To: Keith Tennent
Sent: Thursday, August 19, 2010 3:04 PM
Subject: FW: A VETERANS POLICY QUESTION FOR THE LIBERAL PARTY

Dear Keith

The Coalition will not remove any existing medications from the Pharmaceutical Benefits Scheme schedule.

The Coalition will not increase the pharmaceutical co-contribution charge.

For veterans who receive a disability pension paid at or above 50 per cent of the General Rate (including EDA, Intermediate and Special Rate), from 1 January 2012 a Coalition Government will extend the co-contribution Safety Net from 60 to 30 scripts annually.  Combined with an increase in the pharmaceutical allowance of $6.00 annually, the Coalition will provide eligible disabled veterans with pharmaceuticals with no out of pocket expenses. 

The article in todays The Australian which referred to this was incorrect and has been corrected today by the Shadow Minister for Finance and the Shadow Minister for Health and Ageing.  I would be happy to forward the Coalitions press release to anyone who would like to see the statement clarifying yesterdays announcement.

Regards

Robert
______________________________
Robert Hardie
Adviser

Office of Mrs Louise Markus MP

Shadow Minister for Veterans' Affairs | Liberal for Macquarie

?0418 432 909 | * robert.hardie@aph.gov.au 

Suite RG.51 | Parliament House | CANBERRA ACT 2600
( 02 6277 2371 | 7 02 6277 8463

Shop 24, Riverview Shopping Centre | 227 George Street | WINDSOR NSW 2756

( 02 4577 2631 | 7 02 4577 2640

Louise Markus MP | Working for our local community

www.liberal.org.au | www.louisemarkus.com.au

[Keith]

From: Keith Tennent
To: Federal Opposition Leader ; Australian Defence Assoc ; AWM Gen Gower ; Defence Force Welfare Assoc ; ESO List ; President Capricornia & Rockhampton Region RSL Sub Branch ; RSL Nat President ; Veterans Email List
Cc: Federal Parliamentary List ; Media List
Sent: Thursday, August 19, 2010 2:40 PM
Subject: Re: A VETERANS POLICY QUESTION FOR THE LIBERAL PARTY



The question I wish answered is not if there will be any increased costs for medications for Veterans, War widows and ex Service members. The question I have asked is " will some medications be removed from the PBS/RPBS? In other words will medications be removed from the free list and will Veterans, War widows and ex Service members have to obtain authority scripts for medications which they don't at present need authority scripts for? I have received a media release from the office of the DVA Shadow Minister Ms Louise Markus which I have refused to publish because it is a party political document. I have asked the Shadow's office to send me a private email or make a non party political statement regarding my question and if I receive either of these I will post it/them out. My information on the removal of medications came from the Australian newspaper and not from the Labor Party and the way I read the news article leads me to believe the media statement has been extracted from the documents released yesterday by Mr Hockey and Mr Robb.

Keith Tennent.

Coalition accused of targeting PBS
By online political correspondent Emma Rodgers

ABC NEWS



The Coalition has been forced to defend its costings from Labor accusations that they are riddled with billions of dollars worth of mistakes.

Yesterday the Opposition released its costings which showed another $9 billion worth of savings and a return to surplus almost double that predicted under Labor.

But Labor says there are $12.4b worth of errors in the document, and it has accused the Coalition of cutting $1 billion from the Pharmaceutical Benefits System.

Labor disputes the Coalition's figures that show its surplus would be $6.2b in 2012-13, claiming that it would actually be $1.2 billion lower in 2012-13 and $2.3 billion lower in 2013-14.

Treasurer Wayne Swan says the numbers do not add up.

"There are mistakes. There are black holes. There are savage cuts for example to the Pharmaceutical Benefits Scheme which will hit pensioners," he said.

Labor also says that the Coalition has made $900 million worth of local promises but has not said where the money is coming from.

But Opposition Treasury spokesman Joe Hockey says Mr Swan is making "hysterical" allegations.

"They never actually release any of the information to back up their claims. It is a sign of desperation," he said.

"The Labor Party still hasn't disclosed all of its costings for this election."

Campaigning in Brisbane today, Opposition Leader Tony Abbott dismissed Labor's claims on the the PBS, saying there would be no increases in medicines for pensioners.

"Our costings have been certified by a highly reputable, well respected accounting firm," he said.

"I make no apologies for wanting to get the best possible price from the drug companies."



From: Keith Tennent
To: Federal Opposition Leader ; Australian Defence Assoc ; AWM Gen Gower ; Defence Force Welfare Assoc ; ESO List ; President Capricornia & Rockhampton Region RSL Sub Branch ; RSL Nat President ; Veterans Email List
Cc: Federal Parliamentary List ; Media List
Sent: Thursday, August 19, 2010 6:21 AM
Subject: A VETERANS POLICY QUESTION FOR THE LIBERAL PARTY


Dear Mr Abbott,

At this late stage I wish to ask you a question on the Liberal Veterans policy.

In the Liberal Veterans policy document it was announced that if elected a Government led by you would move to remove the pharmaceutical co-payment on medications for all disabled Veterans above the 50% of the general rate level.

I note in the economic costs released yesterday by Mr Hockey and Mr Robb that the following has been reported quote

"The Coalition will also cut back the drugs allowed under the Pharmaceutical Benefits Scheme, yielding a $1.2bn saving."

unquote

SOURCE http://www.theaustralian.com.au/national-affairs/coalitions-surplus-claims-sunk-by-attack-on-hollow-log/story-fn59niix-1225907049110

Can you confirm that it is Coalition policy to remove drugs from the free list currently available to disabled War Veterans, War widows and ex Service members?

If this is so then the costs incurred in removing to co-payment would possibly be offset by the costs incurred in removing drugs from the free list. Thus is it true that in effect the removal of the co-payment would cost an Abbott Government nothing.

Yours.

Keith Tennent
Rockhampton.

[Keith]

Learn your lines and recite them mate
  
http://blogs.theaustralian.news.com.au/mumble/index.php/theaustralian/comments/reciting_political_lines/
Mumble Blog | August 19, 2010 |


Tony Abbott is a risk to the economy. Youve heard it before and you will again over the next two days.

From Julia Gillard, Wayne Swan and other members of the government.

Strategically, its the right message. It generally is from governments about opposition leaders.

But endlessly repeating the words is ...


... not the way to get it across.

Governments always warn of the calamity that will befall the country if the opposition is elected.

Its a potent weapon against a group of people who by definition are rather untested and a potential risk. If the government has also successfully denigrated the other sides last stint in office, the two elements are complementary.

For months under Kevin Rudd and Julia Gillard the government with barely a peep allowed the opposition to make hay on government debt and deficits.

The Liberal Party remains more effective at communication than the ALP, maybe because they come from more walks of life.

Recall back in 1998 John Howards put-down of opposition leader Kim Beazley as not having the ticker for the job of prime minister.

First trialled by then Federal Liberal Director (now finance spokesman) Andrew Robb in his 1996 post-election press gallery speech, it was a good line good because it was multi-layered and a bit subliminal. It got voters thinking.

On the surface simply about courage, it also conjured doubts about Beazleys weight and what lay behind his avuncular manner.

Howard only uttered it once. And no need to endlessly repeat that Kim Beazley is a threat to the economy.

Along with Peter Costellos incessant banging on about the Beazley Black Hole, Labor debt and seventeen percent interest rates it was pretty effective.

Todays Labor strategists probably see themselves as more lean and efficient than that. They cut straight to the chase.

But electors are human beings, and endlessly repeating the same words does not ram the message home. It probably blunts it and is worse than saying nothing.

If instead you hint at this, suggest that, let people join the dots themselves and come up with the idea, it stands a better chance of sticking.

Abbott should have been particularly susceptible to the risk equation but a story needed to be told. About confusion, uncertainty, mayhem and ideology.

Probably somewhere in the bowels of the ALP there are still folks baffled that moving forward became a standing joke after two weeks.

Modern Labor is so dedicated to their clipboards and soundbites theyve forgotten that communication involves actual people.

[Keith]

Lateral Economics Stimulus partially pays for itself

August 19, 2010 ? 8:32 am, by Possum Comitatus

http://blogs.crikey.com.au/pollytics/

Yesterday, Lateral Economics released a piece of research that looked at some of the dynamics of the stimulus package as it flowed through the economy particularly in terms of how that stimulus generated tax receipts for the government through the employment it supported, employment that wouldnt have otherwise existed without the stimulus package.

Its not surprising that government expenditure does this BTW for every additional dollars worth of production that occurs across the Australian economy, the government takes on average, somewhere around 25 cents of that through tax.  In terms of where that initial dollars worth of production originally came from is neither here nor there when it comes to the economic effects of that additional dollar on the ground at the time after all, a dollar a dollar is a dollar.

Where the origin of that dollar does comes into play however, is when we move to the real debate on the stimulus (as opposed to the juvenile rubbish we see served up in a certain broadsheet) where we know that the stimulus had both economic costs and benefits  where the fundamental question is simple:

Were the total benefits of debt funded stimulus greater than or less than the total costs of that debt funded stimulus?

This piece of Lateral Economics research looks at one part of the total cost side of that question how the total size of the stimulus debt needing to be repaid was effectively lowered as a result of the increase in tax receipts the stimulus generated through supporting employment. In other words, it estimates how much of the stimulus package effectively funded itself through 2008/9 and 2009/10.

So, how much was it?

Lateral Economics suggests that it was in the vicinity of $16 billion.

From Lateral Economics:

A Lateral Economics study released today shows that over a quarter of the debt from the fiscal stimulus will be repaid from the taxes of those who would otherwise have been unemployed.

As our economy turned down in late 2008, Australians spending kept other Australians in work. And those kept in work repaid the favour  by continuing to pay their taxes. said Nicholas Gruen, CEO of Lateral Economics.

So for every dollar the government spent, tax revenue to Australias governments rose by around 22.5 cents, leaving just 77.5 cents to be repaid. The total windfall to the budget and to the community of the additional tax revenue from the cash transfers is around $6.7 billion. This money and the production of all those people and all that capital kept in employment are the riches of good economic management ? the only kind of free lunch we know of.

Results were even better for the infrastructure spending. Where some of the cash payments were saved, all of the infrastructure spending went straight into the Australian economy. And with larger multipliers than consumer spending, every $1 of government infrastructure spending increased output by $1.20 generating 36 cents of government revenue.

So for each dollar of stimulus the Government spent on infrastructure, the debt incurred was only around 64 cents. Thus of the $26.5 billion dollars of infrastructure budgeted to be funded in the years 2008-9 and 2009-10 Australian taxpayers will need to service and/or repay only around $16.9 billion of debt via state and federal taxes.

Of course, being rushed, there were inefficiencies in building the infrastructure. The recent Interim Report of the Orgill Taskforce estimated those inefficiencies at around 5 to 6 cents per dollar spent. Those inefficiencies cost around $1.5 billion compared with the tax windfall of $9.5 billion from tax collected from who would not otherwise have been employed. The net result leaves Australians better off by around $8 billion.

Counting the effects of both the cash transfers and the infrastructure spending to the financial year just ending, tax revenue increased by $16.2 billion from additional employment. These economic benefits are in addition to any social benefits including improved physical and psychological health from lower unemployment. Dr Gruen said.

The full report can be read here. Its a valuable addition to the real debate.

[Keith]

From: Keith Tennent
To: Federal Opposition Leader ; Australian Defence Assoc ; AWM Gen Gower ; Defence Force Welfare Assoc ; ESO List ; President Capricornia & Rockhampton Region RSL Sub Branch ; RSL Nat President ; Veterans Email List
Cc: Federal Parliamentary List ; Media List
Sent: Thursday, August 19, 2010 6:21 AM
Subject: A VETERANS POLICY QUESTION FOR THE LIBERAL PARTY


Dear Mr Abbott,

At this late stage I wish to ask you a question on the Liberal Veterans policy.

In the Liberal Veterans policy document it was announced that if elected a Government led by you would move to remove the pharmaceutical co-payment on medications for all disabled Veterans above the 50% of the general rate level.

I note in the economic costs released yesterday by Mr Hockey and Mr Robb that the following has been reported quote

"The Coalition will also cut back the drugs allowed under the Pharmaceutical Benefits Scheme, yielding a $1.2bn saving."

unquote

SOURCE http://www.theaustralian.com.au/national-affairs/coalitions-surplus-claims-sunk-by-attack-on-hollow-log/story-fn59niix-1225907049110

Can you confirm that it is Coalition policy to remove drugs from the free list currently available to disabled War Veterans, War widows and ex Service members?

If this is so then the costs incurred in removing the co-payment would possibly be offset by the costs incurred in removing drugs from the free list. Thus is it true that in effect the removal of the co-payment would cost an Abbott Government nothing.

Yours.

Keith Tennent
Rockhampton.
--------------------------
 
THE AGE

Broadband chief slams Libs' policy

Ari Sharp and Conrad Walters

August 19, 2010

THE head of the national broadband network has criticised key elements of the opposition's broadband alternative, rejecting its reliance on market forces and the technologies it seeks to use.

Yesterday's speech by NBN Co chief executive Mike Quigley appeared to back the government's policy and reject that of the Coalition, and came just a week after he made an announcement that could only help the government: that the network would be able to offer speeds 10 times faster than first anticipated.

With the Coalition pledging to scrap the company if elected on Saturday, the election result will determine whether Mr Quigley is able to continue the project he left retirement a year ago to join.

Delivering the Charles Todd Oration in Sydney yesterday, Mr Quigley declared ''it's better to invest $27 billion rather than spend $6 billion'', a reference to the commitment recommended to the government by the broadband network's implementation study and the opposition's more modest policy.

Rejecting opposition claims for broadband to be driven by the private sector, Mr Quigley cited key telecommunications projects that required major public sector investment - the Overland Telegraph (the 1872 project to link Adelaide and Darwin that cost 60 per cent of the South Australian colony's budget) and the post-war construction of the copper network (at a price he said would be $10 billion today).

''No commercial entity will provide good telecommunications services to everyone across this vast nation of ours without government intervention of one sort or another,'' he said.

''No purely commercial company can take the long-term view that is required to build the next fixed-line platform that Australia now needs.''

While the national broadband network is relying on fibre optic to connect most Australian homes and businesses, the Coalition has committed to opening the door to companies using competing technologies.

Mr Quigley attacked each of those alternatives, claiming copper had reached its limits, wireless was constrained by spectrum availability, coaxial cable offered slow upload speeds and satellite had engineering difficulties.

The decision to deliver the speech puts Mr Quigley at odds with NBN Co's chairman Harrison Young, who ditched a planned speech on broadband after the election was called, citing the ''restrictions of the pre-election caretaker period''.

In speaking out, Mr Quigley acknowledged the company had become a ''hot political issue''. ''My conclusion was to take a deep breath and just tell it as I see it - without fear or favour,'' he said.

Government caretaker conventions, in place during an election campaign, state that ''in the case of controversial issues, officials should decline invitations to speak'', but it is not clear whether employees at government business enterprises are covered by the rule.

Mr Quigley's spokesman said the NBN chief was ''very conscious of his obligations''.

 ABC NEWS
Parties scramble to win over new voters
By Simon Santow

 
The major parties are doing their utmost to win over voters. (ABC: Brigid Andersen)

Courtesy of the High Court, an estimated 100,000 Australians have now been added to the electoral roll ahead of Saturday's vote.

In what is shaping as a very tight contest, all the major parties are now doing their utmost to win over the new voters.

Watch the television or listen to the radio, and the blitz of mostly negative political advertising is hard to ignore.

But from midnight Wednesday the traditional blackout comes in and the parties pour their efforts into winning over voters through the internet or in newspapers.

Aside from the advertising, there is doorknocking and direct mail.

Some voters feel they are being targeted because they have suddenly joined the electoral roll.

Greens activist Matt Keyter moved house after the last election and he has now got a last-minute opportunity to vote in his new seat of Melbourne.

"Two days ago I received a letter from the Australian Electoral Commission saying that I'm now enrolled to vote," he said.

"I received also a letter endorsing [Labor candidate] Cath Bowtell's campaign today."

In the seat of Sydney, law student Doug Thompson has also had his name added to the electoral roll.

"At the start of this week I received a letter from [Labor candidate] Tanya Plibersek addressed to my new address providing me with her information on how I should vote in this election and her policies," he said.

The direct mail is not illegal, but Mr Thompson says he was surprised at the speed with which he was contacted.

He was one of two young Australians who, with the support of advocacy group GetUp!, had taken the matter of enrolment rights all the way to the High Court.

He has no doubt why the parties are suddenly taking an intense interest.

"I think it's proving to be potentially a much closer race than a lot of people were initially predicting," he said.

"I guess every party's doing everything that they can at the moment to try and put themselves in a better position."

The Labor Party campaign has made no secret it is pouring resources into the group of newly enfranchised Australians.

The ALP warns its candidates in the marginal seats are hunting down every last vote before Saturday.


Targeting marginal seats

Newspoll's Martin O'Shannessy is not surprised.

"I think the parties would be very interested in these voters, especially if they happen to be in marginal seats," he said.

"Urban Melbourne would be a very important area for voters who are essentially mostly virgins; that is they have not voted before.

"If you think that 100,000 of them spread over 150 electorates there's about 750 per electorate; it doesn't sound like a lot but there'll be electorates that move on one and two-point swings and we're talking very fine margins out there in the marginals."

Mr O'Shannessy says in this election an even greater percentage of voters will leave their decision right up to the last moment.

"By this time in 2007 about 70 per cent of people felt that this was the only party that they were going to vote for," he said.

"The balance, not many of them were thinking that another option was possible.

"At the moment, we're 10 points below that; the concern for the Government will be that a lot of that is within Labor voters, so concern that people haven't locked in.

"Now that does mean that things can change late and it's certainly making it devilishly difficult for us pollsters to have a nice clear-cut answer before the election."

Eyebrows raised by march of the robopoll
  
http://blogs.theaustralian.news.com.au/mumble/index.php/theaustralian/comments/eyebrows_raised_by_march_of_the_robopoll/

Mumble Blog | August 19, 2010 |


YESTERDAY The Sydney Morning Herald published the biggest political opinion poll the country has seen.


Most polls sample about 1000 respondents (although a few recent ones, such as Newspoll?s marginal seats survey, have gone into the several thousands).

But this survey, by JWS Research, interviewed an astonishing 28,000 people.

It found Labor narrowly ahead, winning 79 seats in the 150-seat House of Representatives, with three independents and 68 for the Coalition.

How could anyone afford to conduct such a huge survey? The answer is that it was done by interactive voice response (IVR), and is otherwise known as a robopoll.

This sort of for such and such, press 1 recorded voice interaction now routinely greets anyone who phones any large organisation, but in this case the robot does the phoning to random householders.

Are these surveys any good? The response rate for IVRs may be as low as 10 per cent about half that for phone polls. There is also a quality control question. There is no way of knowing that the respondent is not a child or someone randomly pressing keys.

JWS managing director John Scales says the huge number of respondents, along with rigorous weighting by age and gender, washes the inherent IVR problems away.

JWS surveyed only the seats it believed might possibly be in play, numbering 54.

The individual seat samples of 400 were too small to make a call on most individual results (the margin of error is about 5 per cent) but the pollsters did it anyway.

Possibly questionable assumptions were made about the ALP holding Melbourne and Macquarie in NSW; it probably won?t. And a couple of the questions raised the eyebrows.

The pollster asked the preferred prime minister question first. Many pollsters believe voting intentions, the most important measure, should always be at the top. But Scales counters that this question gets people in the political mood. And question No 2 was: Have you voted yet in this federal election?

It did produce what seems an improbably high number of postal and prepoll votes.

The survey also showed Green support at almost 15 per cent and Labor a little under 37 per cent, a couple of points higher and lower respectively than other pollsters are showing. But after preferences the two parties are around where other surveys have them.

Assuming a 10 per cent response rate, about 300,000 households were phoned?about 4 per cent of all households in the country. Imagine if all market research companies used this technology. You might think twice before answering the phone.

The commentariate and pundits are always out in force during elections. Those who make predictions based on emotion and party preference have no relevance to any debate and any predictions.
 
I have no intention of telling you how I will vote BUT I have made up my mind where my pencil will make the marks. I will not be voting Liberal or Labor in the House or Senate. Don't try guessing who I will vote for because there are many other parties out there. Suffice to say I am sorry to disappoint those who think I have a bias to one of the major parties. I pride myself on being a thinking voter and not a party clone who votes the same way every election.
 
Keith Tennent.
 
D-day minus 2
http://blogs.crikey.com.au/pollbludger/2010/08/19/d-day-minus-2-2/

Thursday, August 19, 2010 ? 5:30 am, by William Bowe

Dennis Atkins of the Courier-Mail on the Queensland situation:

Labor looks like losing three seats in Queensland at the very least ? Leichhardt, Flynn, Dawson ? and not picking up the Liberal-held but notionally ALP electorates of Herbert and Dickson. Beyond this Forde, Petrie, Longman and Bonner are within reach for the Coalition but still defendable for Labor. The other Queensland marginals ? Brisbane, Moreton and Blair ? look to be out of reach for the Coalition but this remains an expect-the-unexpected contest. Another unexpected wild card that is troubling some in the Queensland LNP and exciting a few Labor campaigners is the seat of Wright, the newly created electorate which sprawls to the south of Greater Brisbane and is, on paper, a 4.8 per cent Coalition seat. Some local trouble with the Coalition candidate, Scott Buchholz, and his electoral roll status as well as a few issues running Labor?s way has caused a nervous reassessment in conservative circles, although signs of a 3 to 4 per cent anti-government swing in Queensland make it look like a rank outsider.

Nick O?Malley and Erik Jensen of the Sydney Morning Herald note a curious fact:

But what is truly remarkable about western Sydney is the seats of Lindsay, Macarthur and Macquarie do not enjoy the largesse expected in key marginals. They are among the most important seats in NSW, held on margins of between 0.3 and 6.3 per cent, but there is almost no campaign pork barrelling. Labor?s $2 billion for an Epping-to-Parramatta rail link falls short of the region, though it will ease traffic. The best the Liberals have managed is $5 million to upgrade local sports grounds and some money for a bushland corridor. And still the seats are without adequate transport.

Elsewhere:

Bennelong  (NSW, Labor 1.4%): Momentum is building behind the idea that Maxine McKew will not be spared the backlash against Labor in Sydney. A Liberal source quoted by Imre Salusinszky of The Australian said party polling had their candidate John Alexander ?well in front, confirming what state Liberal MPs based in northern Sydney have been telling The Australian since the beginning of the campaign?. However, a Labor source is quoted saying their polling has it at 50-50, to which McKew recovered after Alexander was ?edging towards a win on first preferences? at the start of the campaign. A 300-sample Morgan poll conducted on Tuesday had Alexander leading 50.5-49.5

Dawson  (Qld, Labor 2.4%): A complaint to police alleging Liberal candidate Darren Jameson had manhandled two boys he believed had thrown eggs at his car has been withdrawn. Jameson is blaming Labor for the leaking of the complaint to the media. Imre Salusinszky argues that if indeed was a Labor plot to besmirch Jameson in the eyes of local voters, it hasn?t worked.

Herbert (Qld, Labor 0.4%): Julia Gillard and Wayne Swan were in Townsville on Tuesday to launch mainland construction of the National Broadband Network. The fortuitous placement of NBN pilot sites and GP super clinics was covered in depth yesterday by Nikola Berkovic and Adam Cresswell of The Australian.

Courtesy of Lukas in comments, here?s a full list of Labor two-party results from the JWS Research/Telereach robopoll. You can see a full set of results for Bass here; for any other electorate, make the obvious change to the URL. The Lindsay page is broken, hence its lack of a figure in the table. Bold denotes a seat tipped to change hands.

ALP WINS ALP 2PP% LNP WINS ALP 2PP%
Franklin 65 Leichhardt  49.9
Bendigo 61 Robertson  49.8
Deakin 61 Corangamite  49.5
Bass 60 Calare 49
Kingston 59 Bennelong  48
Braddon 58 Flynn  48
McEwen  57 Cowan 48
Dunkley  57 McMillan 48
Hindmarsh 56 Swan  48
Brand 56 Sturt 47
Eden-Monaro 54 Stirling 47
Boothby  54 Dawson  46
Cowper  54 Canning 46
Dobell 53 Petrie  44
Page 53 Forde  44
Moreton 52 Hughes 44
Paterson 52 Hinkler 44
Greenway 51 Hasluck  43
La Trobe 51 Grey 42.5
Longman 51 Macarthur  42
Solomon 51 Bonner  41
Herbert 51 Brisbane  41
    Dickson  41
    Fisher 41
    Bowman 40
    Fairfax 40
    Wright 36
    Lindsay  ?

Comments (31) | Permalink
Election predictions thread
Thursday, August 19, 2010 ? 5:12 am, by William Bowe
Here are mine ? I?ll explain my rationale, if any, tomorrow. This starts from the post-redistribution seat total of 88 out of 150 for Labor, rather than their actual 83. In New South Wales, Labor to lose Macarthur, Macquarie, Robertson and Gilmore. In Victoria, Labor to gain McEwen and La Trobe, and lose Melbourne to the Greens. In Queensland, Labor to lose Dickson, Herbert, Flynn, Dawson and Leichhardt. In Western Australia, Labor to lose Hasluck and Swan. In South Australia, Labor to gain Boothby. Status quo in Tasmania and the territories. Final result: Labor 79, Coalition 67, independents three, Greens one.

Over to you. Please keep this thread for election predictions: for general discussion, go to the post above this one.

[Keith]

Too much uniformity in Gillards win-loss
  
http://blogs.theaustralian.news.com.au/mumble/index.php/theaustralian/comments/too_much_uniformity/
Mumble Blog | August 18, 2010 |


In recent days a scenario has done the rounds of the Gillard government winning the national two party preferred vote but losing the election.

It seems to come from Labor sources managing expectations, and from the published marginal seats polling.

How likely is this? Of course it can happen under single member electorates, and statistically is bound to from time to time.

But it is not likely to happen to the ALP in 2010. In fact, the Coalition is more likely to suffer this fate.

I must disagree with learned colleague ...


... Simon Jackman who wrote in this paper yesterday that the obvious culprit in such a scenario would be a non-uniform swing.

On the contrary, every construction I have seen of a Labor win-but-loss is based on the assumption of uniform swing.

First is the the national pendulum. Go to Malcolm Mackerras?s and plot a 1.7 percent swing to the Coalition which sees the ALP with 51 percent of the vote but without its majority.

Then theres the published marginal seat polling. Typically these survey a few marginal seats in a state and apply the total swing to - first - every seat they surveyed and - second - the state as a whole.

They use the state portion of the national pendulum, assuming uniform (net) swing.

Some pollsters even nominate which seats would fall statewide, which means they leave out the net part.

The pendulum was not invented to predict actual seat outcomes, just overall numbers. And it works better the larger the number of electorates it contains.

Thats why the national one is better than the state portions.

And the national one is less likely to work at an election such as this which follows one that saw many seats change hands. See here .

In NSW the assumption is particularly problematic. For example, last weekends Galaxy had a swing to the Coalition in NSW of 2.4 percent, which plotted along the pendulum yields six seats.

That would leave Labor with more than 51 percent of the vote only but half the seats.

Thats not likely.

All the gossip has big swings to the Liberals in traditional outer suburban mortgage belt electorates like Macquarie and Macarthur but Labor limiting the damage in regionals such as Eden-Monaro and Page.

But marginal seats surveys generally take in Macquarie and Macarthur because they are numbers 2 and 3 on the state pendulum, and less often the other two.

These outer western Sydney seats are hardly typical of the state, or even marginal seats.

With five sitting members in the state with new personal votes Labor should do better than net uniform swing would dictate.

And anyway state by state swings are rarely uniform, even in a net sense.

Winning the vote but losing the election is a fate usually reserved for federal oppositions. If it does happen to one of the leaders this time it is likely to be Tony Abbott.

Another thing: a whopping survey

The SMH today reports a fascinating 28,000(!) strong surveyconducted by automated phone calls over last weekend.

Some commenters on this blog reported being phoned, and one said preferred prime minister was the first question which is a bit alarming because voting intentions should always come first.

It looks problematic in several ways (15 percent have prepolled!), but the sample size is obviously phenomenal and polling only 54 vaguely in-play electorates sounds good. Interesting idea, anyway.

[Keith]

For those who missed my earlier comments the broadband policies of all parties are critical to the Veteran community. To individuals, to ESOs and to serving members.
 
7:07 AM http://www.abc.net.au/elections/federal/2010/

The New South Wales Farmers Association has declared its support for Labor's national broadband network.

The association says the $43 billion optic fibre network will provide rural customers with the same services available in cities.

The association's president, Charles Armstrong, will speak to the ABC News Breakfast team at 7.10am. Watch live on the ABC News 24 page.

[Keith]

Nielsen JWS Research marginals mega-poll (and Galaxy and Morgan)

Tuesday, August 17, 2010 10:38 pm, by William Bowe
 
http://blogs.crikey.com.au/pollbludger/

The super-sample poll published by Fairfax, covering 22,000 voters in 54 seats (about 400 each), turns out to have been conducted not by Nielsen, but an outfit called JWS Research whose automated phone polling on the weekend were widely noted at the time. The Sydney Morning Herald sells its managing director John Scales as a renowned pollster who was director of Morgan from 1992 to 1995, and research director at Crosby Textor from 2002 until earlier this year. However, its methodology is untried, at least in the Australian context: presumably pollsters go to the expense of hiring interviewers for a very good reason (UPDATE: Lukas in comments points to the assessment of legendary US polling analyst Nate Silver, that theres not really convincing evidence about whether IVR polls [robopolls] are inferior to regular ones). Nonetheless, the general tenor of the results is in keeping with polling overall, give or take a few surprises. Taken together, the results point to 79 seats for Labor and 68 for the Coalition with three independents curiously, the poll did not cover Melbourne.

Queensland. Labor to lose Brisbane, Bonner, Petrie, Leichhardt, Forde, Dawson, Flynn and Dickson, but hold Moreton, Longman and Herbert.

New South Wales. Labor to lose Lindsay, Bennelong, Macarthur and Robertson while gaining Paterson and Cowper; Labor to hold Greenway, Dobell, Page, Eden-Monaro, Gilmore and Macquarie.

Victoria. Labor to gain McEwen, La Trobe and Dunkley, but lose Corangamite.

Elsewhere. Labor to gain Boothby, lose Hasluck and Swan, and hold Solomon.

We also have Galaxy polling another 800 voters in four Queensland marginals Bonner, Forde, Herbert and Longman and found happier results for Labor than the Queensland sample from the weekend?s super-survey, with a swing of 3.5 per cent rather than 5.4 per cent. Morgan has also published small-sample polls from Bennelong (300) and La Trobe (200) conducted just this evening, which respectively have the Liberals leading 50.5-49.5 and Labor leading 53-47.

UPDATE: And now state-by-state breakdowns from the past two weeks of Newspoll, both of which had the national result at 52-48. The state two-party are results are 52-48 to Labor in New South Wales (a 1.7 per cent swing), 52-48 to the Coalition in Queensland (2.4 per cent swing), 55-45 to Labor in Victoria (0.7 per cent swing to Labor), 56-44 to Labor in South Australia (3.6 per cent swing to Labor) and 57-43 to the Coalition in Western Australia (3.7 per cent swing to the Coalition).

UPDATE 2: Recent state-level polling results in terms of Labor swing:

 TOTAL NSW VIC Qld WA SA  
JWS Research -1.1 -2.1 2.4 -5.3 -0.5 -1.6  
Galaxy marginals -1.7 -3.1 1.6 -4.3 -2.1 0.0  
Newspoll (2 week) -0.7 -1.7 0.7 -2.4 -3.7 3.6  
Nielsen (2 week) -1.7 -2.7 3.0 -3.4 -2.7 0.6  
Essential (2 week) -1.7 -5.7 0.7 -3.4 0.3 1.6  

 THE AGE

Tony the Tower: Abbott's 'technical ignorance on a national scale' on wireless and broadband

Asher Moses

August 17, 2010-

Experts have again ridiculed Opposition Leader Tony Abbott's sheer lack of knowledge surrounding broadband and labelled the Coalition's policy "technical ignorance on a national scale".

Abbott's claim on ABC's Q&A http://www.abc.net.au/iview/#/program/620705 program last night that wireless was a substitute for a nationwide fibre-to-the-home network has been met with derision by the industry, which claims his plan would require a mobile tower on every street, push up internet prices and fail to support future applications that the public will demand.

Geoff Huston, chief scientist at APNIC, said the Coalition's plan to fall back on technologies such as wireless would end up running into capacity constraints due to a lack of spectrum and make broadband prohibitively expensive for most people.



Wireless is good enough ... Abbott on his BlackBerry. Photo: Mark Nolan

Broadband has become a key difference between the parties going into the election and Abbott has been repeatedly criticised http://www.smh.com.au/technology/technology-news/cyber-spheres-verdict-abbottcom-clueless-20100812-120g1.html for his lack of knowledge and vision in the area. He readily admits he's "no Bill Gates http://www.smh.com.au/technology/technology-news/im-no-bill-gates-abbott-stumbles-on-broadband-plan-20100811-11yp5.html

Labor plans to spend $43 billion on a nationwide fibre network supporting speeds of up to 1 gigabit per second, whereas the Coalition will spend $6 billion on a mishmash of technologies that will include upgrading existing copper networks and more wireless to support a 12 megabit per second peak speed.

"I'm not sure that we should assume that just because wireless is today slower than fibre cable that it's always going to be slower than fibre cable," Abbott said on Q&A.

"All of the people who are using their BlackBerries or their iPhones, Facebook, all of the people who are sitting in cafes and hotels rooms doing their work, they're all using wireless technology and we shouldn't assume that the only way of the future is high speed cable."

The Coalition questions whether people will really need the bandwidth provided by a fibre network, but experts say its comments betray a fundamental misunderstanding of internet technologies and future needs.

John Lindsay, carrier relations manager at ISP Internode, said the Coalition's broadband policy is "just technical ignorance on a national scale and frankly Australians deserve better than that".

"Inside the industry the view is that they don't really know what they're talking about and that they've just rehashed [their policy from] 2005," he said.

Huston, an expert in internet architectures, said it was extremely challenging to "get high speed data through the air" and the limited availability of wireless spectrum meant we would fast run into capacity problems.

"What's going to happen with wireless is that as we crowd it, only those with the deepest pockets will be able to afford it, so rather than being a communications medium for everyone, it becomes only a medium for the few who can afford to pay," Huston said.

"For the same $50 a month that people pay for a couple of gigabytes of wireless, they can get 10-20 times that amount of data down the wire - wireless has its role but it also attracts a premium price."

Internode's Lindsay said wireless was inherently slower than fibre because it was a "shared access medium". Wireless was also prone to drop-outs and spectrum constraints - Lindsay said Abbott had completely misunderstood the carrying capacity of radio networks.

If average home broadband use was transferred to wireless technologies, a user "would need to be a multimillionaire like Malcolm Turnbull to be able to afford the bill".

"Wireless is a brilliant technology to support the low bandwidth associated with mobility," he said, giving examples such as checking email on the go and browsing web pages on mobile phones.

"But if you wanted to build a wireless network that would be a viable substitute for fixed line ADSL you would need to put a wireless base station at the end of every street."

Already, this election campaign has seen an uproar by residents http://www.smh.com.au/federal-election/the-buzz-in-bennelong-one-towering-mistake-could-swing-election-20100813-122tc.html of the Sydney electorate Bennelong over the installation of a single new mobile tower by Optus.

The Internet Industry Association chief executive, Peter Coroneos, said wireless networks were already having capacity issues and there was no way the technology could support future broadband applications such as e-health initiatives, high definition video conferencing and smart metering for people to monitor their electricity use online.

"We've been disappointed by the Coalition's approach to broadband," Coroneos said.

"The experts in the industry seem fairly unanimous that fibre is the ultimate long-term solution ... the sooner we build, the sooner we start seeing revenue flow from the technology and the better placed we are to leverage lower costs that won't necessarily be with us in the future."

Coroneos said that, in 1904, when street lighting came to Sydney, the mainstream view of the population was that electricity was for lighting. There was nothing in the public consciousness that pointed to electricity as being a revolutionary technology for both the home and for factories, which was only realised decades later.

"We use the same analogy for broadband, which is to say you can't just look at today's use of the internet - that is the equivalent of saying electricity's great for lighting," he said.

Coroneos said a nationwide fibre network would enable applications such as home high definition video conferencing "where we could spend the afternoon with our family overseas with the use of 3D glasses and a super-fast broadband connection".

It would also improve healthcare and open up new business models for the content industry, which is today struggling with rampant piracy.

On Q&A last night, Abbott said that, even if we could get 100 megabits per second capacity, 70 per cent of the sites Australians use were hosted overseas making us "dependent upon more than just our own broadband".

He also said the Coalition's plan for a $700 per household investment in broadband - far less than Labor's $5000 per household plan - was comparable to the kind of investment in other countries such as Singapore, New Zealand and South Korea.

Coroneos queried where Abbott was getting his advice from and said there were already high-speed underwater fibre cables capable of carrying Australian internet traffic overseas at speeds of more than a terabit per second.

"Australia is a bigger country and nation-building investments will necessarily cost more per capita here - that's just a function of our relatively low population and our size," he said.

"But we don't deny ourselves more roads and more infrastructure simply because it will cost more. We realise that that comes with the territory of being so large and having a small population."

James Spenceley, chief executive of wholesale ISP Vocus, rejected Abbott's claims that wireless could ever come close to being as fast as fibre. But he said wireless was a viable technology for regional areas and questioned the sense of spending large sums to lay fibre cables across the country.

"In a lot of cases wireless is a perfectly good solution, especially in regional areas," he said.

He said fibre by its nature was always going to be faster than wireless, but the question was whether wireless was fast enough for whatever people wanted to do. Existing copper networks, he said, could also be upgraded down the track to deliver speeds of up to 100 megabits per second.

"I think the Coalition's plan is more realistic, $43 billion is a lot of money ... you don't need to throw the baby out with the bath water, the copper network is pretty good in the cities and will continue to evolve."

A spokeswoman for the Communications Minister, Stephen Conroy, said Abbott had shown once again that he didn't understand broadband and the Coalition's policy would relegate Australia to the digital dark ages.

"Tony Abbott's broadband policy is a patchwork, not a network it relies on old, slow and inferior technology and Australia deserves better," the spokeswoman said.

Source: smh.com.au

[Keith]

From: Keith Tennent
To: Veterans Email List ; RSL Nat President ; President Capricornia & Rockhampton Region RSL Sub Branch ; ESO List ; Defence Force Welfare Assoc ; AWM Gen Gower ; Australian Defence Assoc
Cc: Media List ; Federal Parliamentary List
Sent: Tuesday, August 17, 2010 12:04 PM
Subject: MORE PARTY POLICIES FROM THE MINOR PARTIES


PLEASE OPEN THE ATTACHMENTS

http://theaussiedigger.com/TheAussieDiggerForum/index.php?topic=549.new#new

From: National Office
To: 'Keith Tennent'
Sent: Tuesday, August 17, 2010 11:59 AM
Subject: POLICIES


 

Family First policy:

 http://www.familyfirst.org.au/policy/policyveterans.pdf 

The Greens:

http://greens.org.au/sites/greens.org.au/files/policydownloads/E7%20Peace%20and%20Security%20June%202008.pdf

Could not find any specific policies supporting our ADF people or veterans. Can anyone else?

Carers Alliance:

http://www.workingcarers.org.au/options/778-carersalliance 

Les

________________________________________

 

Les Bienkiewicz

Executive Director

Defence Force Welfare Association

PO Box 4166

KINGSTON  ACT  2604

T:  02 6265 9530

M: 0411 444248

F:  02 6265 9776

W: www.dfwa.org.au

[Keith]

From: Keith Tennent
To: Veterans Email List ; RSL Nat President ; President Capricornia & Rockhampton Region RSL Sub Branch ; ESO List ; Defence Force Welfare Assoc ; AWM Gen Gower ; Australian Defence Assoc
Cc: Media List ; Federal Parliamentary List
Sent: Tuesday, August 17, 2010 10:03 AM
Subject: COMPARING VETERANS POLICIES


Dear readers,

Please find attached the Coalition and Labor Veterans policies for this election.

Keith Tennent.

TO READ THE ATTACHMENTS PLEASE CLICK THIS LINK

http://theaussiedigger.com/TheAussieDiggerForum/index.php?topic=549.new#new


--------------------------

From: Keith Tennent
To: Veterans Email List ; RSL Nat President ; President Capricornia & Rockhampton Region RSL Sub Branch ; ESO List ; Defence Force Welfare Assoc ; AWM Gen Gower ; Australian Defence Assoc
Cc: Media List ; Federal Parliamentary List
Sent: Tuesday, August 17, 2010 10:22 AM
Subject: DEFENCE POLICY


Dear readers,

I don't have a comprehensive Coalition Defence policy to send you. Please find attached the Labor Defence policy which is of interest to those of you who are serving and those ESO and family members who have contact with serving members in one way or another.

Keith Tennent.
http://theaussiedigger.com/TheAussieDiggerForum/index.php?topic=539.new#new

[Keith]

National polls blunt but better
  
http://blogs.theaustralian.news.com.au/mumble/index.php/theaustralian/comments/national_polls_blunt_but_better/
Mumble Blog | August 17, 2010 |


Its the inevitable refrain in every campaign: this election will be decided in the marginal seats.

Statements of the bleedin obvious they dont come much more obvious. Or less useful, because we don?t know exactly which seats these will be and anyway cant survey them all.

Which polls should we pay more attention to: the national ones or the marginal seat ones?

In a perfect world, pollsters would ...



... conduct a full, regular (say, weekly) stand alone survey in every electorate that could conceivably be in play say about 60 of them.

But that would send everybody broke so instead the best we can hope for are ones like Saturdays Newspoll and Sundays Galaxy. http://blogs.theaustralian.news.com.au/mumble/index.php/theaustralian/comments/newspoll_in_three_state_marginals

The Newspoll was encouraging for Labor, Galaxy for the Coalition.

These were both wonderful creatures: humungous samples by Australian standards and must have cost a bomb.

But they rested on many assumptions.

The pollsters nominated a few marginal seats in each state.

Because the samples in each electorate were not large enough to be meaningful, the total swing in each states marginals was applied to its portion of the pendulum. Then the total seat numbers were tallied for a national total.

The trouble is, this election wont come down to these seats. If its close, the deciders will be some of these electorates and some higher up on the pendulum - and some other surprise ones.

As well, plotting swings against pendulums is always iffy, particularly after an election that saw lots of seats change hands http://blogs.theaustralian.news.com.au/mumble/index.php/theaustralian/comments/sophomore_surge_careful_with_that_pendulum

Doing it state by state from a few selected electorates multiplies the imprecision http://blogs.theaustralian.news.com.au/mumble/index.php/theaustralian/comments/sophomore_surge_careful_with_that_pendulum

Take the NSW portions of each poll. Newspoll found a swing of 1.3 percent to the Coalition and Galaxy 2.4 percent the same way http://blogs.theaustralian.news.com.au/mumble/index.php/theaustralian/comments/sophomore_surge_careful_with_that_pendulum

The two baskets of marginal seats were slightly different, which alone would lead to different aggregate swings http://blogs.theaustralian.news.com.au/mumble/index.php/theaustralian/comments/sophomore_surge_careful_with_that_pendulum

And anyway you and I know that in survey terms these are not very different numbers http://blogs.theaustralian.news.com.au/mumble/index.php/theaustralian/comments/sophomore_surge_careful_with_that_pendulum

In fact, often they would both be rounded to one percent http://blogs.theaustralian.news.com.au/mumble/index.php/theaustralian/comments/sophomore_surge_careful_with_that_pendulum

But plotting the two against the NSW portion of the pendulum you get four seats moving to the Coalition versus seven http://blogs.theaustralian.news.com.au/mumble/index.php/theaustralian/comments/sophomore_surge_careful_with_that_pendulum

And thats just in one state http://blogs.theaustralian.news.com.au/mumble/index.php/theaustralian/comments/sophomore_surge_careful_with_that_pendulum

In the end were left with choosing between two imperfect types of surveys: the marginal ones that extrapolate a few electorates out to the wider marginal seat population, or the blunt instrument of national polls http://blogs.theaustralian.news.com.au/mumble/index.php/theaustralian/comments/sophomore_surge_careful_with_that_pendulum

I prefer the national polls, mainly because there are lots and lots of them, week in and out http://blogs.theaustralian.news.com.au/mumble/index.php/theaustralian/comments/sophomore_surge_careful_with_that_pendulum

Theyre not perfect and perhaps would be improved by excluding the one hundred percent guaranteed safe electorates http://blogs.theaustralian.news.com.au/mumble/index.php/theaustralian/comments/sophomore_surge_careful_with_that_pendulum

But amongst all the imprecision and guesswork, heres a pretty good rule of thumb http://blogs.theaustralian.news.com.au/mumble/index.php/theaustralian/comments/sophomore_surge_careful_with_that_pendulum

If the Gillard government gets more than half the two party preferred national vote on Saturday, it will probably form government. If the Abbott opposition gets more than 51 percent, itll probably win. A result between these two could go either way http://blogs.theaustralian.news.com.au/mumble/index.php/theaustralian/comments/sophomore_surge_careful_with_that_pendulum

Let the parties worry about the marginal seats http://blogs.theaustralian.news.com.au/mumble/index.php/theaustralian/comments/sophomore_surge_careful_with_that_pendulum

[Keith]

D-day minus 4
http://blogs.crikey.com.au/pollbludger/
 
Tuesday, August 17, 2010 4:57 am, by William Bowe
 
Theres a poll of sorts, but it would be a bit of a stretch to give it its own headline:

 Roy Morgan has targeted a micro-sample of 200 voters in the crucial Victorian seat of McEwen, which could provide Labor with a desperately needed gain to offset losses in Queensland and New South Wales. Certainly thats what the polls headline figure shows, with Labor leading 55.5-44.5, but the margin of error is approaching 7 per cent.

 Peter Tucker at Tasmanian Politics has full results from the weekends EMRS poll from Tasmania, which pointed to a statewide 4 per cent two-party swing to Labor from primary votes of 43 per cent for Labor (unchanged on 2007), the Liberals on 34 per cent (down four) and the Greens on 20 per cent (up six). The sample on the poll is about 1000, with a margin-of-error or about 3 per cent. As usual, 200-sample breakdowns of each of the states five electorates are provided, and for what theyre worth they show Labor enjoying the full force of the swing in marginal Bass and Braddon.

 Laura Tingle of the Financial Review wrote yesterday that more seasoned sections of the Labor camp believe they are just ahead and will fall over the line. This confidence was partly inspired by a conviction the party would be better placed to sway late undecided voters in the wake of a Labor launch which, Tingle accurately predicted, would seek to maximise the governments apparent economic conservatism as it launches TV ads that portray Abbott as too big a risk to the economy with the world economy still shaky.

 Peter Kerr of the Financial Review reported yesterday that Labor insiders in Western Australia were growing confident they were ahead in up to three (WA) marginals  Liberal-held Canning as well as Swan and Hasluck. The result in each was thought likely to come down to between 500 and 600 votes. The report also noted the significance of John Howard holding a fund-raiser for Canning MP Don Randall this week.

 Simon Jackman in The Australian discusses the potential for the election to follow 1990 and 1998 in denying victory to the party with the greater share of the two-party vote. He also observes the disconnect between bookmakers odds on the overall result, which point to a clear Labor win, and individual seats, which point to Labor falling one seat short of an absolute majority.
 

[Keith]

Labor plan for Veterans and Defence click here http://theaussiedigger.com/TheAussieDiggerForum/index.php?topic=549.new#new

[Keith]

Labor promises $21m for wounded soldiers
ABC NEWS

Labor says it will spend an extra $21 million to support wounded Defence personnel if re-elected.

The money would go towards programs for specialist rehabilitation, housing support, and efforts to minimise the financial disadvantage suffered by wounded personnel.

The measures are part of Labor's Defence policy, which also allocates $10 million to increase the number of reservists who are able to respond to humanitarian disasters like the Victorian bushfires.

[Keith]

Labors mad gorilla chained up for now
 
http://blogs.theaustralian.news.com.au/mumble/index.php/theaustralian/comments/labors_mad_gorilla/

Mumble Blog | August 16, 2010 |

Two weeks ago the ALP tranquilised and chained up its mad gorilla.

That gorilla was the re-election strategy that saw them forgot about incumbency and go instead for values and asylum seekers and the belief that Julia Gillards popularity would reap a comfortable victory. The logic that drove this strategy was that you ask people what they want and then announce with fanfare that you will give it to them.

Then on August 2 the prime minister announced that henceforth ...


... we would see the real her, but what it heralded was a new emphasis on the economy and the Rudd governments handling of the global financial crisis.

Todays Newspoll (tables here http://resources.news.com.au/files/2010/08/15/1225905/613799-aus-news-file-newspoll-160810.pdf has the same headline two party preferred of 52 to 48 as last weeks.

But with a one point drop in the Coalitions primary vote and rise the Greens it must have come close to 53 to 47.

That difference is statistically trivial but it influences newspaper headlines and perceptions. And because Im not a statistician I do believe its better to be on 53 than 52.

The last time Newspoll asked respondents best at handling issues questions was over July 23-25, when voting intentions were also 52 to 48 to Labor.

Back then the Coalition led on the economy 47 to 35. On the weekend just past it was 44 to 43 the same way.

Thats a huge turnaround in three weeks (although note that the possibly rogue 55 to 45 Newspoll http://blogs.theaustralian.news.com.au/mumble/index.php/theaustralian/comments/is_todays_newspoll_a_rogue/ on the weekend the election was called was also neck and neck on the economy).

(See also how all the blundering around on asylum seekers did little to change best at perceptions.)

Most elections have an underlying logic, which is either: this government is headed for likely re-election; or this government is headed for likely defeat.

But not this one, because Gillard began the campaign avoiding any suggestion she actually was prime minister of Australia.

We had instead a contest between two opposition leaders.

And one of them was lumbered with policy disappointments of the Rudd government.

A fortnight ago Gillard and Wayne Swan began building incumbency and using the unfair advantage it brings to lob the opposition.

Gillard became the Prime Minister and Swan the Treasurer and they began asking (to borrow a phrase): who do you trust?

Entering the final week with undecideds finally deciding, she needs to keep building that incumbency.

And it is Tony Abbotts job to rip it down and make himself the safer option.

He is the carrier of Howard era economic responsibility and budget surpluses, while Gillard is like Kevin Rudd but more risky.

Abbotts transformation from boyish larrikin to statesman has been impressive and it was a pity for him few people got to see his Rooty Hill performance.

The gorilla escaped last week and briefly wreaked havoc in western Sydney with the rail link announcement but it seems strapped in and docile again - for the time being.

Were finally in the home stretch, and this election still could go either way.

[Keith]

The simple answer is both sides love cuddling up to the US and are afraid to let Australia stand on her own feet. Going all the way with Obama is short sighted. And not one more drop of young Australian blood should be spilled in Afghanistan.
Keith Tennent.

Why isn't Afghanistan an election issue?
 

Jacinda Woodhead

 
In this election, we've been told all about the boats coming to Australia. But there are things we haven't been told about Afghanistan, one of the places these asylum seekers are fleeing. Things to do with death, history and war, things that should make this conflict an election issue.

In the most recent 90 days of the war - as opposed to the past 3,231 days the war has been running - we might have learned this is no longer about the liberation of women; this is no longer about finding Osama bin Laden, who no-one believes is actually hiding in Afghanistan; this is no longer about hunting down Al Qaeda, because, at most, there are only "50 to 100, maybe less" members left; this is no longer about wresting control from the Taliban, because - despite the additional 30,000 troops recently deployed to Kandahar and Helmand - we will most likely hand these provinces over to the Taliban http://www.commondreams.org/headline/2010/07/19-6 "Negotiated settlement" has become a familiar refrain. Yet to learn these things, we would have to take to political discourse with a magnifying glass, armed with a forensic degree in reading between the lines.

The war on Afghanistan has been running for 8 yrs 10 months 4 days, or 8.84 years. The majority of those in the know, from troops on the ground to diplomats and leaders, assume that the US/NATO alliance in Afghanistan has lost the war. In the first half of 2010 http://hosted.ap.org/dynamic/stories/A/AS_AFGHANISTAN?SITE=CARIE&SECTION=HOME&TEMPLATE=DEFAULT at least 1,271 Afghan civilians were killed and 1,997 injured. That's a 31 per cent increase over 2009's gory first half of the year. The UN reports "roadside bombs alone killed at least 74 children," which is a "155 per cent increase in bombing-related deaths among children compared to the same period last year."

How much does all this war cost? Not merely in dollars and cents, or blood, limbs and coffins draped in military cloth: If we combine all the funding, labour, debating in parliament, propaganda, defence spending, death and casualty tolls, of the occupier and the occupied, how do we begin to calculate that cost?

In his departing presidential speech in 1961, Dwight Eisenhower prophetically uttered:

"[W]e have been compelled to create a permanent armaments industry of vast proportions. Added to this, three and a half million men and women are directly engaged in the defense establishment. We annually spend on military security more than the net income of all United States corporations."

Those were the stakes in 1961, but we seldom learn how profitable war is today, for some.

In March, Peter Leahy, a former ADF chief http://www.theage.com.au/national/defence-spending-questioned-20100309-pvwl.html warned Australia should cut back on its defence spending, suggesting $27 billion could be used more productively and sustainably. He recommended Australia instead focus on "food, water and energy shortages, climate change, pandemics, mass migration" and how we will manage any or all of these issues. He also cautioned that Australia was investing billions of dollars in equipment for a war that would likely never eventuate.

The US recently voted to provide an additional US$37billion to their war efforts in Afghanistan http://www.salon.com/news/opinion/glenn_greenwald/2010/07/29/change This is on top of the US$1 trillion the US http://www.reuters.com/article/idUSN2611591520100126 has already spent in Iraq and Afghanistan. The ramifications of expensive decade-long wars http://www.salon.com/news/opinion/glenn_greenwald/2010/08/06/collapse/index.html are taking their toll on American citizens, who face cuts to Social Security and Medicare. Other absurd cutbacks to essential services have already begun, like switching off city streetlights, cutting 12th grade and unpaving roads. Now we learn that Obama is intending to freeze military pay.

These are just some of the things we haven't been told about Afghanistan.

Here's another. Germany is the third largest contingent in Afghanistan, yet recent polling reveals that 70% of Germans want their government to withdraw. In Australia it's as much as 61% http://www.theage.com.au/national/closing-ranks-on-afghanistan-quibbling-over-procurement-20100726-10sm3.html and in the US 43% now deem it a mistake http://www.gallup.com/poll/141716/new-high-call-afghanistan-war-mistake.aspx to have ever brought the war to Afghanistan in the first place.

The WikiLeaks war diaries and mounting troop losses are doubtlessly contributing to this general anti-war mood. Many soldiers are dying in Afghanistan. July (66 US soldiers) and June (60) saw the highest soldier death tolls since the war began. Yet, continually, these deaths are swept under the rug and nullified for the greater good - the greater good that has since proved a mirage.

Rarely do we hear that Afghanistan is a problem manufactured by numerous US administrations http://www.democracynow.org/2004/6/10/ghost_wars_how_reagan_armed_the with help from significant others in the region. The Mujahadeen, some of whom became al Qaeda, were trained and financed by the US, Saudi Arabia and Pakistan to fight the Soviet regime. The Taliban were then supported and financed by the US and Pakistan to battle the Mujahadeen. Thus, we have a country in the throes of a civil war of our allies' making.

When two plus two only equals bloody, expensive disorder, it's time to turn our searching gaze to our own continent and ask some blunt questions of Gillard, Abbott and co. First and foremost, why are we still in Afghanistan? If "negotiated settlement" is the accepted outcome, why are NATO forces about to embark on a fierce offensive in Kandahar? Why has the civilian death toll surged by 31 per cent? Obviously, war is profitable for some, such as companies and governments that profit from Eisenhower's military-industrial complex; why are those profiting never the civilians, the soldiers or the Australian and US taxpayers?

If we were told these things, if all these truths were laid bare, the war itself would come to a standstill, would, in fact, cease to exist. What is a war without soldiers, without engineers, without factory labourers and without a voting public?

Last week, Priyamvada Gopal wrote http://www.theage.com.au/opinion/politics/simplistic-moralism-sells-afghans-short-20100806-11ofx.html

"The real effects of the NATO occupation, including the worsening of many women's lives under the lethal combination of patriarchal feudalism and new corporate militarism, are rarely discussed ... The truth is that the US and allied regimes do not have anything substantial to offer Afghanistan beyond feeding the gargantuan war machine they have unleashed."

These are some of the things we are not told about the war in Afghanistan, a war that has been running for 3,231 days. Why isn't this issue, one that destroys lives, countries and economies and creates millions of refugees, a major election issue?


Jacinda Woodhead is a Melbourne writer and the online editor for Overland literary journal, where she blogs about politics and literature.

[Keith]

http://www.abc.net.au/elections/federal/2010/

6:49 AM
Another day, another poll ... but this one is all good news for Labor.

With five days until the electorate passes judgement, this morning's Newspoll has Labor ahead 52-48 on a two-party preferred basis.

Antony Green has plugged the figures into his election calculator http://www.abc.net.au/elections/federal/2010/calculator/?swing=national&national=-0.7&nsw=0&vic=0&qld=0&wa=0&sa=0&tas=0&act=0&nt=0&retiringfactor=1 and it shows a comfortable win for Labor - 81-66 with the three independents keeping their seats.

But perhaps all this proves is that there is plenty of volatility out there, because as we posted yesterday, the calculator crunched the state breakdowns of the last three Nielsen polls and came up with a hung parliament http://bit.ly/cGCm9G

Still, the Newspoll should put somthing of a spring in the step of the Labor faithful this morning as they prepare for their campaign launch in Brisbane.

[Keith]

Newspoll: 52-48 to Labor
http://blogs.crikey.com.au/pollbludger/

Sunday, August 15, 2010 ? 10:22 pm, by William Bowe

The Australian http://www.theaustralian.com.au/national-affairs/labor-attacks-breach-tony-abbotts-defences/story-fn59niix-1225905600144 reports the latest Newspoll has Labor leading 52-48, from primary votes of 38 per cent Labor (steady), 41 per cent Coalition (down one) and 14 per cent Greens (up one). Theres also that rare thing an interesting finding on an attitudinal question, this being a plunge in the Coalitions lead as better to manage the economy from 12 per cent to 1 per cent. Chief suspects: Labors Hewson-Costello ads and the Coalitions costings confusion, much of which would have escaped the Sunday-to-Thursday time frame of the great Galaxy mega-poll.

UPDATE: Full results here http://resources.news.com.au/files/2010/08/15/1225905/613799-aus-news-file-newspoll-160810.pdf As in Nielsen, Julia Gillards personal ratings have improved: approval up one to 44 per cent and disapproval down three to 38 per cent, but Tony Abbotts have as well, off the base of what was probably an unflattering result last week: approval up two to 43 per cent, disapproval down three to 46 per cent. Preferred prime minister is essentially unchanged, with both Gillard and Abbott up a point to 50 per cent and 35 per cent respectively. However, the poll confirms a general trend of the Labor vote being slightly softer than the Coalition. As well as closing the economy gap from 47-35 to 44-43, Labor has also pulled further ahead as best party to handle climate change, from 33-26 to 35-22, while the Coalition lead on asylum seekers has widened incrementally from 42-29 to 43-29.

[Keith]

 
Galaxy doesnt follow the script
  
http://blogs.theaustralian.news.com.au/mumble/index.php/theaustralian/comments/galaxy/
Mumble Blog | August 15, 2010 | 2 Comments


The Galaxy released in News Ltd tabloids today is very encouraging for the Coalition.

They polled marginals in each mainland state, 800 per state. In every component it is worse for the ALP than yesterdays Newspoll in three of those five states.

Ignore the reports that put the Coalition ahead on the national two party preferred vote ...


... 51.4 to 48.6. Any national calculation from these numbers has Labor ahead around 51 to 49. (Antony Green explains how someone stuffed up.)

The Galaxy results can be found here.

Ive summarised the two party preferred data below, showing Labors only. (Coalitions is always 100 minus Labors.)







*Have assumed a Coalition gain of one seat each in Tasmania and Northern Territory and status quo in ACT.

If you weight the swings and apply them across all states, you get a 1.8 percent national swing to the Coalition which comes to about 51 in 49 in the government?s favour. (Extrapolating the swing to Tas, ACT and NT gives it about another 0.1 percent.)

Todays Galaxy should moderate somewhat any confidence in a Labor victory arising from yesterdays polls.

But while it is is the most recently released data, it was is not the most recent.

Galaxy polled from Sunday to Thursday night, while yesterdays ACNielsen and Newspoll were taken Tuesday to Thursday nights.

Whether we should make much of the different timeframes is a known unknown.

[Keith]

Good morning and welcome to Election Live.

http://www.abc.net.au/elections/federal/2010/

The ABC's election analyst, Antony Green, says someone has made an "absolute howler" in producing a Galaxy Poll published today in News Limited papers.

The poll puts the Coalition ahead of Labor on a two-party preferred basis at 51.4 per cent to 48.6 per cent, and on track to secure the 17 seats it needs for victory.

It comes a day after a Herald/Nielsen poll had the ALP in front of the Coalition 53-47 per cent.

But Green says the Galaxy poll, which focuses on four key marginal seats in each state, is flawed.

The five 2PP figures for 2007 and 2010 reported apply only to the four electorates in each state. They are not 2-party preferred figures for each state, and the Galaxy tables have been very precise in setting out the 4-seats per state nature of the poll.

What someone has done is take the five entries in the 2010 2PP column and average them to get a national figure. Wrong. Very wrong.

There are two serious errors committed here. First, the figures are for four electorates, NOT the states. Second, while the state samples are the same size, the state populations are not. To get a National 2PP figure, you need a weighted average of the state swings, NOT a simple average of the survey 2PPs by state.

 

[Keith]

Huge swing against Labor puts Tony Abbott on brink of stunning election win

Daryl Passmore
From: The Sunday Mail (Qld)
August 15, 2010


A HUGE swing against Labor by Queensland voters has put Tony Abbott on the brink of a stunning win at a cliffhanger federal election on Saturday.

The most comprehensive poll conducted during the election campaign so far shows Julia Gillard's team at risk of losing up to 10 seats in the Sunshine State, as they reap the backlash from Kevin Rudd's dumping.

The scenario is reminiscent of the 1996 federal election, when then premier Wayne Goss famously described Queensland voters as sitting on their verandas with baseball bats waiting for Paul Keating. Labor went on to lose 11 seats in 1996, retaining only the Brisbane seats of Brisbane and Rankin.

Last week's poll of national marginal seats was conducted exclusively for The Sunday Mail by Galaxy Research. A similar poll in 2007 accurately predicted Kevin Rudd's landslide victory.

With the ALP also in jeopardy of losing seven seats in NSW and two in Western Australia, their best hope of retaining power appears to rest on picking up two seats in Ms Gillard's home state of Victoria.

The Galaxy poll of 4000 voters in four marginal electorates in each of five states reveals the result could not be closer and may come down to a few hundred votes in one or two seats.

Galaxy principal David Briggs said the average swing across the five states to the Coalition was 1.7 per cent but there were big variations and individual candidates and local issues could easily decide particular seats.

Green preferences will be crucial to Labor's chances and that will rest on how many people vote Green in protest at the ALP's failure to act on climate change.

Even if Mr Abbott does not win the 17 seats necessary to secure power in his own right, 14 could be enough to open negotiations with independents on forming a minority government.

The poll findings will ensure a frenetic final week to the campaign, starting with Labor's official launch in Brisbane tomorrow.

``Labor is a basket case in Queensland,'' Mr Briggs said.

Just as Queenslanders handed the ALP victory three years ago, the Sunshine State has the potential to return them to the opposition benches after just one term in power.

Queensland poll results from the electorates of Bowman, Dawson, Dickson and Flynn point to a 5.4 per cent state swing against Labor, giving the Coalition a 54-46 per cent lead on a two-party preferred basis here.

If the swing is uniform across the state, it would result in the ALP losing 10 seats - one more than they gained in 2007 - and the LNP is also expected to pick up the new electorate of Wright.

Wyatt Roy, the LNP's 20-year-old candidate in Caboolture-based Longman, is poised for a surprise win over Labor's John Sullivan.

And ALP veteran Arch Bevis, an MP for 20 years, would lose Brisbane to Teresa Gambaro, who was member for Petrie throughout the 11 years of the Howard Government before losing in 2007.

The mining-dependant central and north Queensland seats of Flynn and Dawson would also go to the Coalition.

Former MP Warren Entsch is set to win back his old seat of Leichhardt for the LNP, which could also gain Forde (based in Logan) and Bonner, the inner-eastern suburban seat held by former Brisbane city councillor Kerry Rea since 2007.

Former Howard minister Peter Dutton would hold Dickson, which had become notionally Labor after boundary changes. And Lindsay in Townsville, also now notionally ALP, would also stay with the LNP.

The slump in support for Labor comes despite Queensland voters rating Ms Gillard a better choice for prime minister than Mr Abbott. Overall 45 per cent reckon she would be the preferred option, with 38 per cent backing the Coalition leader and 17 per cent uncommitted.

But while anger over the way Mr Rudd was rolled by his colleagues has dissipated around the rest of the country, resentment remains strong in his home state of Queensland.

Some 47 per cent of voters here believe Mr Rudd would make a better leader. Only 35 per cent support Ms Gillard.

Queensland is also the only state where more voters say they are worse off economically than three years ago.

With the loss of 17 seats nationwide enough to cost Labor power, the poll results point to an absolute nail-biter result on Saturday night.

On top of the 10 potential defeats in Queensland, a 2.4 per cent swing could cost Labor seven seats in the tough NSW battleground. The poll suggests two more losses for them in Western Australia and a status quo outcome in South Australia  19 losses in all.

Victoria could be their election salvation. It is the only state where Labor looks likely to gain seats  thanks to strong support for Ms Gillard as Prime Minister

Galaxy marginals polls and the rest
http://blogs.crikey.com.au/pollbludger/

Sunday, August 15, 2010 ? 2:09 am, by William Bowe

News Limited have unloaded what they had promoted, accurately I believe, as the largest opinion poll ever conducted in Australia a 4000-sample monster covering four marginal seats in each mainland state. This poll has been dubiously reported, thanks to a national total calculation which has credited the Coalition with a 51.4 per cent two-party vote. This appears to be a straight average of the five states results provided by Galaxy, without regard to population relativities between the states or the fact that the seats targeted were 2 per cent weaker for Labor than the national total in 2007. A balanced appraisal of the results points to a swing of about 1.7 per cent, which would produce a national Labor two-party vote of 51 per cent if consistent  slightly at the lower end of the recent phone poll trend. The poll shows a 2.4 per cent swing to the Liberals in the NSW seats of Eden-Monaro, Gilmore, Macarthur and Macquarie; a 1.6 per cent swing to Labor in Corangamite, Deakin, La Trobe and McEwen in Victoria; a 5.4 per cent swing to the Liberal National Party in Bowman, Dawson, Dickson and Flynn in Queensland; a 2.1 per cent swing to the Liberals in Hasluck, Stirling, Cowan and Swan in Western Australia; and no swing at all in Boothby, Grey, Kingston and Sturt in South Australia.

The rub for Labor is that the New South Wales and Queensland swing figures are right where they need to be to maximise the Coalition seat haul in uniform swing terms: over the 4.5 per cent mark needed for a tenth seat in Queensland, and just reaching the threshold that would cost them seven seats in New South Wales (it would take a further 1.5 per cent to bag an eighth). A straight loss of this many seats would single-handedly cost Labor the election. With no swing recorded in South Australia, the only counterbalancing gains would be the two Liberal marginals in Victoria, La Trobe and McEwen. The result would be a bare absolute majority for the Coalition.

However, any haul of 17 seats in New South Wales and Queensland would have to include a few they are generally expected to retain, such as Eden-Monaro and Page. Possibly some of the seats selected for the poll are a bit unflattering for Labor. There is a concentration of western Sydney in the NSW sample, an area yesterday?s poll of four seats for the Daily Telegraph showed to be tough for Labor (it appears Galaxy have conducted separate polls for Macarthur for each release). The Queensland sample also includes Bowman, which Labor has probably written off (UPDATE: Mark Bahnisch at Larvatus Prodeo says ?Labor is barely running a campaign, with reports appearing for weeks in the Brisbane Times that their candidate is invisible, and the local papers cant get hold of her for an interview). Note that for all the vastness of Galaxys total national sample, as far as all-important Queensland is concerned the results are less sturdy than yesterday?s Newspoll, which targeted eight Queensland seats rather than four and 1600 respondents rather than 800. That poll produced a swing of 3.4 per cent against Labor compared with Galaxys 5.4 per cent, which in uniform swing terms would mean a difference of no fewer than four seats.

The table below shows swings recorded in state-level Newspolls and Nielsens through the first three weekends of the campaign (with one Westpoll thrown in for good measure), plus the targeted polling we have seen over the current weekend. For the former, samples for any given observation are 765 for NSW, 665 for Victoria, 585 for Queensland, 465 for WA (865 in week three, achieved by throwing in the Westpoll result) and 445 in SA, producing margins of error ranging from 4.6 per cent in South Australias case to 3.6 per cent for New South Wales. The composite of the most recent two Nielsen figures has smaller samples of around 250 for the smallest states. The latest Galaxy polls have samples of 800 per state and margins of error of about 3.5 per cent. The Newspoll marginals poll had samples of 600 in Victoria (4 per cent margin of error), 1200 in New South Wales (2.8 per cent margin of error) and 1600 in Queensland (2.5 per cent margin of error).

  TOTAL NSW VIC Qld WA SA  
Week 1 0.2 1.4 3.7 -3.8 0.1 4.0  
Week 2 -3.6 -9.1 1.7 -3.3 -2.9 0.4  
Week 3 -2.0 -1.8 -1.8 -5.5 -3.4 4.4  
Nielsen (2 week) -1.7 -2.7 3 -3.4 -2.7 0.6  
Galaxy marginals -1.7 -3.1 1.6 -5.4 -2.1 0  
Newspoll marginals  0.6 -1.3 6.2 -3.4

[Keith]

Newspoll in three state marginals
 
http://blogs.theaustralian.news.com.au/mumble/index.php/theaustralian/comments/newspoll_in_three_state_marginals/
Mumble Blog | August 14, 2010 | 6 Comments


Tuesday, Wednesday and Thursday were survey nights.

Newspoll alone polled 3351 respondents in 17 marginal seats in the three most populous states. An average of about 200 per electorate is too small to say much about each one; it?s the totals that matter.

Tables are here.

And when applying these swings it?s better to ...


...  think of numbers of seats that would change hands rather than identify them. Swings are never uniform.

On these numbers, Labor loses about 4 in NSW (1.3 percent swing) and about 6 in Queensland (3.4 percent swing) and picks up about nine in Victoria (6.2 percent swing).

That? a net loss of just one seat across three quarters of the countrys seats; no way could the other states then deliver victory to the Coalition.

But there is also no way Labor will pick up nine seats in Victoria.

Again assuming 200 a seat, the Victorian sample of 600 is rather on the small side (with a MoE of around 4 percent).

But even adjusting that nine down to three or four, the Coalition still can?t win on these figures.

These marginal seat swings are all less encouraging for the Coalition than the corresponding recent two week state by state ones.

But then as todays Nielsen in Fairfax papers (53 to 47, a 4 point turnaround from last Saturdays) suggests, Labor did well in the polls this week.

Even the Galaxy, which according to Pollbludger (dont know where its published) has a 4 percent swing to the Libs across four outer west/south-west Sydney seats. This is less than previous polling in the most obsessed over electorate, Lindsay, had indicated.

The discrepancy between Newspoll?s NSW component and Galaxys is consistent with Labor doing much worse (swing-wise) in Sydneys west than elsewhere in the state. Newspolls seat by seat fine print supports this.

The Labor campaign has been sensible over the last fortnight, but still whenever it goes to - or even thinks about - Sydneys west something snaps upstairs. Out comes the textbook. Last week it was the train link.

Just a reminder that even in the 1996 landslide, western Sydney returned about 80 percent Labor members and it will do at least that next Saturday. There are a few marginals there and theyre mainly on the fringe.

Queensland with its buckets of marginals is much better hunting ground than western Sydney.

[Keith]

I rest my case on the value of forums such as the Rooty Hill forum when assessing how people will vote.
Keith.
 
Labor takes lead one week from polls
By Sarah Collerton

ABC NEWS

 
Julia Gillard holds a 14-point lead in the preferred prime minister stakes over Tony Abbott. (AAP: Alan Porritt)

Labor has stormed ahead in the latest national opinion poll, reclaiming its election-winning lead a week from polling day.

The Nielsen poll, published in today's Fairfax newspapers, shows Labor has gained four points to 53 per cent while the Coalition has slipped four points to 47 per cent in the two-party vote.

Labor's primary vote is up four points from 36 to 40 per cent, the Coalition down three to 41 per cent, while the Greens remain unchanged at 12 per cent.

However the figures suggest Labor could lose up to 12 marginal seats in New South Wales and Queensland.

They show swings of 3.4 per cent to the Coalition in Queensland and 1.3 per cent in New South Wales.

But there is a 6.2 per cent swing to Labor in Victoria.

The poll also shows the Greens preferences at a record high of 86 per cent in favour of Labor.

Prime Minister Julia Gillard has also charged ahead in the preferred prime minister stakes. She now holds a 14-point lead over Opposition Leader Tony Abbott.

The surge in voter support for Labor follows a fortnight where the Opposition had the upper hand in the polls.

Last week's Nielsen poll showed the Coalition ahead 51 to 49 per cent on a two-party preferred basis.

Mr Abbott even emerged as the people's choice from the Rooty Hill RSL forum on Wednesday night, despite Ms Gillard announcing her biggest election promise yet that day - $2.1 billion for a western Sydney rail link.

In a Rooty Hill gaming chip exit poll, Mr Abbott picked up 71 votes compared to Ms Gillard's 59.

But Ms Gillard will start her day in Sydney today buoyed by the latest poll result.

Mr Abbott, meanwhile, will be heading to Perth with the hope of picking up some seats in Western Australia.

 
Expect a plethora of polls this last week.
Keith.
 
THE AGE

Surge for Labor, Coalition vote falls
MICHELLE GRATTAN AND TIM COLEBATCH
August 14, 2010

LABOR has surged to a strong 53-47 per cent two-party lead a week from the election, with a new poll also showing a sharp fall in Opposition Leader Tony Abbott's approval.

As Prime Minister Julia Gillard had a much better fourth week, Labor's two-party vote in the Age/Nielsen poll rose 4 percentage points. Its primary vote was also up 4 points to 40 per cent - about the level it needs to be confident of hanging on.

The Coalition has lost 3 points in a week from its primary vote - on 41 per cent, it is only slightly ahead of Labor.

Ms Gillard widened her advantage as preferred prime minister. She leads 52 per cent, up 3 points, to Mr Abbott's 38 per cent, down 3 points.

There are signs of improvement for Labor in the key states of Queensland and New South Wales, where it is most worried about losing seats.

On these figures, Labor would be returned with its majority little changed. The poll found almost six in 10 voters expect Labor to win, up from a week ago.

After two bad weeks, Labor's campaigning has levelled out in recent days, with Ms Gillard making big promises on education and a railway line in Sydney aimed at vulnerable seats. Mr Abbott, meanwhile, struggled on the broadband issue, admitting he was not a ''tech head''.

The Opposition Leader's approval is down 5 points to 45 per cent, while his disapproval is also up 5 points to 48 per cent. Ms Gillard's approval was up 2 points to 54 per cent; her disapproval fell 2 to 36 per cent.

While Labor will be heartened by the national results, it is still concerned by its polling in marginal seats. In Queensland, the Nielsen poll still has Labor trailing, and the government is worried about a clutch of close electorates.

The poll shows no overall swing since the 2007 election. Taken between Tuesday and Thursday nights, among 1346 voters, it finds Labor improving in Victoria, marginally ahead in NSW, level in South Australia and trailing in Western Australia. The Greens vote is down 1 point to 12 per cent.

''This is a good poll for Labor, but there are reasons for caution,'' said Nielsen pollster John Stirton. First, Green voters' preferences are flowing more strongly to Labor than at the last election. When the two-party vote is calculated using 2007 preference flows, the result is closer - 52-48 per cent.

Second, 14 per cent of Labor voters said only that they were ''leaning'' to Labor, almost double the Coalition's ''soft'' vote (8 per cent), Mr Stirton said. And third, he warned, ''the election result will still be decided by regional differences''.

The gender gap has narrowed significantly, with 54 per cent of women supporting Labor compared with 52 per cent of men. But as preferred PM, Ms Gillard is much more popular among women.

Ms Gillard has her formal launch in Brisbane on Monday. The detail is still being worked on, but she is expected to keep any new offerings modest. Mr Abbott has made a quick dash to Western Australia for a day's campaigning.

The Coalition ignored last night's deadline for submitting policy proposals for official costing by Treasury and the Department of Finance, claiming it could no longer trust the system after a Treasury costing finding it had exaggerated the size of a key saving proposal was leaked to the media.

Treasurer Wayne Swan, who also withheld his proposals from costing when in opposition in 2007, accused the Coalition of refusing to submit its policies because it knew its own costings were wrong.

''These 'dog ate my homework' excuses are not sufficient to hide the fact that their cost blowouts are a danger to the surplus,'' Mr Swan said. ''The Liberals never, ever intended to submit their spending commitments.''

Shadow treasurer Joe Hockey said the Coalition would release its own consultants' costings of its policies next week.

Meanwhile, Australians will be able to enrol online in future elections after the activist group GetUp won a case in the Federal Court challenging electoral laws preventing voters from enrolling online. Justice Nye Perram yesterday found the test case of first-time voter Sophie Trevitt was legal. He ruled the 19-year-old should be placed on the electoral roll after she used GetUp's website OzEnrol.com to register her enrolment.

With AAP
 
NEWSPOLL MARGINALS
 
http://media.theaustralian.com.au/pdf/140610-MarginalsNewspoll.pdf
 
 
ALP fights back in key marginals

Dennis Shanahan, Political Editor
From: The Australian
August 14, 2010


Source: The Australian

LABOR is facing the loss of a clutch of seats in the pivotal states of Queensland and NSW.

But the Gillard government is positioned to hold power by winning back Coalition seats in Victoria.

With only a week to go until the election, Labor appears to be holding on to a narrow lead as it prepares for a last frenetic few days of campaigning, starting with Julia Gillard's official campaign launch in Brisbane on Monday.

The latest Newspoll survey, conducted exclusively for The Weekend Australian, reveals that Queensland remains Labor's weak spot, with swings in marginal electorates since the 2007 election putting up to seven seats at risk on a statewide basis.

A smaller swing in NSW puts up to five seats at risk, including John Howard's former seat of Bennelong, won in 2007 by Labor newcomer Maxine McKew.

But in Victoria, the Prime Minister's home state and Labor bastion, a strong swing towards the Labor government since the 2007 election puts up to three Coalition seats at risk.

The loss of seven seats in Queensland and five in NSW, coupled with expected losses of up to two Labor-held seats in Western Australia and the Northern Territory, would mean Labor would lose power and depend on independents' support to form government.

But possible gains in Victoria would mean Labor could govern in its own right by the narrowest of margins.

The marginal seat Newspoll results come as a nationwide Nielsen poll published in Fairfax newspapers today puts Labor ahead on two-party-preferred terms, 53 to 47 per cent, a week after it had the Coalition ahead 51-49. The turnaround was powered by a four-percentage-point lift in Labor's primary vote, from 36 per cent to 40 per cent.

The latest nationwide Newspoll, published on Monday, gave Labor a two-party-preferred lead over the Coalition of 52 per cent to 48 per cent.

But the Newspoll survey of 17 marginal seats in Queensland, NSW and Victoria shows significant variations in swings in different states.

There has been a swing of 3.4 per cent against Labor in the marginal seats in Queensland, Kevin Rudd's home state, since the 2007 election.

The survey also showed a swing away from Labor on a two-party-preferred basis in a group of six marginal Labor seats in NSW of 1.3 per cent since the election.

But it found a swing towards Labor in a group of three Victorian Labor seats of 6.2 per cent.

The primary vote for Labor in the marginals in NSW and Queensland is well down on 2007 election figures, although it is the same in Victoria.

In the six NSW marginals, Labor's primary vote is 38 per cent compared with 42.6 per cent at the last election; in the eight Queensland marginals, its vote is 37 per cent compared with 45.1 per cent; And in Victoria's three marginals, it was 42 per cent compared with 41 per cent at the election.

Coalition primary support in the NSW marginals was 47 per cent, up from 45 per cent; in Queensland it was 45 per cent, up from 43.3 per cent; and in Victoria it was 41 per cent, down from 46.3 per cent.

A separate Galaxy poll of four marginal seats on Sydney's outskirts, published in News Limited state-based newspapers today, put the Coalition ahead on two-party-preferred terms, 51-49 per cent.

On the question of who was the more impressive leader, Ms Gillard had 45 per cent support, while 26 per cent chose Mr Abbott.

The Newspoll found Ms Gillard's personal support was also strongest in Victoria, with a satisfaction rating in the state's marginals of 50 per cent and a lead over Tony Abbott as preferred prime minister of 56-34 per cent.

In Queensland, more people were dissatisfied with Ms Gillard than satisfied -- 46 per cent to 41 per cent and satisfaction with the Opposition Leader was virtually equal in NSW and Queensland.

The survey covered the Labor-held seats of Longman, Flynn, Dawson, Forde, Brisbane and Leichhardt, and the Liberal-held seats of Herbert and Dickson, notionally Labor after redistributions.

If the 3.4 per cent average swing were applied across the marginal seats, Labor would lose Herbert, Dickson, Longman, Flynn and Dawson. The seats of Forde and Brisbane would be in doubt.

A breakdown of the samples suggests the most marginal seat, Herbert, may be held by Labor but the one with the biggest margin, Leichhardt, would be lost.

The differences between seats in NSW is similar, with up to four seats at risk if the swing of 1.3 per cent in the state's marginals is applied uniformly across the state.

The seats most at risk in such a swing are Robertson, Macquarie, Macarthur and Gilmore.

But Newspoll chief executive Martin O'Shannessy says the seats most in doubt are Macquarie, Macarthur and Bennelong, where there are swings against Labor "in the vicinity of 4-5 per cent".

The bellwether seat of Eden-Monaro, held by the government of the day since 1972, would be held with its margin of 2.3 per cent.

BROADBAND MATTERS BY LAURIE OAKES

Luddite Tony Abbott shows he's 'no tech-head' on National Broadband Network

by Laurie Oakes
From: The Courier-Mail
August 14, 2010


The Government says Tony Abbott doesn't understand broadband and isn't afraid to admit it.

EIGHT days ago, Tony Abbott and several of his shadow cabinet sidekicks were guests of honour at a discreet Liberal Party fundraising dinner in one of Melbourne's heritage-listed Toorak mansions.

The 40 prominent Victorians who attended dined on trout followed by lamb prepared by celebrity chef Jacques Reymond, and pledged generous donations in return for the chance to ask frank questions of the Opposition top brass.

Abbott described the federal Labor Government as "acting like a gang of criminals".

Shadow attorney-general George Brandis reflected growing hubris in the Coalition by declaring that four Queensland Labor marginal seats were "already in the bag".

There was some embarrassment for Abbott when a couple of the big-end-of-town guests asked: "What are you going to do about Joe Hockey"

The shadow treasurer was not present to defend himself, although finance spokesman Andrew Robb, seen by Victorian Liberals as a stronger performer, was among the speakers.

Abbott's central message was that the Coalition had to weather a firestorm from Labor in the final days of the campaign, but could win next Saturday's election if it maintained discipline and said very little. And looking forward to what a Coalition victory would mean, he made it clear that his aim would be to head a steady, unexciting government. There would be no grand ideas.

So it was not surprising that, at the Coalition's formal campaign opening in Brisbane two days later, he had no new policies to launch. There was not a single dollar of new spending.

He listed action he would take in his first three months as prime minister, but had little to say about his plans for the country for the next three years.

Even some of Abbott's own troops saw it as a wasted opportunity but it fitted the Liberal leader's approach to politics. He is not a visionary by any stretch of the imagination.

Early in the campaign I criticised both Abbott and Julia Gillard for their little-Australia view, their lack of ambition for the nation. It is pretty obvious, however, that limited though she clearly is, the Prime Minister is more of a forward thinker than her opponent.

As I listened to Abbott's speech I recalled his response in February to a Treasury report dealing with policy implications of an ageing population to 2050.

"I think the most you can expect from any politician is policies dealing with his or her likely life in parliament," the Liberal leader said.

In other words, political leaders should not think long-term. They should not plan for the nation's future. It was a ridiculous and very worrying statement for a would-be prime minister to make.

Which brings us to broadband, the only policy area where either side is showing any real nation-building vision or ambition.

The Government  already rolling out an optical fibre network to bring fast broadband to just about every home, business, hospital and educational institution  is thinking big. Abbott, who would cancel what the Government is doing and replace it with a Mickey Mouse network  cheaper but very much slower  is thinking small.

Sure, the Government plan would cost up to $43 billion to build, but any major infrastructure project costs money. The aim is to recover the cost over time.

The Coalition's $6 billion substitute, relying largely on private enterprise and using a mish-mash of technologies (optical fibre, wireless and DSL among them), would not do the same job.

Young people know it. At Wednesday night's "People's Forum" at Rooty Hill in Sydney a young woman named Cassie told Abbott bluntly that "wireless isn't as good" as optical fibre.

Abbott, in reply, revealed his ignorance. "For me, broadband basically is about being able to send an email, receive an email," he said. For his daughters "it's about downloading movies, songs, all that kind of thing".

In fact, the most important advantages of high-speed broadband are in business, education and health services. Cassie tried to explain that to the Liberal leader.

Abbott did concede at one point in the forum that broadband "is, I suppose, to this century what the railways were to the 19th century". It apparently doesn't occur to him, though, that if our 19th-century politicians had been of the same mind-set he is, horse-drawn wagons and bullock teams would have stayed in business a lot longer than they did.

Abbott did not even think the launch of the Coalition's broadband policy was important enough to attend. He left it to Robb and communications spokesman Tony Smith.

When Abbott could not avoid discussing the policy on The 7.30 Report that night, he tried to deflect Kerry O'Brien's questions by disarmingly admitting how little he knows about the matter.

"If you're going to get me into a technical argument I'm going to lose it, Kerry, because I'm not a tech-head," said the self-confessed technical ignoramus.

He nevertheless felt sufficiently qualified to remark that all the Government planned was to string cable on telegraph poles  "hardly the most marvellously sophisticated thing to do in this day and age".

"It's fibre," O'Brien responded acerbically, "where the signals will travel at the speed of light".

For the most part, Abbott's minimalist approach has been effective, especially with Labor's internal divisions dominating headlines. But over the last week, with Kevin Rudd back in the tent, the feeling in both the Labor and Liberal camps is that Gillard has made up some ground.

And she still has Labor's launch on Monday very late but exactly when she needs it to propel her into the final week.

A bit of forward-looking policy, in contrast to the way Abbott played it safe in his speech, might just get her across the line. That, at any rate, is Labor's hope.

Laurie Oakes is political editor for the Nine Network. His column appears every Saturday in The Courier-Mail

Newspoll marginals poll: NSW, Queensland, Victoria
http://blogs.crikey.com.au/pollbludger/

Saturday, August 14, 2010  by William Bowe

Newspoll has targeted 17 marginal seats in NSW, Queensland and Victoria, with results that are heartening for Labor: a manageable 1.3 per cent swing in NSW, a surviveable 3.4 per cent in Queensland and, remarkably, a 6.2 per cent swing in their favour in Victoria. We are told of a 4.6 per cent drop in the Labor primary vote in the six NSW seats, an 8.1 per cent drop in the eight Queensland seats and a 1 per cent increase in three Victorian seats. The Coalition are respectively up two to 47 per cent and 1.7 per cent in Queensland, but down 5.3 per cent in Victoria.

UPDATE: PDF here. The seats covered were Bennelong, Eden-Monaro, Gilmore, Macarthur, Macquarie and Robertson in New South Wales, Brisbane, Dawson, Dickson, Flynn, Forde, Herbert, Leichhardt and Longman in Queensland, and Dunkley, La Trobe and McEwen in Victoria.

Note also this evenings Galaxy marginals poll and Nielsen national poll covered in the previous post.

Other matters of note:

 Stephen Lunn of The Australian reports that Antony Green, Newspolls Martin O?Shannessy and Bob Browns chief-of-staff Ben Oquist all agree that Greens preferences will run 80-20 to Labor as usual. This is contrary to much talk around the place from such as Dennis Shanahan, who spoke of Labor two-party results bloated by heroic assumptions about Greens preferences. The Nielsen poll released earlier this evening gave Labor 86 per cent of respondent-allocated Greens preferences.

 An article on the Liberal campaign by Simon Canning and Patricia Karvelas of The Australian is interesting both for its content, and in providing the first hint of pre-emptive recriminations in the Liberal camp. Senior Coalition frontbenchers have complained the Liberal camapign director, Brian Loughnane, had left Tony Abbott vulnerable with an overly safe advertising campaign. John Singleton is quoted in the article saying it had been ?the worst campaign the Liberal Party has ever run. Many of the specific criticisms proffered ring false to these ears, but it has indeed been notable that Liberal advertising has failed to target Kevin Rudds execution and re-emergence, and the constant distraction provided by former leader Mark Latham.

 Michael Kroger in The Australian optimistically rates the week a draw, and appears to believe the decisive seats so far as a Labor majority is concerned will be Bass, Corangamite, Forde and Solomon. He also offers that a Labor loss in the seat of Melbourne now seems likely.

 Emma Chalmers of the Courier-Mail notes the Australian Electoral Commissions statistics on postal vote applications show Labor has lodged three times as many as the Liberal National Party in a a clutch of key Queensland marginal seats. Labor is said to have learned its lesson after being slow off the mark with its postal vote campaign at last years state election.

 The Age reports the Northern Territory Country Liberal Party is likely to disendorse its candidate for Lingiari, Leo Abbott, for failing to inform the party he had breached a domestic violence order.

 GetUp! have had another win, this time in their challenge against the Australian Electoral Commissions refusal to admit enrolment applications signed with a digital pen and submitted through their website. One observer who declined to join in the congratulations was Possum, who argued it would strengthen the potential fraud argument the Howard government used to justify its franchise-curtailment measures in 2006.

Comments (172) | Permalink

Nielsen: 53-47 to Labor; Galaxy western Sydney poll

Friday, August 13, 2010 ? 9:40 pm, by William Bowe
 
GhostWhoVotes tweets that Nielsen has Labor leading 53-47 on two-party preferred, from primary votes of 40 per cent for Labor, 41 per cent for the Coalition and 12 per cent for the Greens. Julia Gillard?s lead as preferred prime minister has widened from 49-41 to 52-38 since the poll of last week, which had the Coalition leading 51-49, and she has traded two points of disapproval (now 36 per cent) for approval (54 per cent). Tony Abbott has returned to net negative personal ratings, with his approval down five to 45 per cent and disapproval up fifve to 48 per cent.

UPDATE: Galaxy has published a poll of 800 respondents in Hughes, Lindsay, Macarthur and Greenway, the result suggesting Lindsay and Greenway would stay with Labor. Conducted on August 11 and 12, it shows Labor?s primary vote down 8 per cent to 37 per cent and the Coalition on 45 per cent, translating into a 3.9 per cent two-party swing: certainly enough to cost them Macquarie and Macarthur, but not Lindsay. Eighty-six per cent said Labor did not deserve to be re-elected, but 52 per cent said that they were better than the alternative. Forty-five per cent considered Gillard more impressive to 36 per cent for Mr Abbott; 42 per cent more trustworthy compared to 33 per cent. Forty-one per cent said they were now better off than they were three years ago, while 44 per cent said worse off.

UPDATE 2: Newspoll has targeted 17 marginal seats in NSW, Queensland and Victoria, with results that are enormously heartening for Labor: a manageable 1.3 per cent swing in NSW, a surviveable 3.4 per cent in Queensland and, remarkably, a 6.2 per cent swing in their favour in Victoria. More to follow.


 
GetUp! wins again in online vote case
JESSICA MAHAR
August 13, 2010

THE AGE

GetUp! wins online case

Australians will be able to enrol online after the Federal Court ruled in favour of activist group GetUp!

Australians will be able to enrol online after the Federal Court ruled in favour of activist group GetUp! in its action against the Australian Electoral Commission.

The group took the commission to court after concern was expressed about an online voting enrolment site it created in July.

But today Federal Court Justice Nye Perram ruled the test case of 19-year-old Sophie Trevitt, who enrolled on the GetUp! website OzEnrol, was legal.

'Historic' win ... GetUp! national director Simon Sheikh. Photo: Wolter Peeters

GetUp! national director Simon Sheikh called the win "historic".

"Today's decision vindicates the process of online enrolment," Mr Sheikh told reporters.

"We know that we pay our taxes online, that we do our banking online and we should be able to enrol to vote online."

He said GetUp! would be campaigning to allow online enrolments in all future elections, starting with Victoria's state election in November.

"The AEC's next moves are up to them. We'll be pushing the case for online voting vigorously so that it can be in place in time for the Victorian state election."

It is the second win the group has had in court in two weeks ? last Friday the High Court ruled Howard government laws that closed electoral rolls on the day writs for an election were issued were invalid.

In a majority judgment, the full court struck out the laws brought in by the Coalition government in 2006 that cut the deadline from seven days to one for enrolment and three days for a change of details.

Source: smh.com.au

[Keith]

Dear readers,
 
As promised this is my election call for this weekend.
 
I say if an election was held tomorrow Labor would win, and probably comfortably. If the election was held tomorrow I would not be surprised to see Labor retain it's seat numbers [ 83 ] or increase them.
 
Anything can happen between now and next Saturday 21 Aug and I will make my final call on Fri 20 Aug.
 
Keith Tennent.

No hung parliament
  
http://blogs.theaustralian.news.com.au/mumble/index.php/theaustralian/comments/no_hung_parliament/

Mumble Blog | August 13, 2010 |


Its that time of the election campaign, when thoughts turn to the hung parliament scenario.

There was a nice piece on Radio National Breakfast this morning about the possibility, and writers in this and other newspapers have also suggested it might happen this time.

Sorry to be the bearer of bad news, but we won?t get a hung parliament on August 21.

How do I know? Well ...


.. I dont, any more than I don?t know it?s not going to hail today. It might happen, but it probably wont.

A hung parliament is more likely than that, but it?s still very unlikely.

The hung parliament scenario organically develops out of the news process during every election campaign. Its just a good story. And the thought of Bob Katter holding the balance of power gives extra spice.

In the Tasmanian election in March this year, a hung parliament was close to a certainty because that state uses proportional representation.

In the dying days of Marchs South Australian election campaign, a hung parliament was the almost unanimous expectation from election watchers. It didn?t happen.

It was not so fanciful in South Australia because it looked likely that 5 independents would get elected, but it was still over-anticipated.

Hung parliaments always are.

Five MPs is roughly ten percent of the total of South Australias lower house. That?s about the same proportion of Britains House of Commons that belongs to neither Tory nor Labour. They do currently have a hung parliament.

Ten percent of MPs being non-aligned provides a decent opportunity for neither side to get a majority.

But ten percent of our House of Representatives would be 15, and our cross bench will not look anything like that after August 21. It will number at least three, maybe four and five at the outside.

Not knowing which AFL side will win a game doesnt lead to expectations of a draw. The same should apply to elections.

Feeling the mood of the electorate and deciding punters are going to call it a tie is just wacky, and creatively devising seat outcomes to to fit the hung parliament scenario is wishful thinking.

A 50-50 two party preferred vote would not make a hung parliament likely and nor does an opinion poll result rounded and plotted against the pendulum.

Party strategists may contemplate this scenario ("Mate, this just feels like a hung parliament") but they are paid to obsess about close election results and anyway are rather superstitious and often irrational.

We almost certainly wont get a hung parliament tomorrow week, but you havent heard or read the last of this story.

Weve all got to try to keep the election campaign exciting havent we?

 

[Keith]

 
Pension row as Libs duck review

Matthew Franklin, Chief political correspondent
From: The Australian
August 13, 2010

WAYNE Swan has seized on a Tony Abbott promise to index defence pensions.

Mr Swan has insisted a Coalition government would poke an $8 billion hole in the nation's finances with the plan.

And the Coalition has conceded it cannot cover the full long-term cost of the change, promising it will cover the liabilities by making investments in the government's Future Fund.

The wrangling over the Coalition's pension plan came as the opposition complained to the Australian Federal Police about this week's leaking of Treasury documents that questioned the accuracy of the Coalition's savings assumptions.

The Coalition also revealed it would not meet today's 5pm deadline for lodging its election promises with Treasury for review and costing because the leak had "put a cloud" over Treasury's integrity.

Rather than meet its obligations under the Charter of Budget Honesty, the Coalition will hire an independent accountancy firm to cost its promises and release the findings next week.

In the wake of the Treasurer's claims that the Coalition would blow an $8bn hole in the budget, the Opposition Leader said that, although the liabilities from the pension plan added up to "a huge figure", if considered over 40 or 50 years, the year-by-year cost of the change should be affordable in a society becoming increasingly wealthy. "In any one year, it is bearable," Mr Abbott said.

As the budget will be in deficit until at least 2013, opposition finance spokesman Andrew Robb last night could not say when or where he would find the money to top up the Future Fund to cover the liabilities from the pension change.

"We were the ones who set up the Future Fund," he said. "We will put in $100 million (initially) and we will put in future instalments which will cover it."

The campaign for the election turned nasty last night, with Mr Robb saying that Mr Swan should "wait for the knock on the door" from the police, after opposition treasury spokesman Joe Hockey openly accused the Treasurer of leaking the Treasury documents to a Sydney newspaper.

"This is one interview he won't be able to run away from," Mr Robb said.

Hostilities intensified when the Coalition announced it would match $1.389bn in spending cuts and savings measures proposed by Labor, including an increase in passport processing fees. Mr Swan ridiculed the move, noting that Mr Hockey attacked the increase as unreasonable only days ago when it was proposed by the government.

"Mr Abbott and his economic team have proven again today that they don't have the judgment or the understanding to manage the budget," the Deputy Prime Minister said.

With only eight days before voters go to the polls, the election campaign is becoming increasingly bitter as each side targets the other's competence in economic management.

Early yesterday, Mr Abbott visited the Penrith RSL, in Sydney's west, to announce he would amend indexation arrangements of the Defence Force Retirement and Death Benefit Scheme.

Payments indexed to the Consumer Price Index would now be indexed at the highest rate of increase among three indicators - the CPI, Male Total Average Weekly Earnings or the Pension and Beneficiary Living Cost index.

The plan would cost $98m over four years and the Coalition would add $100m to the Future Fund to meet future liabilities.

Mr Swan said the government had considered the same move in 2008, only to be advised by the Australian Government Actuary it would create an $8bn unfunded liability. "The full cost is around $500m a year," the Treasurer said. "Mr Abbott has blown another $8bn hole in his budget with an uncosted and unfunded promise."

Mr Swan's claims appear to be backed by a 2008 review of indexation of civilian and military pensions.

The review found the government did not have assets available to offset the cost of indexation of military pensions and that the Future Fund - established to cover unfunded government liabilities - had only enough assets to meet superannuation liabilities beyond 2020 under existing indexation arrangements.

"Accordingly, the costs of higher indexation in the medium to long term would have to be found from the budget," the report said. "This would require the government to reprioritise spending on other initiatives or programs."

Despite this, the Opposition Leader told Brisbane radio station 4BC the move would rectify an injustice. "Over time it will cost more and it's not an insignificant cost, I accept that," Mr Abbott said. "But our society is almost certain to grow significantly richer as time goes by and I just think the least we can do is show the same generosity to ex-service personnel as we show to everyone else and that is to properly index their retirement pensions."

Mr Robb said Mr Swan was becoming increasingly desperate as he sought to discredit the Coalition. He said the Coalition was not prepared to submit its policy documents to Treasury as long as there was a possibility that it had leaked documents to a Sydney newspaper this week, questioning Coalition policies.

"When the cloud over the integrity of the costing process is cleared, we will put them in," Mr Robb said. "If it's not cleared, we will have them independently assessed."

Mr Swan said the Coalition's complaint to police was a stunt. "The Liberals have still not submitted 90 per cent of their nearly $30bn of spending to Treasury and Finance for independent costing," he said. "Until they do so the Australian people can have no confidence about how much they will spend or how they will pay for it."

D-day minus 8
http://blogs.crikey.com.au/pollbludger/
 
Friday, August 13, 2010 ? 4:56 am, by William Bowe

Patricia Karvelas in The Australian:

Liberal strategists believe they are in line to easily win at least seven Labor seats and retain their own most marginal ones  but concede they are still falling short of being able to take Government. A senior Liberal strategist said the Queensland seats of Leichhardt and Longman are as good as gone to Labor and that Health spokesman Peter Dutton would easily retain the seat of Dickson which has become notionally Labor because of a redistribution. The Liberals also believe they are in line to take Dawson on a 2.4 per cent margin from Labor. In NSW they say they will easily keep their seats of Gilmore, and Macarthur, but are not as confident about the battleground seat of Lindsay in western Sydney. But they believe they can pick up Robertson and Macquarie. In WA, the Liberals believe they could pick up Hasluck and keep Swan.

Mark Simpkin on ABC Television:

Labor MPs are calling Mark Latham all sorts of things, of which the most polite is unwelcome distraction. One minister told the ABC the government would have lost if the election had been held in the second or third weeks of the campaign, but its slowly clawing its way back, making a distraction-free final week crucial.

Simon Canning in The Australian:

THE Australian Labor Party has spent nearly $5 million advertising on metropolitan television and radio, and in newspapers in the first three weeks of the election campaign, outspending the Liberals by more than $1.3m. In the first concrete ad spending figures for the election compiled by the Nielsen Company, the ALP spent $4.86m on ads until August 7, as it worked to gain an early advantage over the Liberals. The ACTU, running a campaign against the possibility of a Liberal government reintroducing Work Choices, has emerged as the third biggest spender during the first three weeks, investing $2.13m. Spending by all three groups is believed to be significantly higher than Nielsen reports with subscription TV, regional radio and regional newspapers not yet accounted for Labor looks unlikely to match the massive spend of the Liberals during the 2007 campaign, when they invested $14.4m during the course of the campaign.

Further to the last item, Wednesdays Gruen Nation aired results from market research company Xtreme on the volume of party television advertising. They found that from the day the election was called until last weekend, the Liberals aired 736 ads to Labors 635. Over half of the deficit was accounted for by Perth, where a Liberal Party engorged by mining donations has been able to blitz Labor by 151 ads to 53. The market hardest hit by both parties was Brisbane with 197 ads for Labor and 188 Coalition ads. In Sydney the score was 188 Labor and 153 Liberal; in Melbourne, 128 Coalition and 83 Labor; in Adelaide, 116 Coalition and 84 Labor.

[Keith]

Morgan face-to-face: 57.5-42.5 to Labor
http://blogs.crikey.com.au/pollbludger/2010/08/12/morgan-face-to-face-57-5-42-5-to-labor/

Thursday, August 12, 2010 6:20 pm, by William Bowe

News Radio reports the latest Morgan face-to-face poll http://www.roymorgan.com/news/polls/2010/4556/ conducted last weekend, has Labors two-party lead leaping to 57.5-42.5. This series is traditionally favourable to Labor, but the lead recorded here is their highest since February. The Greens primary vote was 15.5 per cent, up 4.5 per cent, the highest ever recorded by Morgan (no other details available yet on the primary vote). Contrary to expectation, Morgan does not seem to have conducted a mid-week phone poll as it has been doing throughout the campaign so far.

[Dallas]

Don't agree Jim but that's what democracy is all about. Leopards don't change their spot even though Abbott would like people to think they can. It is a case of buyer beware

[Jim Mavromatis]

Hi Folks,  Other than the pressure the Libs put on the Labor Party and we received the $30,  this is a welcomed move.  How many governments have we had in the past, that's Liberals and Labor,  that have just ignored the Veterans.  At least Abbott had the decency to go to an RSL and announce this until the boofhead Latham stepped in.  It is interesting to see Griffin's concern about a cost blowout, typical, couldn't care less about veterans, he's more concerned about a blowout.

NO blatant party political stuff is accepted. Part of this post has been deleted.
Keith

[Keith]

From: John & Ann
Sent: Thursday, August 12, 2010 2:30 PM
Subject: Veterans plan a '$8b black hole' (CourierMail Article)
Peoples
 
Could this have anything to do with, Allan Griffin's silence on Veterans issues?.
 
Regards
John
 
CourierMail

Veterans plan a '$8b black hole'

From: CourierMail
August 12, 2010

A COALITION plan to index the veterans' pension would create an $8 billion budget black hole, Labor claims.
Alternatively, you can copy and paste this link into your browser:
http://www.couriermail.com.au/news/abbott-promises-veterans-higher-pensions-free-medication-and-extra-support-services/story-e6freon6-1225904326897

Coalition plan to index veterans' pension would create $8b budget black hole, says Labor

Ben Packham and Michael Madigan
From: The Courier-Mail
August 12, 2010


A COALITION plan to index the veterans' pension would create an $8 billion budget black hole, Labor claims.

Opposition Leader Tony Abbott has announced disabled ex-servicemen would get free medicines if he were elected.

The plan would give about 87,000 veterans access to free pharmaceutical drugs, saving them up to $168 a year.

He also confirmed the Coalition's commitment to indexing the Defence Force Retirement and Death Benefits Scheme at a cost of $98 million over four years.

"I appreciate that defence veterans have felt let down by successive governments on this issue," he said.

But advice from the Australian Government Actuary suggested the move would list unfunded future pension liabilities by $8 billion.

Veterans Affairs Minister Alan Griffin said that by 2019-20, the pledge would cost taxpayers more than $250 million a year and rising, due to the compounding of future pension rises.

"He has bungled yet another costing; this time, not by millions, but by billions," Mr Griffin said.

In his press conference, Mr Abbott refused to say how much the pledge would cost into the future.

Mr Abbott promised families of veterans would also receive extra support services under the Coalition, for those leaving the defence forces and those facing "deployment challenges" while still serving.

The wives and widows of veterans would be recognised under the Coalition plan with online support and an annual award day.

Mr Abbott said he had never "worn the Queen's uniform" but had great admiration for those who had.

"It's always an honour to be among our veterans and it is incumbent on our government to look after veterans in our community," he told the gathering of veterans.

Mr Abbott said the one bug bear he constantly heard in the defence force community was the poor indexation of the defence force retirement benefits fund.

 

[Keith]

These types of forums give some people a nice, warm fuzzy feeling but they do not decide elections. I suppose it is good and proper that our system allows for such open forums but that is as far as it goes. When people have the pencil in their hot little hands on 21 August they will not be thinking about the Rooty Hill forum. In my opinion more than usual will make up their minds in the last day or so and some even when they enter the booth. It all boils down to human emotion mainly and sadly and facts are usually discarded. The tipping point in this election is. Do we want Ms Gillard and the Government to continue or do we risk Tony Abbott. This is not my question. This is what I reckon the voters who matter will be thinking next week.
 
Keith Tennent.
 
 
Rumble in the Rissole
http://blogs.crikey.com.au/pollbludger/

August 12, 2010 ? 10:28 am, by Possum Comitatus
 
Last night saw a joint Sky News/News Ltd tabloid town hall style political shindig at the Rooty Hill RSL Club  where Abbott and Gillard stated their case for election and answered questions from the floor.

There was a lot of debate about the bias or otherwise of the audience, where they appeared much tougher on Gillard than Abbott, and where people were identifying Young Liberals in an audience that was supposed to be filled with uncommitted voters.

However, the reality is a little more complicated and nuanced than is generally being described.

Galaxy was the pollster that ran the audience selection process, so its worth going through what they did. There were two components involved a random phone component and an online panel component. Part of the audience was selected by the same methodology Galaxy uses for their  phone polls ringing random households in the geographical footprint they were targeting (such as the whole country for national polls, states for state polls, local electorates for electorate level polling or, in this case, the area around Western Sydney).

Galaxy asked respondents if they had made up their mind on who they are going to vote for come next Saturday, and those respondents that said they had not made up their mind that said they were undecided then got the big tick. They were then asked if theyd be willing to participate in the Rumble in the Rissole. Some did and turned up at Rooty Hill. Some declined and went about their life.

Galaxy also used their online panel to select audience members, by emailing people on their panel that lived in the targeted geographical footprint and asked them the same thing via email that they asked their phone respondents. Those that stated they hadnt made up their mind on who they were voting for were then asked if they would participate at the event. Some did and turned up at Rooty Hill. Some declined and went about their life.

What we need to remember here is that the brief was to get undecided voters. What is undecided Well, its people that state they have yet to decide who they will vote for.

People will tell porkies to pollsters on their undecidedness for a whole variety of reasons  its a well recognised, worldwide phenomenon. One of the most famous examples of this occurs in the UK with what is known as the Shy Tory effect where a significant number of conservative voters refuse to tell pollsters who they are intending to vote for, often by stating that they are undecided when, in fact, they are not.

Undecided doesnt mean a voter with no partisan alignment who has a demonstrated history of voting for both sides of politics. That is a different group altogether requiring a much more complicated, costly and time consuming screening process to identify.

Undecided simply means voters that havent decided and the easiest way of determining that is, as with all other polling, simply to ask them.

So the audience at the Rumble in the Rissole was a group of self-identified undecided voters roughly balanced by gender and age but that doesnt mean they werent leaning, or didnt have their own political predispositions or partisan gripes we certainly witnessed some of that coming out last night. All it simply meant was that they had self-identified as undecideds on their voting intention.

That was the screen.

Thats what we got.

Thats what we saw.

There was no conspiracy, no deliberate skewing of the audience, no deliberate bias or stacking just the results of a simple undecided screen . The audience looked and may well have had a lean toward Abbott, but weve seen the same thing happen in the opposite direction at other times, such as the worms and Polliegraphs from leaders debates.

Sometimes it leans one way a bit, sometimes it leans the other way a bit sometimes it doesnt at all. Thats the nature of the beast

[Keith]

 
From: Gotto, Ainsley (Sen H. Coonan)
To: Keith Tennent
Sent: Thursday, August 12, 2010 11:32 AM
Subject: FW: Leader of the Opposition's Joint Press Release - Real Action to Support Veterans


Dear Mr. Tennent,

I attach the Leaders Press Release that Senator Coonan wanted me to send on to you, particularly in relation to the indexation of DFRB pensions.

I trust you will be able to share it with your extensive Veterans network.

Thank you.

Yours sincerely,
 

Ainsley Gotto
Chief of Staff
Senator The Hon Helen Coonan
Liberal Senator for New South Wales

T 02 9223 4388 | F 02 9223 4399| M 0437 201 243
 

JOINT PRESS RELEASE

THE HON. TONY ABBOTT MHR, LEADER OF THE OPPOSITION

MRS LOUISE MARKUS MHR, SHADOW MINISTER FOR VETERANS? AFFAIRS

REAL ACTION TO SUPPORT VETERANS

The Coalition will provide $45.6 million for initiatives to better support Australia?s veterans and their families.  

To further help veterans with cost of living expenses, the Coalition will increase assistance for Veterans? Pharmaceutical costs.  From 1 January 2012, the Coalition will remove out-of-pocket expenses for pharmaceuticals for disabled veterans in receipt of 50 per cent of the General Rate of Disability Pension, or higher (including EDA and TPI).  This will enable more than 87,000 veteran disability pensioners, including our most disabled veterans, to save up to $168 per year.  This extension of the Pharmaceutical Safety net will cost $38 million over the forward estimates.

The Coalition will also provide more recognition for Veterans? widows and wives.  We will establish a ?VWWInc? website for networking, information and advice.  A national memorial recognising the contribution of widows and wives will be funded following consultation with them.  The Coalition will identify, contact and encourage eligible indigenous war widows to apply for their entitlements.

The Coalition will provide support to help Veterans make the transition from post-deployment and military life.  The Well Be There programme will provide training and support for volunteer veterans and ex-service people, to be available 24 hours a day, to speak directly to veterans.  This programme will complement existing services provided by Vietnam Veterans? Counselling Service.

The Coalition will provide $7.5 million to expand the Building Excellence in Support and Training (BEST) Programme and the Training and Information Programme (TIP).  These programmes assist ex-service organisations to provide pension and welfare assistance with resources and support.  Giving these organisations support and training will help members of the veteran community and their family to receive practical assistance with claims for assistance from the Department of Veterans? Affairs.

The Coalition will respond to the Review of Military Compensation Arrangements.  There is concern regarding the inflexibility of the current Act and the compulsory aspect of the rehabilitation requirement.  The Coalition will consult with the veteran and ex-service community following this review.

The Coalition will provide $100,000 towards the building of the Montevideo Maru memorial.  This funding will be provided in the 2011-12 Budget for this memorial for those who lost their lives on the Montevideo Maru and in the Fall of Rabaul in 1942.

The Coalition will conduct an audit of the locations of National Service Records, including the first and second intake, with the intention of having these records centrally located.  

As previously announced, the Coalition will introduce new indexation arrangements for members of the Defence Force Retirement and Death Benefits Scheme (DFRDB).  Under the Coalition, from July next year, beneficiaries of the DFRB and DFRDB schemes aged 55 and over will have their pensions indexed to whichever is the highest of three indexes - the Consumer Price Index (CPI), Male Total Average Weekly Earnings (MTAWE) or the Pensioner and Beneficiary Living Cost Index (PBLCI).

Australia?s service personnel, past and present, deserve respect and recognition from the community for their service.  The Coalition is committed to caring for Australia?s veterans and their families and understands that this can only be achieved with renewed compassion, understanding and action.

12 August 2010

PLEASE OPEN THE ATTACHMENT

[Keith]

 
Australias preference problem
  
http://blogs.theaustralian.news.com.au/mumble/index.php/theaustralian/comments/the_preference_problem/
 
Mumble Blog | August 12, 2010 |

Opinion poll after opinion poll has the Opposition comfortably ahead in primary support, but little separating the two sides after preferences.

How reliable are our pollsters two party preferred estimates?

Once upon a time, preferences didn?t matter much because ...


... total major party primary vote was high.

Even in the Democratic Labor Party days from the mid 1950s to the early 1970s the difference between a big partys national primary vote lead and its two party preferred one was usually not that great.

And anyway, back then no one thought in terms of national 2pp and there werent many opinion polls.

It was not until the late 1960s that the concept of 2pp began to be popularised - by political scientist Malcolm Mackerras.

The DLP largely disappeared in the early-mid 1970s, but in 1977 the Australian Democrats emerged. Democrats preferences from the 1980s generally favoured the ALP, but not by a huge amount.

It was in 2001 that the situation changed. At that election a five percent Democrats vote combined with a then record 5 percent Greens one to make preference flows very one-sided ? in the ALP?s favour.

A five point primary vote Coalition lead was reduced to two points after preferences.

And, with the Dems disappearing and the Greens growing, the situation has become more one-sided. (The 1990 election had been a one-off.)

Labor now gets lots of preferences; the last election saw their 1.2 percent primary vote lead become 5.4 two party preferred.

There was once (until about last month) a refrain that Labor can?t win unless it has a ?4? in front of its primary vote. Factually this is not correct: the party won in 1990 with 39.4.

Its incorrect in every other sense as well.

You can win with a vote in the 30s if the other sides vote isnt too far ahead of yours and you get enough third party preferences.

This year the Greens have been routinely registering in the low to mid teens. This doesnt mean theyll get this on August 21, but in reading the polls we have to do something with their support.

Most pollsters these days notionally distribute minor party preferences as they flowed at the last election. They do this for each of the Greens, Family support and everyone else. As estimates go, its probably better than any other.

If the record Greens support drops as election day approaches, where might it peel off to? Again, the 2007 preference flows (ie 80:20 to Labor) are as good an assumption as any, because they probably came from the major parties in the first place.

We need some estimate of the 2pp to get an idea of the electoral situation. The lower the total major party vote, the less reliable it is.

But the pollsters have to have a go. We?ll know how successful they were in a couple of weeks.

And another thing ...

The 1987 election was the first since the introduction of preferential voting in 1918 which saw the loser of the national primary vote win the two party preferred one .

If the government is returned on Saturday week this election will probably be the second.


D-day minus 9
http://blogs.crikey.com.au/pollbludger/2010/08/12/d-day-minus-9/

Thursday, August 12, 2010 5:02 am, by William Bowe

If the campaign pattern to date is anything to go by, the present opinion poll drought should be broken tonight by Morgan, albeit in the form of a fairly small sample phone poll. For something meatier we will presumably have to wait until Nielsen tomorrow evening. Talk from the Labor camp is of momentum shifting their way, but confidence is placed no higher than that. Lyndal Curtis on PM http://www.abc.net.au/pm/content/2010/s2980245.htm says Labor insiders are beginning to feel a little bit more optimistic, while Matthew Franklin of The Australian http://www.theaustralian.com.au/national-affairs/insiders-hope-gillard-can-cut-to-victory/story-fn59niix-1225904124099 says his sources agree ?the result would be close and Queensland remained the key.

Sandbagging has emerged as the buzzword of the late campaign, with Lenore Taylor of the Sydney Morning Herald finding Labor has targeted ultra-marginal seats with $1.56 billion in grants drawn from funding set aside in the federal budget. Yesterday brought the campaigns biggest item of targeted largesse so far:

Bennelong http://www.crikey.com.au/fed2010-bennelong (Labor 1.4%) and Parramatta http://www.crikey.com.au/fed2010-parramatta (Labor 9.5%): Julia Gillard yesterday promised a $2.1 billion contribution to the 14 kilometre rail link between Parramatta and Epping, which currently constitutes a missing link between Sydney?s west and north. However, federal funding will not appear until 2014-15, lest it prevent the budget getting back in surplus in 2012-13. The present state government, which promised the project a decade a go but put it on the back-burner when it announced its transport strategy in February, promises to provide the remaining $520 million upfront, allowing work to start next year with completion scheduled for 2017. However, Barry O?Farrell says a state Coalition government would prefer to prioritise a north-west link from Epping to Rouse Hill and a south-west line from Glenfield to Leppington, which Labor has chosen to overlook. It is perhaps notable that they cover the less electorally interesting terrain of Mitchell http://www.crikey.com.au/fed2010-mitchelland Werriwa http://www.crikey.com.au/fed2010-werriwa Beyond the more obvious beneficiaries of Bennelong and Parramatta, Phillip Coorey of the Sydney Morning Herald http://www.thecourier.com.au/news/national/national/general/gillards-2b-transport-fix/1909663.aspx notes a Parramatta-Epping link would further alleviate pressure on the city-bound western line which services commuters in other key marginal seats further west such as Lindsay http://www.crikey.com.au/fed2010-lindsay Greenway http://www.crikey.com.au/fed2010-greenway and Macquarie http://www.crikey.com.au/fed2010-macquarie

Flynn http://www.crikey.com.au/fed2010-flynn (Labor 2.3%): Flynn has been the target of frenzied efforts from Labor in recent days, the town of Emerald alone (population 19,000) being targeted with a GP super clinic announcement from Nicola Roxon on Tuesday (Anna Caldwell of the Courier-Mail notes a trend of fortuitous placement for most of the states 13 such facilities) and a promise of $6 million to improve local sports facilities from Wayne Swan yesterday. The electorates dominant city, Gladstone, was targeted by Swan with $95 million for upgrading Calliope Crossroads on top of $55 million previously promised by both parties, and $50 million for the final stages of the Gladstone Port Access Road.

Dawson http://www.crikey.com.au/fed2010-dawson (Labor 2.4%): Wayne Swan was in Mackay yesterday promising $120 million to an upgrade of the Peak Downs Highway.

[Keith]

This is nonsense. Both sides must submit their costings to Treasury this week,or by the latest next Tuesday, regardless of any excuses and cheats under the bed syndromes. Accountability and openness are what matter. And just where is the proof that Treasury leaked anything? And we need all policies from both sides costed.
 
Keith Tennent.
 
ABC NEWS
 
Policy costing on hold till Treasury leak found: Robb
By online political correspondent Emma Rodgers

 
Opposition finance spokesman Andrew Robb says the AFP must be called in to find the source of the Treasury leak. (ABC: ABC News)

Related Story: Swan jumps on $7bn spending 'gap' http://www.abc.net.au/news/stories/2010/08/09/2977927.htm
 
Related Story: 'Out-of-control' Coalition botches spending attack http://www.abc.net.au/news/stories/2010/08/10/2978907.htm

The Coalition says it will refuse to submit 20 policies for costing unless Labor orders an Australian Federal Police investigation into a Treasury leak.

The Coalition's demand is the latest salvo in the ongoing brawl over election spending between the two parties.

Both sides have accused each other of black holes and blunders in their costings.

Yesterday Fairfax papers published a secret Treasury document which showed an $800 million shortfall in savings predicted by the Coalition from scrapping the National Broadband Network.

Opposition finance spokesman Andrew Robb says the AFP should be called in to find the source of the leak.

"The costing process has been seriously compromised by the leak of a major Treasury document," he said.

"If the leak has come from Treasury a criminal offence will almost certainly have been committed, yet there is no indication that the AFP has been called in," he said.

"In the past the Government has not hesitated to call in the AFP for Treasury leaks."

Mr Robb says the Coalition will not submit 20 policies for costing unless the leaker is identified.

Treasurer Wayne Swan has been demanding the Coalition submit all of its major policies for costing with just a week-and-a-half to go before election day.

Mr Robb says the Coalition has already submitted half of its savings measures and a "significant" number of its spending measures.

He has accused the Government of using the leaked document against the Coalition because it is "desperate".

"Their campaign has been in disarray," he said.

----------

This is the third email I have sent which asks for the Coalition Veterans policy. Mr Lindsay, the retiring Liberal Federal member for Herbert in North Queensland, advised me after the first email, that the Opposition would be releasing it's Veterans policy as the campaign moved on. We are now in the last week and a bit until election day 21 Aug 2010 and as yet I have not seen a Veterans policy from the Opposition.
 
Keith Tennent.
 
 
Dear Mr Abbott,
 
I have sent two emails to the Parliament asking the Liberal Party to publish it's Veterans policy for election 2010.
 
Labors Veterans policy record over the last term of the Parliament is here http://minister.dva.gov.au/update2010.pdf  for all to read. Some Veterans and ex Service members are happy with the Labor record and some are not.
 
However when I go here http://www.liberal.org.au/search.aspx?s=Veterans I see no Liberal Party Veterans Policy for this election campaign. I do see plenty of criticism of Labor policy and behaviour. This is the first time I can remember for years when an Opposition has not produced a Veterans Policy. Ms Louise Markus and the Opposition have had about three years in which to produce a policy.
 
Will you be unveiling the Liberal Policy at your election policy speech next Sunday? If not will you explain why this is? The media release you published on the indexation of DFRDB superannuation pensions is not a Veterans policy. It is a very small part of the responsibilities of a Veterans Affairs Minister and the truth is most Veterans and ex Service members are not in receipt of the DFRDB payment.
 
I look forward to your reply.
 
 

[Keith]

Just on a general note regarding WA. It matters not how much a swing against Labor might be in WA, the result in WA is a forgone conclusion and Labor will be hard pressed to hold any WA seats. The critical states are Qld and NSW, and if and by how much Vic and SA swing to Labor. The Coalition could win 80% of the 2PP in WA and it would make no difference to the National vote, except in total voting figures.
 
ABC NEWS
 
Mobile remote polling begins in WA
 
Teams will travel to remote locations like this in Burringurrah to set up polling stations (file)

The Electoral Commission will today set up its first remote polling stations in Western Australia.

Teams of three or four people will travel around the state for nine days to allow people who live in remote locations to vote.

The first of about 60 visits will take place this morning near Telfer in the Pilbara.

The Australian Electoral Commission's Peter Kramer says teams have received a positive response in the past.

"When we drive into a community or land at a location and set up, basically people are really pleased to see us and pleased to have the opportunity to be able to actually lodge a vote," he said.

"It's outside of the normal range of things they experience day-today, it's very appreciated by the communities that we do it with."

Mr Kramer says the locations are determined by the number of enrolled electors there who have previously failed to lodge votes.

"We take into account a whole range of things, for example, we have some locations where we have very low use of other facilites such as postal votes, but where we know there are numbers of electors, and so we take into account, basically, where there appears to be the biggest gap for services."

  
Newspoll breaks it down

Wednesday, August 11, 2010  5:13 am, by William Bowe
 
The Australian has published another set of geographic and demographic breakdowns http://www.theaustralian.com.au/national-affairs/labor-struggling-in-key-states/story-fn59niix-1225903679424 combining two weeks of polling (the 52-48 from yesterday and last week?s 50-50) to produce samples of about 670 per state. The results thus include half the polling which contributed to Newspoll?s geographic and demographic results from last week.

The table below provides an artist?s impression of how state-level polling has tracked through the campaign week-by-week, based on an aggregage of Newspoll and Nielsen results. The results appear to suggest that the swing to Labor has faded in Victoria and that Western Australia is weaker for Labor than generally supposed, but the margins of error is high enough that this should be treated with caution. Samples for any given observation were 765 for NSW, 665 for Victoria, 585 for Queensland, 465 for WA (865 in week three, achieved by throwing in the Westpoll result) and 445 in SA, producing margins of error ranging from 4.6 in South Australia?s case to 3.6 for New South Wales.

Perhaps the greatest point of interest is an implausible Labor collapse in New South Wales in week two. Most likely what this tells us is that unfavourable samples for Labor there dragged down their overall results that week.



As well as that, Roy Morgan has produced one of its quite useless Senate polls http://www.roymorgan.com/news/polls/2010/4554/ This draws on 5000 face-to-face interviews conducted over the last two months, but for all its massive sample is of far less use in predicting the Senate result that an ordinary lower house poll would be. Of greater interest is Morgan?s Polligraph http://www.roymorgan.com/news/polls/2010/4555/ worm results for the treasurers debate. Amusingly, the pattern for Labor-supporting and Coalition-supporting participants forms a perfect mirror image. The Greens line is consistently quite close to Labors, but a gap emerges when Wayne Swan spruiks ?Labor initiatives to assist housing affordability.

 
Remember the sophomore surge

http://blogs.theaustralian.news.com.au/mumble/index.php/theaustralian/comments/todays_cumulative_newspoll/  
Mumble Blog | August 11, 2010 |


If you plot todays two-week Newspolls headline 51 to 49 two party preferred to Labor against the national pendulum, you get Labor with 75 seats out of 150, which is as lineball as they come.

If you do it state-by-state, it?s worse for the government, just 72 seats.

How should we treat these numbers?


Answer: with care.

For one thing pendulums shouldnt be interpreted with such precision, particularly after an election where many seats have changed hands.

Even the national number, 51 to 49 coming to 75 seats for Labor, is probably too optimistic for the Coalition.

If the roles were reversed and the Coalition was in power it would be reasonable to expect Labor to need at least 51.

At the last election 51 to 49 in Labors favour probably would have resulted in about a 50-50 seat outcome (leaving aside independents).

But see Peter van Onselens recent piece http://www.theaustralian.com.au/national-affairs/if-history-is-any-guide-governments-usually-win-the-close-ones/story-fn59niix-1225901327396 about close elections nearly all going to incumbents.

Part of this is because the types of voters in marginal seats tend to be cautious about change. This election doesnt have a fully incumbent prime minister - at the top its between two untried contenders - so that part of the equation probably wont fully kick in.

But governments always have more resources to throw at the seats that count.

On top of this, see this recent post of mine http://blogs.theaustralian.news.com.au/mumble/index.php/theaustralian/comments/sophomore_surge_careful_with_that_pendulum/ on why the sophomore surge means we can expect Labor to do better in 2010 than the pendulum predicts.

Plotting todays NSW numbers against that states portion of the pendulum has Labor getting only 23 seats out of 48 in NSW from 51 percent two party preferred. This is not likely. With six new sitting members elected in 2007, Labor should emerge with an easy majority of seats if it gets 51 percent of the vote on Saturday week.

And with eight new Queensland Labor members, a four or five percent swing to the LNP might yield the pendulums 8 seats - but maybe one or two less.

Antony Green recently noted on Lateline that the sophomore surge might not be very effective for Labor this time, because:

The Labor Party can lose 12 seats before it gets close to losing its majority on a swing of 1.5 per cent. But of 12 Labor marginal seats, its marginal 12 seats, five of them are Liberal seats with Liberal MPs, another three are vacant Labor seats. So theres only four Labor sitting MPs in its 12 most marginal seats.

Antony is always right. But in this instance he?s right only as far as he goes.

If this election is close it wont only be about those most marginal seats. It will be about some/most of those, and some further up the pendulum. Swings are never uniform.

We wont know which seats until election night.

But of the 21 most marginal Labor ones, 14 have new sitting Labor MPs.

That?s a better sophomore surge equation for the government.

Todays Newspoll numbers repeated on August 21 would very likely see a comfortable Labor win.

[Dallas]

If this isn't a wake up call for those who are toying with installing Abbott in Kirribilli House I don't know what is.

[Keith]

Readers for those who haven't twigged I keep mentioning what is happening in the broadband policy area because it affects every Veteran who goes online trying to do Veterans work or keep in touch with mates and it affects all ESOs as they too slowly move their operations into the digital age.
Keith Tennent.
 
Abbott battles to defend 'grab bag' broadband plan

Matthew Franklin, Lauren Wilson
From: The Australian
August 11, 2010

AN Abbott government would enlist the private sector to upgrade internet services, rejecting Labor's $43 billion national broadband network.

The government has strongly challenged Tony Abbott's $6.32bn alternative policy, insisting it would deny fibre technology to at least 1000 cities and towns, including Darwin, Bathurst, Port Lincoln, Launceston and Toowoomba. Communications Minister Stephen Conroy called it a "a grab bag of policies" that would leave Australia in the "digital dark ages". And industry experts have questioned the Coalition policy for being an interim response rather than a plan for nation-building.

Labor's NBN, first proposed at the 2004 election, will provide fibre-based broadband across the nation, and the government says it will deliver a giant leap forward for the nation's productivity.

The Coalition announced yesterday it would instead encourage private-sector investment in a mix of technologies that would guarantee fast broadband services to 97 per cent of the nation by 2016.

The policy draws the first serious ideological division in the campaign for the August 21 election, as the major parties had been split more by their scale of proposed spending than by different approaches to policy delivery.

Last night, the Opposition Leader was unable to answer questions about the fine detail of the broadband proposal when interviewed on the ABC's 7.30 Report.

Asked about technical details on factors including download speeds, Mr Abbott refused to comment, insisting he was "not a tech-head". "If you're going to get me into a technical argument I'm going to lose," he said, noting that his communications spokesman, Tony Smith, had participated in a debate on technical aspects at the National Press Club earlier.

Mr Abbott said the government had bungled the rollout of so many programs he did not believe it could deliver the NBN for $43bn.

Opposition finance spokesman Andrew Robb said the NBN was an example of Labor's "tax, spend and borrow" approach to government. Rather than create a government monopoly and a "stodgy and cumbersome bureaucracy", the Coalition was prepared to back the private sector. "We will embrace fierce competition, not stifle it," he said. "There is a better way."

Under the Coalition's plan, 97 per cent of households will have services with speeds of up to 100 megabits per second -- and a minimum of 12 megabits -- by 2016 through a mixture of HFC cable, DSL and fixed wireless services. It would spend $2.75bn to create a nationwide competitive fibre-optic "backbone" by 2017, expecting it to attract $750 million extra in private-sector funding.

It would also spend $750m on existing fixed broadband services to increase the number of households that could receive a DSL service, and up to $1bn on new fixed wireless networks in rural areas. Up to $700m would support provision of improved satellite services to cover the remaining 3 per cent of the population.

Senator Conroy said the Coalition would consign Australians to "the digital dark ages," and damage the economy for decades. "The Coalition's policy is like building the Sydney Harbour Bridge with two lanes and will not deliver super fast broadband for all Australians," Senator Conroy said.

Internet Industry Association chief executive Peter Coroneos said the opposition's plan fell "significantly short" of the NBN.

"The private sector has had all this time to deliver broadband and they've only made the decision to do that where it makes commercial sense," he said.

"Wireless is never going to be a substitute for fibre."

Additional reporting: James Chessell

Libs lack vision for digital future: Coalition

Stuart Kennedy
From: The Australian
August 11, 2010

THE Coalition has bet the country's digital future on a mixture of systems.

There is a creaky old copper network, a hybrid fibre network fast approaching its use by date, wireless and a never-before-seen bullishness from the nation's telcos to invest in fixed-line broadband.

Branding Labor's National Broadband Network a "white elephant", the Coalition broadband plan will attempt to deliver a baseline broadband speed of 12 megabits per second to 97 per cent of the population by 2017.

The Labor NBN plan guarantees 100 megabits per second to 93 per cent of the population by the end of the build in eight years through fibre-to-the-premises connections with slower satellite and wireless links for areas the fibre won't reach.

That 100-megabit NBN link is just the start though. Given the almost limitless speed and capacity potential of a fibre-to-the-premises network, NBN insiders say speeds of 1000 megabits per second will be available before the build is finished, with even higher speeds to come.

That is serious bandwidth and, besides rapidly carting around movie-feature-sized video files, it would transform the digital playground for small to medium business.

It would give business cheap, reliable, lightning-fast connections between branch offices, workers and each other, not to mention the potential for digital service delivery in everything from medicine to local government.

Armed with the NBN, Australia would also become the bandwidth lab of the southern hemisphere and attract people, projects and capital from all over the world.

There will be some nation-building fibre in the Coalition plan, but most of it will go towards subsidising telco backhaul costs.

A Tony Abbott government would pump in $2.75 billion to fund an open-access fibre backhaul network, the guts of which won't be built until a second term in office between 2014 and 2017.

Broadband service delivery to households and business will be left to Telstra, Optus and other market operators using existing technologies such as copper, HFC, wireless and satellite, but rural areas will get a billion dollars worth of wireless networking between 2011 and 2017.

Poorly served metro areas will also score wireless between 2013 and 2016, presumably using freed spectrum from analog TV.

The rest of our digital future will come from hoped-for telco investment in broadband, with government subsidies to bolster areas where telcos feel they can't make a buck quickly enough, such as copper-powered DSL links to regional and outer urban areas.

There's $750 million up for grabs to boost telco DSL exchanges, $550m of it almost straight away.

Other than these patches, an Abbott government leaves truly fast broadband to the market to fund, design and deliver, with the bandwidth holy grail seemingly based on today's HFC services.

This a cheap and nasty broadband plan that will just cement our 19th-century copper network in place for the foreseeable future, rather than "unleash" telco competition and network investment, as the Coalition insists.

There are blowouts and technology risks in Labor's NBN, but as a generational infrastructure build that will benefit us all for decades to come, it's worth doing


True, and nobody expects Mr Abbott to be a Bill Gates, but Mr Abbott is the alternative PM and he must have his head around everything which affects the governance of this country, and the future of the way we use the internet and what it's technical capabilities are of major importance to the future of this country in so many ways.
Keith Tennent.

'I'm no Bill Gates': Abbott stumbles on broadband plan
August 11, 2010

Abbott: I'm no Bill Gates
Tony Abbott has stumbled over his own broadband policy in a televised interview.

Opposition Leader Tony Abbott has struggled to explain the basics of his broadband policy, saying he is not a ''tech head''.

Mr Abbott was conspicuously absent when his colleagues, communications spokesman Tony Smith and finance spokesman Andrew Robb, yesterday unveiled the coalition's $6 billion broadband plan http://www.theage.com.au/federal-election/broadband-stoush-starts-20100810-11y7j.html?rand=1281470826097

It guarantees minimum broadband speeds of 12 mega bits per second (mbps) for 97 per cent of homes, while Labor's national broadband network promises 100mbps to 99 per cent of households.

Opposition leader Tony Abbott has stumbled on the details of his broadband policy.

Mr Abbott was later quizzed on how many towers the opposition would have to build to implement the plan, how many kilometres of fibre would be required to connect them, and what spectrum would be used to deliver the network.

''I'm no Bill Gates here and I don't claim to be any kind of tech head,'' he told the ABC's 7.30 Report presenter, Kerry O'Brien.

Mr Abbott also drew blanks on what his broadband network's peak speed of 12mbps actually meant.

''Again, if you are going to get me into a technical argument, I'm going to lose it because I am not a tech head,'' he said.

''We are offering 12 and up ... but in the vast majority of cases it will be a lot more than that, a lot faster than that.''

Peak speed is the best speed at which internet users can download material, usually when there are fewer people online, for example at midnight. When there is lots of online traffic, download speeds slow.

Mr Abbott said Mr Smith and Mr Robb were more adept at fielding technical questions than he was.

''I do not have the same level of technical competence in this area that they have,'' he said.

Mr Abbott said the coalition would deliver a ''good'' broadband scheme that was quicker and cheaper than Labor's offering.

The government's campaign spokesman, Chris Bowen, lampooned Mr Abbott's performance, saying: "He didn?t seem embarrassed by the fact that he doesn?t understand it.??

Mr Bowen said a leader did not need to be across all details of all policies, but broadband was a major issue. ??When your party is releasing a major policy in a major area of difference about an important piece of economic infrastructure, then you do need to be across it,?? he said.

- AAP

 

Abbott 'doesn't understand' broadband
By Sarah Collerton

ABC NEWS
 
Tony Abbott: I'm not a tech-head (AFP: Andrew Meares)

Video: Watch Tony Abbott on the 7.30 Report (7.30 Report) http://www.abc.net.au/reslib/201008/r617174_4118656.asx
 
Labor has hit out at Tony Abbott for failing to understand his own policy after the Opposition Leader declared he was no "tech-head" while explaining the Coalition's broadband plan.

The Opposition yesterday announced it would scrap the Government's $43 billion National Broadband Network (NBN) if elected and instead spend $6 billion enticing the private sector to expand internet services in Australia.

The Coalition's plan would see 97 per cent of homes having access to networks which would deliver broadband at speeds of between 12 Mega bits per second (Mbps) and 100Mbps by 2016 through a combination of technologies.

The Government's fibre-optic network, which has already started being rolled out, would offer speeds of 100Mbps to much of the country by 2018.

Mr Abbott lauded his broadband plan on ABC1's 7:30 Report http://www.abc.net.au/7.30/ last night, but admitted his lack of "technical competence".

"I'm not a tech-head, but we are offering 12 [Mega bits] and up - but in the vast majority of cases, it will be a lot more than that," he said.

"Just as the Prime Minister says, I say as well, that I'm no Bill Gates here - and I don't claim to be any kind of tech head in all of this, but we are going to have broadband running past, we say, 97 per cent of households."

Mr Abbott came out with the same honesty when 7:30 Report host Kerry O'Brien quizzed him about peak speed.

"If you want to drag me into a technical discussion here, I'm not going to be very good at it," he said.

But Financial Services Minister Chris Bowen says Mr Abbott has shown he does not understand the economic significance of broadband.

"Tony Abbott showed frankly he doesn't understand it - he doesn't seem embarrassed by the fact that he doesn't understand it," he said on ABC1's Lateline http://www.abc.net.au/lateline/

"He's the alternative prime minister of Australia. If you don't understand your own policy, what does that say about it?

"When your party is releasing a major policy in a major area of difference about an important piece of economic infrastructure, then you do need to be across it."

Mr Abbott spent much of the 7:30 Report interview doubting Labor's ability to actually carry out their plan.

"Our system is going to cost vastly less, but it will be there quicker than Labor's system and it doesn't put all Australia's eggs in the basket of one particular technology," he said.

"This Government hasn't got anything else right, why do we say they're going to get this right? This is $43 billion they're putting at stake."

But Mr Bowen described the Coalition's plan as "about as effective as building a Harbour Bridge with two lanes".

"It's third-rate solution, their 18th broadband plan. They had many plans over their 12 years in office - none of them worked," he said.

"They can't guarantee how many people will get broadband, which is 100 times faster than what we get now. We can guarantee 93 per cent of premises will be in that situation.

"We just can't abide with being a third-rate internet country anymore."

Australia's average internet speed is currently 2.6 megabits per second.

 
The bad old days of the Church telling the flock how to vote have gone, and good riddance to that. However some Clergy cling to the past and yearn for past influence, power and glory. There is no room for religion in any form to try to influence it's "faithful" on how to vote. Cardinal Pell has demeaned and belittled many many fine Green Party members and about 10% or so of the Australian population who vote Green. Many professionally controlled studies have shown that the populace does not need religion to help it make decent, ethical decisions. In fact several reputable studies have shown that when faced with moral, ethical decisions those with no religion make just as decent and moral decisions about life as those who claim adherence to a religion.
 
Stay out of politics Cardinal Pell.
 
Keith Tennent.
 
 
ABC NEWS
 
Catholics divided over Pell's criticism of Greens
By Paula Kruger

 
Cardinal Pell's weekend newspaper column slammed the Greens' so-called Stalinist roots. (Reuters: Mark Baker, file photo)

Audio: Christians told it's OK to vote Green (PM) http://mpegmedia.abc.net.au/news/audio/pm/201008/20100810-pm07-christiangreens.mp3

Related Story: Greens hit back at 'out-of-touch' Pell http://www.abc.net.au/news/stories/2010/08/08/2976836.htm

A division has emerged in the Roman Catholic Church over whether or not Christians should vote for the Greens.

The Archbishop of Sydney, Cardinal George Pell, warned Catholic voters on the weekend to be wary of the Greens, describing them as "sweet camouflaged poison".

But other Catholic leaders disagree. They say it does not reflect well on the Church when a man of Cardinal Pell's position uses that kind of language.

The stoush between the Greens and the Australian Christian Lobby (ACL) started late last week when the ACL accused the party of refusing the scrutiny of Christian voters.

All major and minor parties were sent a questionnaire from the lobby group but the Greens refused to respond to 18 out of the 24 questions.

The ACL's managing director, Jim Wallace, says it was dishonest of the Greens to ignore the questions.

"Even the Sex Party answered honestly the questions - I don't agree with their positions, but at least they were honest enough to actually put their replies forward and respond today whereas the Greens weren't," he said.

"I don't support the Sex Party but I certainly don't support either a party that doesn't act honestly before the electorate."

The Greens say all their policies are clearly stated on their website.

But Cardinal Pell's weekend newspaper column slammed the Greens' so-called Stalinist roots.

He said the Greens were anti-Christian and opposed to the notion of family

"One wing of the Greens are like watermelons - green outside and red inside - a number were Stalinists supporting Soviet oppression," he said.

"We all accept the necessity of a healthy environment but Green policies are impractical and expensive which will not help the poor.

"For those who value our present way of life, the Greens are sweet camouflaged poison."

Mr Wallace agrees with the Archbishop of Sydney.

"I think that what he said there is simply illustrated by the fact that they've shown so much deception in the way that they've avoided showing their hands to Christians on a whole range of issues, such as euthanasia, abortion, prayer in Parliament, funding of schools, marriage, surrogacy... a whole range of issues," he said.


'Unfortunate language'

But Father Frank Brennan from the Public Policy Institute at the Australian Catholic University was not impressed with the article.

"I was surprised by the tenor of the remarks - the Christian lobby, of course, is a self-appointed group who, as they describe themselves, are as a lobby and they invoke how they would see the Christian gospels to be lived out in the community at large," he said.

"Cardinal Pell, of course, is in a different class. He's one of the respected leaders, a key bishop of the Australian Catholic church.

"I'm a member of the Catholic Church - most Australian Catholic bishops, of course, haven't used the sort of language that Cardinal Pell has used.

"I think it's unfortunate language. I don't think there's any need to label the Greens as being 'sweet camouflaged poison' or 'thoroughly anti-Christian'.

"I know some members of the Green Party, some of whom I think are thoroughly Christian and the idea that they're 'sweet camouflaged poison', I think that sort of language during an election campaign from a respected church leader, I don't think it does any of us any good, least of all our church."

Father Brennan says some Christians like the idea of a third party having the balance of power in the Senate instead of the government of the day controlling both houses.

He has suggested voters look for politicians of good character.

"Character is something more than religious faith, definitely those of us who are Christian would say that those who don't have religious faith, we would hope that there are other ways in which they could exhibit strong character," he said.

"But equally, it's got to be said, but not even Christians can claim that simply because they have faith, that they have good, strong and robust character."

Father Brennan says in future, if the Christian Lobby wants to mount such a rhetorical election campaign, bishops should offer a dignified distance and reticence.

 

[Keith]

The fairytale of Howards battlers
  
http://blogs.theaustralian.news.com.au/mumble/index.php/theaustralian/comments/the_fairytale_of_howards_battlers/
Mumble Blog | August 10, 2010 |


Its the furphy that just wont go away even though its star has departed the political stage.

It made an appearance on last nights 7:30 Report in a story about outer western Sydney seats.

And its all shadow finance minister Andrew Robbs fault.

As federal Liberal director after the 1996 federal election ...


... Robb told a story - a big story - and it stuck.

Knowing a post-election narrative vacuum when he saw one, armed with research he informed everyone that John Howards victory had seen a new phenomenon: blue collar voters, former Labor heartland, voting Liberal.

These were Howards battlers.

Now, there is no doubt that class-party allegiances have been weakening for decades. But thats nothing to do with Howard.

Its also true that some of the biggest 1996 swings were in low socio-economic urban areas in Sydney. But this was off large anti-GST swings to Labor in 1993. At the next GST election in 1998 this demographic largely swung again to the ALP.

The big sleight of hand was in the Sydney seats used as evidence - like Parramatta and the now famous Lindsay and the timeframe used for comparison - the just-defeated Labor government.

The legend of Parramatta worked, because it was a western Sydney suburb many people had heard of.

But the electorate of Parramatta has spent most of its existence since 1903 in non-Labor hands. And in 1996 the suburb (contained in the seat) still returned an ALP two party preferred majority.

Parramatta returned to Labor in 2004 and Lindsay assumed centre Howards battlers stage. It retains legend status today, not least in the ALP.

Lindsay is not a battler seat. It is middle income, aspirational, young family. Its a swinger, the sort that tends to go to the winner of elections.

Lindsay was created in 1984, and since then has moved in tandem with neighbouring Macarthur.

Macarthur used to be everybodys favourite bellwether seat, because from its creation in 1949 until 2004 it was won by whoever formed government. Were it not for a redistribution in the Howard governments last term, Macarthurs record would probably remain intact.

Howards battlers won favour because there was little else for storytellers to hang the big 1996 result on. No Tony Blair or Bob Hawke charisma. For nearly a decade and a half it has fuelled millions of words in academia and the media.

But comparing voting patterns under Howard with the Hawke-Keating wins from 1983 to 1993 was shonky because thats just the difference between being in government and opposition.

If Howards battlers is to have any validity the comparison should be with previous Coalition wins.

And we only have to go back to the last Liberal prime minister Malcolm Fraser, who the evidence suggests attracted if anything a greater proportion of blue collar support than Howard.

Howards battlers is a load of cobblers.

But a good story is a good story, so dont expect it to go away soon.

[Keith]

From: Keith Tennent
To: Veterans Email List ; ESO List
Sent: Tuesday, August 10, 2010 6:23 AM
Subject: ELECTION 2010


As many Veterans and ex Service members might know the Liberals/Coalition have said they will change the method of indexation for the DFRDB payment so that the DFRDB is adjusted to reflect movements in the CPI [Consumer Price Index ] and MTAWE [ Male Total Average Weekly Earnings ] My understanding is this would mean the DFRDB would be indexed like the Service Pension and the Special Rate [the TPI ], so that the greater of the two, CPI or MTAWE, would be used to adjust the DFRDB. It is in effect a much more complicated equation than this, but in essence this is how it works with the SP and TPI.


My question to the Liberals is this. Has your proposal been submitted to Treasury for costing and just how much will it cost to implement this intention?

You dear readers can take what I say whichever way you wish, and you will. But I am in the business of asking the hard questions and demanding accurate answers. Of both sides.

I have always said [ I have been on the record for years regarding my contentions about fixing the DFRDB ] that the best chance the DFRDBers have is to try to get a Government to change the offsetting arrangements whereby the amount of Service Pension you receive is REDUCED by any other income such as DRFDB. In other words why should somebody's  Service Pension, which forms part of the whole compensation package for TPIs, be reduced because of their paid for superannuation income [DFRDB ]. The two are separate entities. I have nothing to gain from any DFRDB changes. I do not receive DFRDB.

Having said that I hope in any case that if the Liberals/Coalition are elected that the indexation method for DFRDB is indeed changed and I wish all DFRDBers well in this regard.

Therefore I make the following economic posts below. How any Government handles the economy affects the well being of all Veterans and Ex Service members. It particularly affects the costing intentions of either side when it comes to matters affecting us.

Make what you will of the following but don't make the mistake of accusing me of being a party hack for any party. I think for myself and have never ever been a member of any political party and never will be. And what's more I can prove this.

ABC NEWS

Swan jumps on $7bn spending 'gap'
By Sarah Collerton

ABC NEWS

 
Wayne Swan says the Coalition has been caught out and shows it is not ready to manage the economy. (AAP: Alan Porritt)

Treasurer Wayne Swan has accused Tony Abbott and Joe Hockey of being at odds over the cost of the Coalition's election promises, saying there is a "$7 billion gap" in their calculations.

During a debate at the National Press Club today, Mr Hockey, the Opposition's treasury spokesman, said the Coalition had announced more than $25 billion in savings during the campaign.

"We've announced savings of $28.534 billion, so, so far we have $2.8 billion of net savings on the announced policies," he said.

But in an interview on AM this morning, Opposition Leader Mr Abbott said the Coalition's spending commitments would be under $18 billion.

"We've identified, including the mining tax, something like $28 billion of cuts to recurrent spending, recurrent expenditure reductions and take the $10 billion or so out of the mining tax, that's still about $18 billion worth of reductions in recurrent expenditure," he said.

"And our promised expenditure is well under that."

When asked if spending would be under $18 billion by the end of the campaign, Mr Abbott said: "That is correct."

Mr Swan says the Coalition has been caught out and shows it is not ready to manage the economy.

"This is a $7 billion gap between the two figures - a $7 billion dollar gap which creates serious doubts about their judgment and their capacity to manage an economy," he said.

"Now we have this difference, this $7 billion gap between Mr Hockey and Mr Abbott, twice the size of the surplus in 2012-13. That's significant."

But Mr Abbott says Labor has launched a "completely hysterical attack" and that the figures add up.

"Well it's both in a sense because I was asked on AM about our expenditure excluding the mining tax and Joe was talking about the mining tax cut," he told ABC's PM.

"I mean Joe's figure of 25 billion included a 10-billion-dollar tax cut."

Opposition finance spokesman Andrew Robb denies there is a mistake in calculations.

Mr Robb says Mr Hockey has included the revenue from the mining tax, which the Coalition would scrap.

He says Mr Abbott was referring to spending promises excluding the mining tax.

"The claim that Opposition treasury spokesman Joe Hockey has contradicted Tony Abbott to the tune of $7 billion during today's economic debate at the National Press Club is plainly wrong and deliberately deceptive," he said.

"Wayne Swan has failed to check his facts before rushing to incorrectly claim a contradiction by the Coalition on spending measures."


Spending promises

Mr Swan also renewed his call for the Coalition to submit its spending promises for costing by the Treasury.

"Ninety-eight per cent of their spending commitments have not been submitted to this process," he said.

Mr Swan made the same demand in the Press Club debate today.

In the debate, Mr Hockey focused his attack on Government spending, accusing the Labor of wasting money in its economic stimulus package.

Speaking in Brisbane on the hustings today Mr Abbott also said he will name the size of the surplus under a Coalition government before election day.

"What I say at the moment is it will be significantly larger than that achieved by the Government," he said.

Under Labor the return to surplus in 2012-13 has been forecast for $3.5 billion.

Mr Abbott yesterday launched the Coalition's election campaign in which he promised that a Coalition government would be one of lower taxes.

He has today sought to attack Labor's emissions trading scheme as an "electricity tax".

"This is a very serious situation," he said.

"If the Government is re-elected, your power bills will go up and up." 



Treasury finds $57m hole in Coalition savings
By Sarah Collerton

ABC NEWS

 
Chris Bowen: 'We do have a number of serious concerns about the Coalition's costings' (ABC News)

Related Story: Swan jumps on $7bn spending 'gap'
The Coalition has overestimated how much it would save from axing Labor's computers-in-schools program, Treasury has found.

If the program was scrapped Treasury says the Opposition would save $57 million less this financial year than it predicted.

Treasury says the plan would save a Coalition government almost $650 million over four years.

Financial Services Minister Chris Bowen says it shows the Opposition needs to submit their spending promises to Treasury for costing.

"That's $57 million right there - and that's just one policy," he said.

"There's an array of policies they're yet to submit and we want to see them all submitted.

"We do have a number of serious concerns about the Coalition's costings."

The finding comes as the Government claims Opposition Leader Tony Abbott and his treasury spokesman Joe Hockey are at odds over how much the Coalition is promising to spend.

Treasurer Wayne Swan says the contradiction raises doubts about the Opposition's economic credibility.

But Mr Abbott has rejected Labor's claim, saying both his and Mr Hockey's calculations are correct.

Both sides have continuously attacked each other's economic credibility during the election campaign as they seek to focus on cost-of-living pressures.


Stimulus spending

Economic management stayed front and centre today as Mr Swan clashed with his counterpart at the National Press Club in Canberra.

The central theme running through the debate was the Government's stimulus spending.

While the Treasurer argued the Government managed to keep Australia out of recession, Mr Hockey said Labor wasted money and that the Coalition would get to the bottom of it.

But Mr Hockey conceded there would have been a deficit under a Coalition government.

Asked why his party's campaign literature suggests there would have been no debt under a Coalition government, Mr Hockey replied:

"We would've had, obviously, a deficit. We would've had that challenge," he said.

"But every single decision Labor has made we would not agree with because they're an incompetent government.

"We would be a better government and the challenge is how you get out of it."

Mr Hockey argued the Government wasted funds on the school building program, the home insulation scheme and several other initiatives.

He brought up the proposed Debt Reduction Taskforce, announced by Mr Abbott at the Coalition campaign launch on Sunday, as one solution to "Labor's waste".

The Greens have said the taskforce is just a razor gang by another name, but Mr Hockey said it is necessary to find out how much money has been wasted on the Government's "heroic promises".

"There is now an investigation into corruption in the Green Loans program, that it's been such a failure," he said.

"That's what our Debt Reduction Taskforce is going to do. It's going to get to the bottom of all these programs that Labor has wasted money in. The waste must stop."

Mr Swan dismissed the taskforce as a part of the Coalition's "hidden agenda" to slash essential services.


Henry review

Tax reform was also a hot topic in the debate, with Mr Swan saying the Government will not take on any more recommendations.

"The central thrust of Henry's recommendations was to bring down the level of business taxation and we acted decisively to do that using the revenues of the Mineral Resources Rent Tax," he said.

"That was the central thrust of the Henry recommendations and we have implemented them in a staged way."

The Coalition said it would release Henry review modelling within a month of being elected and release a tax reform plan within a year.

"One of the reasons why we are in the business of real tax reform and committed to a full disclosure of Henry is the fact there's been a lot of work done, the Government hasn't disclosed any of that work," Mr Hockey said.

"We will lay down a tax reform agenda the Liberal way, which is to abolish taxes, to change thresholds and aim to collect less tax not more."



SMH

Abbott caught short by $800m

LENORE TAYLOR

August 10, 2010

A confidential Treasury analysis has revealed an $800 million hole in the Coalition budget costings Tony Abbott has promised will add up to a bigger surplus in three years than that promised by Labor.

The Coalition's single biggest budget saving - $2.44 billion over the next four years - comes from the interest it will not have to pay when it scraps Labor's national broadband network.

But, according to the Treasury analysis dated July 5 and obtained by the Herald, the savings on interest payments would be $1.6 billion, a discrepancy of $800 million.

With the Coalition preparing to unveil a bigger budget surplus at the end of the campaign as a ''grand finale'' to its claim to be a better economic manager and the government using an economic attack against Mr Abbott to try to turn around its campaign, the battle over budget costings is expected to be fierce.

The Opposition Leader repeatedly refused yesterday to put a figure on his claimed budget surplus for 2012-13, but pledged it would be ''significantly larger'' than Labor's figure of $3.5 billion.

The shadow treasurer, Joe Hockey, promised all Coalition policies would be lodged with the Treasury for independent costing analysis by Friday, after the Treasurer, Wayne Swan, used a National Press Club debate to attack Mr Hockey for submitting just 1.5 per cent of Coalition policies to the Treasury.

In 2007 the then Labor opposition submitted most of its costings to the Treasury just 12 hours before the election. ''We will not go down the path of lodging hundreds of policies 12 hours or 24 hours before election day,'' said Mr Hockey, who is also getting an independent assessment from a private accounting firm.

''You're setting a benchmark for us that you never met yourself.''

During the debate, Mr Hockey said the ''debt reduction taskforce'' promised by Mr Abbott would focus ''on identifying ? if Labor has not told us the truth about their programs'', but said no matter what the Coalition found when it came to office it would make no changes or reductions to its $8.8 billion paid parental leave scheme.

Mr Hockey said the Coalition had announced $28.58 billion in savings during the campaign, $2.8 billion more than its spending. It is also $5 billion more than the detailed savings measures the Coalition has announced.

Sources said the figure included an unannounced decision by the Coalition to adopt almost all the savings announced by Labor during the campaign, including $193 million from increased passport fees and a crackdown on tax avoidance.

Labor also questioned Mr Hockey's calculation that the Coalition had announced $25.7 billion in new spending. The Coalition says that figure includes a ''cost'', in book-keeping terms, of abolishing Labor's mining tax, and the amount of real new spending is more like $18 billion.

Last night Labor issued figures it said showed ''real'' new Coalition spending of at least $27 billion and demanded the Coalition explain this discrepancy.

Mr Hockey demanded to know how Labor would make up the $450 million shortfall between its spending and its announced savings.

The Treasury analysis of the Coalition's claimed broadband savings, completed before the election, said the saving on interest payments would be $57 million in 2010-11 (not the $177 million claimed by the Coalition); $232 million in 2011-12 (rather than $465 million); $509 million in 2012-13 (not $735 million); and $805 million in 2013-14 (not $1.04 billion).

Mr Hockey said during yesterday's debate that if the Coalition had faced the global financial crisis it would ''of course'' have engaged in stimulus spending and would ''obviously'' have presided over a budget deficit, but said the spending would have been higher quality and the deficit smaller. Mr Swan said the government had saved Australia from mass unemployment.

[Keith]

Still no comprehensive Liberals Veterans policy in sight. Labor has said it will announce it's position on the indexation of the DFRDB this week or next. DFRDB is a very very small part of a DVA Ministers responsibilities and very few Veterans and ex Service members are in receipt of the DFRDB.
 
Now we have a contest
  
http://blogs.theaustralian.news.com.au/mumble/index.php/theaustralian/comments/now_we_have_a_contest/
Mumble Blog | August 09, 2010 |


The ALPs strategic about-face a week ago appears to have stemmed the electoral tide.

The decisions to embrace the Rudd governments economic record and even  gulp  Kevin himself, and to focus on the opposition, are making the party look more like a government again.

The 52 to 48 two party preferred in todays Newspolls would, if repeated on election day, see ...


... the government win comfortably. Dont you worry about the marginals; the seat count would take care of itself.

But thats not the importance of this 1712 strong survey http://resources.news.com.au/files/2010/08/08/1225902/756439-aus-news-file-newspoll-080810.pdf

Along with other recent (smaller) polls, this one has the government not just stopping the rot, but, well, moving forward - a little.

A Galaxy in todays News Ltd tabloids http://www.couriermail.com.au/news/national/less-than-half-of-voters-consider-tony-abbott-fit-to-govern-says-galaxy-poll/story-fn5z3z83-1225902759855 and Saturdays ACNielsen (tables at Pollytics http://blogs.crikey.com.au/pollytics/files/2010/08/Nielsen-Table-Aug-6.pdf also indicate small shifts back to the government.

A week ago a freefall seemed on the cards as opposition leader Tony Abbott appeared to have crossed a threshold of electability.

This was made possible by Labors emphasis on things that dont end up mattering much at elections: all the values stuff.

At times Gillard resembled a minor party leader on a desperate hunt for fringe votes.

Tony just had to keep out of trouble to took prime ministerial.

A recent online article stated that this election was not about Abbott but only about Julia Gillard as prime minister: yes or no.

This could not be more wrong. It is about both leaders.

If Gillard survives it will not be because shes popular, or voters agree its time for a female prime minister, but because she and her party are seen as more acceptable, less likely to make a mess of things, than Abbott and his.

It will be because the government, for all its faults, is viewed as the steadier hand, particularly on the economy.

Electoral equations always have two (or more) sides.

This Newspoll was taken from Friday night to Sunday afternoon. It would include part of any immediate effect of Labors Saturday shenanigans but not (a few politically obsessed respondents aside) images of yesterday afternoon?s Liberal Party launch.

It was difficult to fault the Liberal launch. Confident, drawing attention to its own happy functionality - and small target all the way (always the best option for oppositions).

But being confident about something doesnt cause it to happen.

Two weeks to go, and we have an open contest.

[Keith]

NEWSPOLL LATEST. TAKEN OVER LAST WEEKEND
 
http://resources.news.com.au/files/2010/08/08/1225902/756439-aus-news-file-newspoll-080810.pdf

Cardinal Pell must keep his nose and mouth out of Australian politics. It is silly, absurd and false to make the accusations against the Green Party which Pell has made and thus all those who vote Green. Anyway the Christian Church, and in this case the Catholic Church, is in no position to moralise or make judgments on anybody when you consider it's bloody and immoral history, particularly regarding child abuse. Keep praying and stop playing politics Cardinal Pell.
 
ABC NEWS
 
Greens hit back at 'out-of-touch' Pell
By Sarah Collerton
 
Cardinal Pell labelled the Greens "anti-Christian" and "sweet-camouflaged poison". (AAP: Paul Miller)

The Greens have retaliated after Sydney's Catholic Archbishop Cardinal George Pell launched a scathing attack on their party.

In an opinion piece in the Sunday Telegraph, Cardinal Pell labelled the Greens "anti-Christian" and "sweet-camouflaged poison".

Cardinal Pell also claimed the Greens policies are expensive and will not help poor people.

But Greens leader Bob Brown says Cardinal Pell is just dog whistling.

"The Australian Greens' policies for a more compassionate society and more sharing society, more dignified society are the most in line with Christian beliefs," he said.

"The problem for Archbishop Pell is that he's out of touch with mainstream Australia and many, many Catholics.

"I suspect he's blowing a dog whistle for a Abbott-Abetz government in future, and that's a much harsher government than the compassionate policies the Greens are putting forward."

Greens Senate candidate Lin Hatfield Dodds, who was national director of UnitingCare, says her party's policies are very much aligned with Christian values.

Ms Hatfield Dodds says Cardinal Pell is simply barracking for his "old mate" Opposition Leader Tony Abbott.

"It's no secret that Cardinal Pell and Tony Abbott are fairly good mates," she said.

"I think it's good that political leaders have friends from across the religious spectrum.

"I guess where it gets a bit dangerous is where we see political endorsements or disendorsements come from religious or church leaders. For me, that is starting to cross a bit of a line."

She says Cardinal Pell's attack is "very disappointing".

"I've witnessed the Greens' powerful advocacy for the poor and disadvantaged," she said.

"I've seen the Greens stand up for the environment, I've seen the Greens stand for a voice for everybody and they are all core things to the Christian faith."

Earlier this week the Greens dismissed claims by the Australian Christian Lobby that they are anti-religion.

 
 ABC NEWS
Labor edges ahead with 2 weeks to go
 
The ALP has shot ahead of the Coalition with 52 per cent of the vote. (AAP: Alan Porritt)

The latest opinion poll shows Labor regaining the lead, with the help of Greens preferences, at the start of the penultimate week of the election campaign.

The Newspoll, published in The Australian today, shows the ALP has edged ahead of the Coalition on a two-party preferred basis with 52 per cent of the vote.

The Coalition's two-party vote has slipped two points to 48 per cent. The same opinion poll this time last week had the two parties on a 50-50 split.

Julia Gillard has slipped one point in the preferred prime minister stakes but still leads Opposition Leader Tony Abbott 49 per cent to 34 per cent.

Labor's primary vote is up one point to 38 per cent while the Coalition has slumped two points to 42 per cent.

The Greens' share of the primary vote edged up one point to 13 per cent.

Newspoll: 52-48, Galaxy: 51-49 to Labor
http://blogs.crikey.com.au/pollbludger/2010/08/08/newspoll-52-48-to-labor-3/

Sunday, August 8, 2010 ? 10:07 pm, by William Bowe

UPDATE Delightfully, Galaxy has now come good with an identical set of primary vote figures to Newspoll. They have nonetheless come to a 51-49 two-party split rather than the 52-48 from Newspoll, which can only have resulted from their calculation landing a fraction either side of 51.5-48.5. The 1700 sample from Newspoll and the 800 (I presume) sample from Galaxy can be combined to achieve a super-sample of 2500 and an unusually low margin of error of 2 per cent. Galaxy also finds ?only 43 per cent of voters believe he is up to the top job and 48 per cent have major reservations?, suggesting Labor?s late campaign attack ads might find a receptive audience.

GhostWhoVotes http://twitter.com/GhostWhoVotes tweets that Newspoll gives Labor a morale-boosting 52-48 two-party lead from primary votes of 38 per cent for Labor, 42 per cent for the Coalition and 13 per cent for the Greens. Julia Gillard is up a point on both approval and disapproval, to 42 per cent and 40 per cent, while Tony Abbott has gone backwards: approval down three to 41 per cent, disapproval up three to 41-49. Preferred prime minister is essentially unchanged, Gillard and Abbott both down one to 49 per cent and 34 per cent. More to follow.

UPDATE: Full Newspoll report here http://resources.news.com.au/files/2010/08/08/1225902/756439-aus-news-file-newspoll-080810.pdf A question of strength of voting intention finds no distinction between the two parties, contrary to earlier polls which found the Coalition vote slightly firmer. Labors lead as party expected to win has narrowed over a week from 56-23 to 50-26.

UPDATE 2: The Canberra Times reports a survey conducted for the Greens credited to YourSource (the panel used by Essential Research) has the Senate vote in the Australian Capital Territory at 36 per cent for Labor (down 5 per cent on the election), 30 per cent for the Coalition (down 4 per cent) and 26 per cent for the Greens (up 4.5 per cent). If accurate, the Greens would probably just fall short of taking the second seat from Liberal Senator Gary Humphries.

 

[Dallas]

I have been wondering what Abbott and his "team" would do if they couldn't demonise boat arrivals? Address the real problems perhaps?

[Keith]

I watched the whole  amateurish show and there was no mention of Veterans, War widows or Military members currently serving.
 
If you ever watch these campaign launches watch them with a critical eye. You can really have a little fun if you keep a critical eye and ear open. It is amazing to look at the faces of the faithful as the dear leaders stand up there. The sheep in the audience look enthralled, look like they are listening to the Messiah, look like they are at a Nuremberg rally, hanging on every word of the dear Leader and going into raptures at every opportunity which presents itself.
 
Nah thanks. I prefer to think for myself and deal in facts, not emotion.
 
ABC NEWS
Abbott launches his election campaign
http://www.abc.net.au/news/photos/2010/08/08/2976775.htm
 
Opposition Leader Tony Abbott launches the Liberals' 2010 election campaign in Brisbane on Sunday August 8, 2010.

Tags: government-and-politics, elections, federal-government, political-parties, liberal-party, abbott-tony, federal-elections, australia, qld, brisbane-4000

Abbott is congratulated by Howard
http://www.abc.net.au/news/photos/2010/08/08/2976760.htm 
 

Opposition Leader Tony Abbott (left) is congratulated by former prime minister John Howard (right) during the Liberals' campaign launch in Brisbane on Sunday August 8, 2010.

 

[Keith]

VETERAN HOUSING

ABC NEWS
Gillard pledges affordable houses for Darwin
 
Julia Gillard tours Darwin's Rapid Creek markets with local Labor member Damian Hale. (ABC News: Nick Harmsen)


Prime Minister Julia Gillard has announced a re-elected Federal Labor Government would help to build 1,200 new affordable rental houses in the Northern Territory.

This morning, Ms Gillard pressed the flesh in Darwin in a bid to hold onto the Northern Territory's most marginal seat, Solomon.

She has announced plans to help build new houses for Darwin and Palmerston, priced at least 20 per cent below market rates.

Ms Gillard says the new houses would be built by Ethan Affordable Housing, a not-for-profit organisation.

"I announce that a re-elected Gillard government will deliver through our national rental affordability scheme 1,200 new residences in Darwin," she said.

"These new homes will be built here in Darwin and made available to Australians of low and middle income Australians."

This morning, Ms Gillard toured Darwin's Rapid Creek markets accompanied by the local Labor member Damian Hale.

Mr Hale won Solomon by less than 200 votes in 2007 and pundits say the Country Liberals candidate Natasha Griggs has a good chance of taking the seat.

Ms Griggs has been campaigning heavily on housing affordability.

 
 
www.theaussiedigger.com The Aussie Digger
 
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[Keith]

 
Member for Fisher Peter Slipper clocks up $640,000 in MP expenses

by Kelmeny Fraser, Daryl Passmore
From: The Sunday Mail (Qld)
August 08, 2010


FEDERAL Sunshine Coast MP Peter Slipper clocked up almost $30,000 in taxi fares over 14 months, among a raft of claims that made him the state's most expensive politician after former prime minister Kevin Rudd.

New figures reveal that Mr Slipper's expenses bill for the six months to the end of 2009 was $640,562 ? above Treasurer Wayne Swan's $491,236 and second only to Mr Rudd's $1.18 million.

The LNP's Member for Fisher ? who was photographed while apparently asleep in Parliament earlier this year ? racked up $16,038 in taxi fares from July to December of 2009 (the latest figures available for parliamentarians' expenses). His taxi bill came on top of $3000 for chauffeured cars and $10,000 for government cars, with his vehicle expenses totalling $41,483.

Mr Slipper also left taxpayers to pick up a $1764 tab for reading materials ? revealing an eclectic range of interests with magazines including Australian Aquarium Keeper, Men's Fitness, Sportdiving, Vogue, Wealth Creator, Nature and Health, Gourmet Traveller, Organic Gardener, Harper's Bazaar and Australian Traveller.

Taxpayers also paid $15,800 for a 27-day overseas study tour to Argentina and Chile.

The Member for Fisher had one of the largest bills to keep his electorate office running, $525,740 for the six months.

Earlier this year, Freedom of Information documents showed Mr Slipper had the fifth-highest mobile phone bill of any federal politician or senator in Queensland in 2008, at $14,764.

The new expenditure figures ? released by the federal Department of Finance and Deregulation ? show globe-trotting Queensland ALP Senator John Hogg chalked up a $139,006 overseas travel bill.

The Senate president ? who led a team of MPs on a visit to Mexico in the middle of last year's swine flu epidemic ? had three other trips last year.

They included a three-week jaunt to Argentina, Colombia and the US and parliamentary delegations to South Korea, China and Hong Kong.

Townsville-based Peter Lindsay racked up $37,203 in international travel, including a study tour to Mongolia and a delegation to the US.

The retiring LNP Member for Herbert, whose electorate includes a large military contingent, also showed his patriotism, spending $18,977 on flags

Regarding Veterans policy the campaign has been a Liberal policy free area. Labor does have it's record over 3 years out there while we have still not seen a Liberal Veterans policy. Neither party has mentioned Veterans, ex service members, war widows or the comprehensive issues of Military service during the campaign. We still have 2 weeks to go so lets hope we hear something on these matters, anything.

Coalition cracks show as populism reigns

August 8, 2010

THE AGE

IT'S an odd thing to say amid one of the most boring, substance-free elections in Australian history, but we're on the verge of something extraordinary. Tony Abbott has a very strong chance of becoming prime minister, having run the most invisible campaign in living memory. Abbott is not even really playing small-target politics at the moment. He's playing no-target politics. It's not "me too". The government isn't popular enough for that. It's just "look at them".

He can do this because Labor's campaign - in both its real and fake editions - is doing the work for him. The fact that the government now plays Kevin Rudd as its trump card (the same man who was so toxic six weeks ago that he had to be sacked) illustrates how deep the hole is. Especially when you consider that Rudd sounds more impressive than any of the leaders on offer. Both Gillards included.

But hereabouts things get tricky for the Coalition. Its campaign has Abbott hiding not just from the public, but from himself. For now, it's fine. Good polling covers a multitude of sins, but let this not conceal that the Coalition is scarcely in gleaming condition. It is ideologically divided and, like Labor, has resorted to populism and the kind of policy inconsistency it could come to regret.

The cracks are just beginning to show. On Friday we learned that if the Coalition wins government, several Coalition MPs, including a Liberal frontbencher, are planning to fight Abbott introducing the parental leave scheme he was trumpeting so boldly this past week. The Nationals are against it, and the policy represents a seismic shift from the Liberal Party's free-market philosophy.

The Business Council of Australia has slammed it as "policy on the run" and it is now causing consternation in safe Liberal seats.

Meanwhile, the Coalition has been driving the sustainable population bandwagon, conveniently forgetting that since the 1990s it has supported mass immigration on economic grounds. As recently as January, Abbott was telling us that "a higher population has been consistent with a better life for most people".

Either much has changed in the past few months, or the Coalition is every bit as poll driven as Labor. Hence the policy confusion. Why does the Coalition want to tax the biggest companies to fund parental leave when these are the very businesses that already provide parental leave to their employees? Does it believe that a growing population generates productivity and growth, or not?

If so, why is such an economically minded party pushing for a smaller population? If not, why is it so in favour of the baby bonus, which is basically paying Australians to have children? And why does it say its parental leave scheme is good because it will boost population?

Such contradictions can survive an election campaign as vacuous as this one. But Abbott cannot sustain them for long once in government. By then, invisibility will no longer be an option and one truth will remain: incoherent, poll-driven politics is like Mel Gibson - seductive but dangerous. It seems neither party can resist.

 
 
SMH

There's not much left to launch in this campaign, bar pulling the rabbits out of the hat

August 8, 2010

TODAY is one of the campaign's big moments for Tony Abbott ? the formal "launch" of his campaign. Admittedly, "launch" is something of a misnomer in a literal sense for an event that's only a fortnight out from polling day.

The terminology is a hangover from the time when these events used to be early in the campaign, with leaders spreading their menus in front of the voters. In 1972 Gough Whitlam, in his famous "men and women of Australia" speech, listed his many promises on which he then campaigned for weeks.

Today's launches are held later in the campaign. Apart from changing fashion, one reason is that by convention ministers and shadow ministers don't claim travelling allowance after the launches ? the parties rather than the taxpayers have to pay.

Nowadays the launches are basically high-profile events at which the leaders are on display and under intense scrutiny. There are fresh announcements but very many of the promises are already out there by launch time.

Because they're in the latter stages, the leaders can't afford a slip up or misjudgment. John Howard made one in 2007; he continued his big-spending strategy, promising more than $9 billion at the launch. It reinforced criticism of his extravagance. Rudd took a parsimonious approach at his launch soon after and it went down a treat, reinforcing his line that he was an economic conservative.

He spent only a quarter of what Howard had announced at his launch, on less populist measures. In 1987, Bob Hawke slipped up with his promise that "by 1990 no Australian child will be living in poverty", instead of inserting some prudent qualification.

Atmospherics are important too. The 1972 Whitlam "It's Time" opening set the tone for that very enthusiastic campaign on a national mood for change. In 2001, when the boat arrivals were such an issue, the Howard launch strongly reinforced that message, with the prime minister's line "we will decide who comes to this country and the circumstances in which they come", and then immigration minister Philip Ruddock getting a huge cheer from the faithful.

Depending on what mood they want to create, the parties pitch the launches as upbeat or restrained. These events, with saturation media coverage, also give a sense of whether the parties are feeling confident or depressed. It's a juggle: parties have to avoid hubris ? Hawke in 1987 got lots of bad publicity when he arrived at the Opera House in a barge. Being too downbeat can send the wrong messages, too.

Abbott today must avoid the negatives but he will be wanting to get a lift from the event. Julia Gillard is going even later than her opponent, with her launch on Monday of next week. This will be both opportunity for Labor ? to spark up the start of her final run ? and risk, if anything goes wrong.

The launches are also occasions for the parties' heroes to make an appearance, while the skeletons have to be managed. Howard will be there today, with bells on. Howard appeared with Abbott ? who is a protege ? late last week. Needless to say, the other former Liberal prime minister Malcolm Fraser will be absent. Fraser left the Liberal party late last year and said on Friday the Coalition wasn't ready to govern.

For a while, Labor was concerned about managing its "exes". Hawke and Paul Keating have recently been having a massive spat about legacy. But Keating has discovered another engagement and won't be at the launch. Hawke will ? he has been campaigning strongly for Gillard and retains the old charisma out on the road. The eyes at the launch, however, will be on Kevin Rudd.

Both sides are doing their launches in Brisbane. To the extent that any state is "key", in this election it is Queensland, with a swag of Labor marginals at risk. For Gillard, Queensland has been a nightmare. She's burdened by an unpopular state government. More important, many voters in Rudd's home state have been alienated by having one of their own executed in such a dramatic manner. Trying to bring back these voters drove the deal to have Rudd campaign actively for Gillard. By the time of the Labor launch, Gillard should know whether that strategy is working.

There is always attention to who gets the biggest cheers among the VIPs at launches. At Labor's opening, Rudd and Gillard alike will have a special interest in how Rudd does on the applause meter.

For Rudd, it will be a measure of how people regard his legacy. As for Gillard, she needs the Rudd intervention to work, but for people to be too enthusiastic about him could also be seen as rather a slap for her.

[Keith]

My understanding is this would benefit those on the Service Pension. It may also benefit War Widows.
 
Labor set to raise earnings cap for pensioners
ABC NEWS

The Federal Government will make a pitch to older voters today by announcing a plan to allow pensioners to earn more without taking a hit to their benefits.

Prime Minister Julia Gillard will promise today that if Labor is re-elected, pensioners will be able to earn up to $6,500 a year and keep their full benefits.

They will be able to bank up to $250 a fortnight instead of the previous limit of 50 cents in every dollar of the first $500 earned.

The amount will be tallied over a full year.

The change to the work bonus scheme will cost $94 million over four years and will be introduced from July next year.

Labor estimates around 30,000 age pensioners earning $100 a fortnight will be better off.

The Government says it also plans to appoint an age discrimination commissioner.

Families Minister Jenny Macklin says she understands older Australians have concerns about discrimination in their daily lives.

"A stand-alone age discrimination commissioner ... will be a dedicated advocate for the rights of older Australians in the community and in the workplace," she said.

"This person will handle complaints under the Age Discrimination Act."

 

[Keith]

Yes John it is an automatically generated response on their Parliament House mailing system to incoming mail. My point is that these types of non personal responses are not acceptable during election campaigns on questions about policy. We need all questions about policy answered in detail before we can decide what is in the best interests of the Veteran  and ex Service communities and War widows and those serving in the Military. Of course we do not vote alone on Veterans matters BUT for many many of us Veterans policy is a prime determinant of how we vote. The DFRDB intention announced by the Liberals is NOT a comprehensive Veterans policy and the great bulk of Veterans and ex Service members do not receive DFRDB. The way I see it, though I agree the indexation of the DFRDB needs to be fixed, this issue has overtaken matters such as Veterans entitlements, Veterans health care, transition arrangements for ADF members and service delivery by DVA etc etc. I say the Libs are cunningly playing up to this DFRDB base and trying to use their DFRDB intentions to make out this is a Veterans policy. Let's hope we hear a Liberal Veterans policy  next week. This is only fair. We know Labors record. As you know I have no Party political allegiances.
Keith.
 
From: John & Ann
To: Keith Tennent
Sent: Friday, August 06, 2010 8:41 PM
Subject: Re: LIBERAL PARTY VETERANS POLICY


Keith
 
I recieved exactly the same response, to an email approach to Abbott, several days ago'. Surely he has a well paid staffer who travels in his (Abbott's) entourage , and is capable of burning the midnight oil, and who after consultation with Abbott is capable of giving a far more appropriate response.
 
Regards
John


From: Keith Tennent
To: Veterans Email List ; RSL Nat President ; President Capricornia & Rockhampton Region RSL Sub Branch ; ESO List ; Defence Force Welfare Assoc ; AWM Gen Gower ; Australian Defence Assoc ; Federal Opposition Leader
Cc: Federal Parliamentary List ; Media List
Sent: Friday, August 06, 2010 10:59 AM
Subject: Re: LIBERAL PARTY VETERANS POLICY


Response from Mr Abbott to my email of yesterday asking for the Liberal Party Veterans policy.
 
From: Abbott, Tony (MP)
To:Keith Tennent
Sent: Friday, August 06, 2010 8:47 AM
Subject: Thank you for your email to the Leader of the Opposition, the Hon Tony Abbott MP



Thank you for your recent email to the Leader of the Opposition, Tony Abbott.

As you may be aware, the Prime Minister has called a federal election.

Unfortunately, from Opposition, we do not have the resources to respond to your email in detail during the campaign period, but your concerns will be brought to Tony?s attention and that of the Coalition Team.

After three years of Labor Government failures, Australians now have a choice.

Broken promises, increased cost of living pressures, massive debt, a Budget deficit, waste and mismanagement and new taxes are all placing unnecessary pressures on Australians. Further, Labor have removed a Prime Minister quickly and ruthlessly, ignoring the wishes of Australian voters. But it is the same government with the same problems creating the same mess.

I hope you will get behind Tony in the weeks ahead as he seeks to stand up for Australia and take real action to end the waste, repay the debt, stop the taxes and ease the cost of living pressures on families.

If you would like to read more detailed policy information please go to www.liberal.org.au.

[Keith]

This election campaign has been marked, more than usual, with meaningless gossip, spin and lies. It all makes for good gossip around the kitchen table and the bar, but is pointless when it comes to the future of the country. Politicians will do and say what they need to do and say to retain power and their superannuation and most sheep in the electorate stopped thinking and weeding out their lies and spin years ago. It is stupid to vote on emotion. We need to vote on facts. Alas most do not do this. As the proverb says " we always get the Government we deserve".
 
 
ABC NEWS
 
Xenophon wants penalties for misleading campaigning
 

Independent Senator Nick Xenophon says he will introduce a private member's bill to remedy misleading political advertising.

Federal Sport Minister Kate Ellis wrongly stated in an election flyer that pensioners would get a significant increase in their fortnightly payments under Labor.

Ms Ellis says she will send out a correction notice in her seat of Adelaide.

Senator Xenophon says laws are needed to ensure voters are not misled.

"I accept what Kate Ellis has said that this was unintentional," he said.

"The fact is we need to have laws in place to require corrective advertising and for their to be real penalties in place so that where it's been done deliberately you can actually prosecute those responsible."


ABC NEWS
 
Former Reserve Bank governor blasts Coalition
 
Bernie Fraser has questioned what he calls the Opposition's obsession with Government debt (Member Connect)Former Reserve Bank governor Bernie Fraser has launched a scathing attack on the Coalition's economic management credentials.

Mr Fraser has accused the Opposition of "brazen" and unprecedented scaremongering over Australia's debt levels.

In a speech in Sydney, he has also criticised the Coalition's stand against the mining tax.

And he says its opposition to the Federal Government's stimulus spending is a "blot" on its economic record.

"Labor's stimulus package was a stunningly successful response to the GFC [global financial crisis]. It kept businesses afloat and preserved jobs for hundreds of thousands of Australians who may well otherwise have become unemployed," he said.

"I think the electorate should be reminded that the Coalition under [Malcolm] Turnbull voted against the stimulus package. And that, to me, is an indelible blot on the Coalition's economic management credentials."

Mr Fraser has also questioned what he calls the Opposition's obsession with Government debt.

He says the current debt level is small compared to other leading economies and Australia in the 1990s.

"It scares the pants off them and they seek to similarly spook the public, quoting horrendous numbers of billions of dollars of debt for every man, woman and child in the country," he said.

"The brazenness of this scaremongering beats anything that I've ever seen before."

No Coalition challenge to GetUp! decision
By Sarah Collerton

ABC NEWS
 
Advocacy group GetUp! says thousands of people may have been excluded from the electoral rolls. (ABC News)

The Coalition says it will not seek to overturn a High Court decision that could allow up to 100,000 more Australians to vote in the August 21 election.

Advocacy group GetUp! says thousands of people may have been excluded from the electoral rolls because they missed registration deadlines.

Before the changes made by the Howard government in 2006, voters had seven days after an election was called to enrol to vote. Under the new laws, the roll closed on the day election writs are issued.

In a majority ruling yesterday, the full bench of the High Court declared certain parts of the Electoral Act unconstitutional.

Shadow special minister of state Senator Michael Ronaldson says he is pleased more people will be able to enrol to vote.

"We won't be doing anything to overturn the High Court decision and we indeed welcome the addition of 100,000 people, approximately it would appear, onto the electoral roll," he said.

But he said the Coalition has concerns the ruling may leave the electoral roll open to abuse by rorters.

"We are concerned this decision may potentially impact on the integrity of the electoral roll, and after the election we'll have another look and see if anything needs to be done to ensure the integrity of the electoral roll," he said.

"We've said from day one that the integrity must be maintained - that's what those changes were about."

Senator Ronaldson says Labor is not interested in the integrity of the roll and "has long been supporting rorters".

"The Labor Party's not talked about democracy at all when they've been debating this - they think there's some sort of electoral advantage for them," he said.

But Special Minister of State Joe Ludwig, who welcomes the ruling, says the Coalition's changes to the legislation were undemocratic.

"The Coalition's changes in 2006 were undemocratic and prevented many young people from getting onto the rolls and being able to vote in 2007," he said.

"This raises serious questions about Mr Abbott's judgment. He was a senior cabinet minister of the former Coalition government that authored the amendments."

Senator Ludwig says the decision restores the right of thousands of potential voters.

"Federal Labor believes in a modern and fair electoral system. There should be no spurious barriers between electors and the ballot box," he said.

Greens leader Bob Brown also welcomes the decision, which is expected to give Labor and the Greens a poll boost.

"This was John Howard trying to cut young Australians out of voting because the Coalition's not doing so well," he said.

"It's a real credit to the people who took this action, Get Up! and the two young Australians, as well as the High Court - that the right of people to vote is upheld.

"We now need to move to ensure that nobody gets left out of future elections in this country."


Proud Australians

Get Up! member Doug Thompson, 23, was one of two plaintiffs in the case. He says his involvement was not politically motivated.

"I was doing it not for any political reasons. It was purely the right to vote that interests me," he said.

The other plaintiff, Shannen Rowe, says she is proud to have played a part in the case.

"There was no time to get enrolment forms in ... I'm glad it's been extended seven days," she said.

"A lot of people are really excited about it."

The Electoral Commission estimates about 100,000 will be added to the roll and says it hopes to contact all those voters.

 

[TJMALLIGAN]

Hi Keith

   I see you got the smoke and mirrors and spin as usual from The Hon Leader of The Opposition about our Veteran
Affairs Policy, as I said do not hold your breath! I honestly think we will not get it till the death knell, maybe they think
our number of votes will not matter! makes for hard gristle but we keep at them, drip, drip like water on a stone!
Thank mate keep us informed

Terry

[Dallas]

I can only hope you are wrong Keith. Abbott the lesser of the two evils you have to be joking the man is Howard heavy.

[Keith]

Well readers as is usual I make calls during an election campaign. I have had a chronic interest in politics since childhood and no doubt some of you thus feel pity for me!
 
I am not here to tell you how to vote but do try to highlight some issues over spin and rubbish and try to keep you up to date with polling and professional assessments.
 
This is my first call of the election and it goes thus.
 
If an election were to be held tomorrow I would say there would be a Coalition win.
 
While many people at most elections, including me, always make a choice about the lesser of two evils, at this election I reckon this base of people in the electorate is larger than usual. It is a wild ride and who knows what will happen between now and Aug 21.
 
I will make a call again at the end of next week.

[Keith]

High Court upholds GetUp! case
ABC NEWS

 

Up to 100,000 more Australians could be allowed to vote in the August 21 election after the High Court today ruled that parts of the Electoral Act are unconstitutional.

The advocacy group GetUp! believes tens of thousands of people may have been excluded from the electoral rolls because they missed registration deadlines introduced by the Howard government in 2006.

Before the changes, voters had just seven days after an election was called to enrol to vote. Under the new laws, the rolls shut on the day the election writs were issued.

Two young Australians who found themselves in such a position took their case to the High Court, arguing the changes to shorten enrolment cut-offs were unconstitutional.

In a majority ruling, the full bench of the High Court today declared certain parts of the act invalid.

That will mean anyone who was seven days late with their enrolment will now be able to vote.

The Australian Electoral Commission has made plans to ensure those voters will now be included on the rolls for the upcoming federal election.

GetUp's counsel had argued that the houses of parliament would not be chosen by the people because a substantial number of citizens would have been excluded from the vote.

ABC election analyst Antony Green says the decision is likely to favour Labor and the Greens.

"Given all the publicity, I would imagine there would be a huge increase in the number of 18-year-olds on the roll and that would probably assist Labor and Greens," he said.

More to come.

-ABC/AAP

Roll playing games http://blogs.crikey.com.au/pollbludger/2010/08/06/roll-playing-games/

Friday, August 6, 2010 ? 2:14 pm, by William Bowe http://blogs.crikey.com.au/pollbludger/author/pollbludger/

In a stunning repudiation of the Howard government?s electoral law ?reforms? of 2005, the High Court has today upheld by majority a GetUp!-sponsored legal challenge http://www.smh.com.au/federal-election/getup-high-court-win-overturns-howards-electoral-laws-20100806-11m31.html against the closure of the electoral roll on the day the writs for the election were issued. Until 2005 this had occurred seven days later, which allowed voters time to enrol or amend existing enrolments, and the Australian Electoral Commission time to advertise the urgency of doing so. The ruling will allow the 100,000 prospective voters who did in fact enrol in the seven day period after the issue of the writs to vote at the August 21 election, a number that presumably falls far short of the number that would have enrolled if the value of doing so had been known in advance. The High Court has yet to publish its reasons, but the GetUp! case sought to build on an earlier ruling that invalidated another aspect of the 2005 act which denied prisoners the right to vote. This required that restrictions on the exercise of the vote provide a proportionate response to a legitimate problem. It appears the court has agreed that the amendment lacked the requisite foundation in evidence to meet such a test, the AEC having consistently maintained that a later closure of the rolls posed no threat to the ?integrity? of the roll, as had been claimed by the Howard government. The AEC now has the onerous task of informing the 100,000 affected voters that they are now eligible to vote.

[Keith]

Response from Mr Abbott to my email of yesterday asking for the Liberal Party Veterans policy.
 
From: Abbott, Tony (MP)
To: Keith Tennent
Sent: Friday, August 06, 2010 8:47 AM
Subject: Thank you for your email to the Leader of the Opposition, the Hon Tony Abbott MP



Thank you for your recent email to the Leader of the Opposition, Tony Abbott.

As you may be aware, the Prime Minister has called a federal election.

Unfortunately, from Opposition, we do not have the resources to respond to your email in detail during the campaign period, but your concerns will be brought to Tony?s attention and that of the Coalition Team.

After three years of Labor Government failures, Australians now have a choice.

Broken promises, increased cost of living pressures, massive debt, a Budget deficit, waste and mismanagement and new taxes are all placing unnecessary pressures on Australians. Further, Labor have removed a Prime Minister quickly and ruthlessly, ignoring the wishes of Australian voters. But it is the same government with the same problems creating the same mess.

I hope you will get behind Tony in the weeks ahead as he seeks to stand up for Australia and take real action to end the waste, repay the debt, stop the taxes and ease the cost of living pressures on families.

If you would like to read more detailed policy information please go to www.liberal.org.au.

[Keith]

Dear Mr Abbott,
 
I have sent two emails to the Parliament asking the Liberal Party to publish it's Veterans policy for election 2010.
 
Labors Veterans policy record over the last term of the Parliament is here http://minister.dva.gov.au/update2010.pdf  for all to read. Some Veterans and ex Service members are happy with the Labor record and some are not.
 
However when I go here http://www.liberal.org.au/search.aspx?s=Veterans I see no Liberal Party Veterans Policy for this election campaign. I do see plenty of criticism of Labor policy and behaviour. This is the first time I can remember for years when an Opposition has not produced a Veterans Policy. Ms Louise Markus and the Opposition have had about three years in which to produce a policy.
 
Will you be unveiling the Liberal Policy at your election policy speech next Sunday? If not will you explain why this is? The media release you published on the indexation of DFRDB superannuation pensions is not a Veterans policy. It is a very small part of the responsibilities of a Veterans Affairs Minister and the truth is most Veterans and ex Service members are not in receipt of the DFRDB payment.
 
I look forward to your reply.

[Keith]

ABC NEWS

Rudd vaults back into election spotlight
By online political correspondent Emma Rodgers
 

Former prime minister Kevin Rudd has launched himself into the federal election campaign with a strident attack on Opposition Leader Tony Abbott.

Addressing the media in Brisbane this afternoon, Mr Rudd confirmed he had accepted an invitation from Prime Minister Julia Gillard to join the campaign because he did not want Labor's legacy to be destroyed by Mr Abbott.

"I am no quitter. Of course I have said yes to that request," he said.

Mr Rudd said he would meet Ms Gillard on Saturday and join the campaign on Sunday in "Queensland, New South Wales and maybe elsewhere" as long as his recovery from a recent gall bladder operation was on track.

Mr Rudd said while things had been difficult for him and his family since he was ousted from office, the country's future was at stake and he could not let Mr Abbott "slide" into the prime ministership.

"The truth is this. It has been a very difficult time for our family," he said in a lengthy statement to journalists.

"[But] I can't be silent while knowing Mr Abbott has opposed those measures which kept Australia out of recession.

"There is a real danger at present because of the rolling political controversy about myself that Mr Abbott is simply able to slide quietly into the office of the prime ministership."

Mr Rudd said he "can't abide" Mr Abbott being prime minister after the Opposition Leader once said climate change was "crap".

And Mr Rudd said he could not let Mr Abbott "tear down" Labor's major policies such as the hospitals takeover and the National Broadband Network.

"I honestly do not believe that he is up to the job of being prime minister of Australia," he said.

"We've got to finish that work rather than have it chopped up halfway through."

The former prime minister also thanked all those who had wished him well since he underwent surgery.

"This turned out to be a little more painful than I had anticipated ... and the recovery a little slower than I had thought," he said.

Mr Rudd yesterday broke his silence on ABC Radio for the first time since he was dramatically ousted six weeks ago to declare his support for Ms Gillard and Labor's re-election cause.

Focus on Mr Rudd has dogged Ms Gillard on the hustings as she faced continued questions over whether he would campaign nationally and what frontbench role he would take in a Gillard government.

Mr Rudd also denied last night that he was the source of a damaging leak against Ms Gillard last week after continued speculation he was responsible.

Mr Abbott has sought to capitalise on the issues saying Mr Rudd's presence on the campaign trail will only serve to remind voters of Labor's "political thuggery".



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http://www.austvetmatters.net/ Fraud and Wannabe Website

http://www.anzmi.net/  Fraud and Wannabe Website

[Keith]

GetUp! takes electoral challenge to High Court
By Katherine Pohl

ABC NEWS

 
GetUp! says the laws could have potentially excluded more than 100,000 people from voting. (ABC News: Giulio Saggin)

Related Story: High Court challenge targets missing voters A last-ditch bid to get more voters on the electoral roll will be heard by the High Court today.

Advocacy group GetUp! will challenge the constitutional validity of changes to the Electoral Act made by the Howard government in 2006.

Before the changes, voters had seven days after an election was called to enrol to vote.

When the new laws came in the rolls shut on the day the election writs were issued.

GetUp!'s lawyers will tell the court that closing the electoral rolls on the day the writs are issued is both an arbitrary and disproportionate limitation on the rights of Australians.

The group says the laws could have potentially excluded more than 100,000 people from voting in this month's federal election.

The Electoral Commissioner and Solicitor General of the Commonwealth are the defendants in the matter.

The case is being rushed through the High Court, with a decision expected soon after today's hearing.

[TJMALLIGAN]

Hi Keith
   sent an E-Mail to Luke Simpkins Mp, local member here ref the Veterans Affairs Policy herewith reply from Bill Coghlan Electorate Officer for Luke:-
       
            "We have contacted the Office of Louise Markus MP, Shadow Minister for Veteran Affairs, who have advised "That the Liberal Party
Policy will be announced in the near Future"
We will keep you advised of any developments"
Bill Coghlan
electorate Officer

There you go got an answer that is the priority that they give to Veterans Affairs, Do not hold your breath!  I sent my E-mail Friday last got this today 03Aug10.

All the best
Terry

[Keith]

The latest Essential poll. I am still not game to make a call on this election. It is the most bizarre I can remember for some time. Maybe I will be able to make a call next week. I will certainly call what I see in the last week of the campaign.

http://blogs.crikey.com.au/pollbludger/files/2010/08/Essential-Report_020810.pdf

[Keith]

Election race goes neck and neck

ABC NEWS

 
Neck and neck: Tony Abbott and Julia Gillard (AAP)

The latest Newspoll shows Labor losing its election-winning lead as the Coaltion draws level heading into the third week of the election campaign.

The poll, published in this morning's The Australian newspaper, shows a 50-50 split in the two-party preferred vote.

Labor's two-party approval rating fell by 2 per cent while the Coalition gained 2 per cent.

Labor also lost ground in the primary vote, falling three points to be on 37 per cent against the Coalition's 44 per cent. The Greens were steady on 12 per cent.

Julia Gillard is still the preferred prime minister, leading Opposition Leader Tony Abbott 50 per cent to 35 per cent.

The latest numbers follow the weekend's Nielsen poll, which had the Coalition ahead of the ALP.

That poll showed the Coalition leading Labor 52 points to 48 on a two-party preferred basis.

Labor's fall in support comes after a week focused on leaks and former leader Kevin Rudd.

A new report out today claims that Ms Gillard did not seek Cabinet approval for the Citizens' Assembly, which she made the frontispiece of her new climate change policy.

[Keith]

VETERANS HEALTH CARE

ABC NEWS
 
Professionals slam Abbott's aged care plan
By Tim Leslie
 
The ANF says freeing up beds without providing additional funding for nursing staff will only escalate issues already facing the sector. (ABC TV)

The Australian Nursing Federation (ANF) has slammed Tony Abbott's aged care announcement, saying it will create a "crisis in care".

Mr Abbott today announced a Coalition government would spend $335 million to get 3,000 beds for high-care patients operational during its first term.

But ANF spokeswoman Yvonne Chaperon says freeing up the beds without providing additional funding for nursing staff will only escalate issues already facing the sector.

"Nurses are already leaving aged care. They are underpaid by up to $300 per week when compared to nurses in the public sector, and often have to work long and difficult shifts," she said in a statement.

"More beds without qualified nurses, proper consideration of skills mix and staffing levels will simply escalate these problems."

Ms Chaperon says the funding package shows the Opposition does not understand the complexities of aged care.

"This is a simplistic attempt to throw money at the aged care sector without considering all of the health and care needs of residents. That includes the need for skills mix and staffing levels for nurses," she said.

"This shows Mr Abbott does not have an understanding of the aged care industry in Australia."

Freeing up the bed placements, which have already been allocated, was part of Mr Abbott's $935 million aged care package that also includes:


21 days of convalescence care for around 20,000 eligible patients at a cost of $300 million
$14 million for pet therapy programs
$12 million to promote wellbeing and funding for companionship programs
a reduction in red tape for aged care providers

Ms Chaperon says the Opposition's decision to allocate money for pet therapy programs while ignoring nursing staff is deeply concerning.

"Tony Abbott has pledged $14 million for pet therapy and yet has not mentioned nursing care," she said.

"This is deeply concerning and indicative of a party who do not understand the basics of aged care and the vital role of nurses in the sector, to the residents and to their families."


AMA joins in

The policy has also come under fire from the Australian Medical Association (AMA).

AMA president Dr Andrew Pesce says while incentives to provide more aged care beds are a welcome move, they should not come at the cost of GP services.

"Not only is there no new funding for the provision of medical care to older Australians, the Coalition has committed to cut the $98.4 million promised by Labor in the May Budget to provide incentive payments for GPs to provide services in aged care homes," he said in a statement.

"This is a missed opportunity for the Coalition that has been compounded by taking away the only new funding that was available to improve access to medical care for older Australians, at a time of their life when their medical care needs are very high."

But Rod Young, CEO of Aged Care Services Australia, has welcomed the Coalition's commitment to a formal agreement with the aged care sector.

"The decision by the Coalition to enter into a provider agreement, similar to the pharmacy agreements, is certainly welcomed by the industry," he said.

"It is something we've been calling for for some time, that there needs to be an open and transparent working arrangement between government and the industry."


'No new beds'

Federal Health Minister Nicola Roxon says the policy will not result in any more beds being made available.

Ms Roxon says Mr Abbott is funding the announcement by channelling money away from other vital aged care services.

"There are no new aged care beds and there is no new money," she said.

"He has come clean with the public and explained that that he is going to use money set aside by our government to provide extra GP services to those in residential care to help fund this idea.

"When you're talking about residents in aged care they are vulnerable, they do often have complex health needs.

"And to not be providing or indeed be cutting medical and nursing services to aged care, is really not going to improve the situation to the many thousands of Australians who are in aged care."

She says Mr Abbott is trying to capitalise on the Government's achievements in the health sector.

"He wants to get credit for steps our government is already taking to deliver better services to the community," she said.

"Since we've come to office there are 10,000 additional aged care beds that have become operational.

"Mr Abbott is simply wanting to count beds that are already targeted to come on line. So this is not new funding, this is Mr Abbott pretending he can deliver beds in a different way."

But the Opposition Leader says the Coalition will be better able to target health funding where it is needed most.

"We are investing the same as the Government proposes to invest, but we think this will produce more concrete results," he said.

"We think it will guarantee that you will actually get 3,000 additional beds, it will guarantee that we will actually get 20,000 people assisted as they are moving from hospital back to their homes.

"So this is about practical action. It's real action."

 
Greens seek to capitalise on voter frustration
By online political correspondent Emma Rodgers

 
Bob Brown rallied the faithful and sought to capitalise on the recent leadership strife in both major parties. (AAP: Stefan Postles)

Bob Brown has appealed to voters who are frustrated with the major parties to put their trust in the Greens at the upcoming election.

Officially launching The Greens' election campaign in Canberra today, Senator Brown rallied the faithful and sought to capitalise on the recent leadership strife in both parties in a pitch to undecided voters.

"I offer to Australians who are frustrated with the bickering, the short-sightedness, the leadership spills and the failure of vision of this country, a Greens party which not only for the future in our promise, but on our record, has shown a stability neither of the big parties have shown," he said.

Senator Brown did not launch any new policies but reiterated Greens support in several areas such as:


legalising gay marriage
better treatment of asylum seekers
no nuclear waste dumps
a national recycling program
junk food advertising bans
parliamentary debate on Australia's Afghanistan troop commitment

The Greens have also called for a national food security plan, a dental scheme and high-speed rail for the east coast.

Senator Brown singled out The Greens' backing of the $42 billion stimulus package as a significant achievement in the last term of Government.

"We put that package through, saving hundreds of thousands of jobs and thousands of businesses from recession," he said.

Yesterday's Nielsen poll put support for The Greens at 12 per cent and it is expected The Greens will gain the balance of power in the Senate in its own right at the next election.

The poll also put the Coalition in an election-winning lead and Senator Brown warned that a Coalition government would only offer deadlock or dominance.

"We will never just say no," he said.

"We Greens have a plan and a vision which is not stuck, which is clear about the future of this country."

Senator Brown also took a swipe at Prime Minister Julia Gillard's oft-repeated election slogan of "Moving Forward".

"If you're going to move forward you have to say where you're going," he said.

Senator Brown used his speech to say coal companies should have to pay for the cost of extra port and rail facilities to export the resource.

He says the Greens are the only party in favour of a carbon tax.

"Both the big parties want to fund rail lines and port facilities in Queensland and New South Wales to hurry more coal from these big corporations - 75 per cent owned outside Australia - to hurry it to world markets, to be burnt to worsen climate change which threatens all of us.

"Here are The Greens - let them fund that themselves after we've imposed a carbon tax."

[Keith]

Labor casts doubt on Abbott's housing plan


ABC NEWS

A federal Labor MP has raised doubts about the Opposition's promise to offer up to 100 vacant Defence houses in the Northern Territory for private sale at their current location.

Opposition Leader Tony Abbott yesterday pledged to open up the vacant properties at the Royal Australian Air Force (RAAF) base at Winnellie to ease housing stress in Darwin.

Opposition defence spokesman Senator David Johnston says the first homes could be sold at the base within weeks of an Abbott election victory.

"The little suburb is ... almost a gated community, it's a beautiful community, the amenity looks fantastic," he said.

"I just need to make sure that I can provide the security of title to them, that I can make sure that they are as saleable and realise their true value as soon as I possibly can."

But Solomon Labor MP Damian Hale says defence experts have told him the Opposition's pledge would not be possible because the Department of Defence still needs the land.

"Defence have said to me that the land is required land and they're not looking at opening it up to be given back to the public sector or the private sector for housing," he said.

The Federal Government says it would also sell the houses, but they would first have to be moved from Defence-owned land to other locations.

Meanwhile, Mr Hale also used Mr Abbott's visit in Darwin to attack the Coalition's plans to scrap the National Broadband Network.

"While Tony Abbott is in town it'd be an ideal opportunity for him to go for a walk through Casuarina Shopping Centre and tell all those businesses there that all those businesses won't get higher broadband speeds because Tony Abbott doesn't believe in having the National Broadband Network," he said.

VETERANS HEALTH

ABC NEWS
 
Rural doctors criticise Coalition health policy
The Rural Doctors Association says the Federal Coalition's rural health policy does not do enough to attract medical staff to the bush.

The Opposition announced on Friday it would double the number of Medical Rural Bonded Scholarships, offer incentives for nurses to work in remote areas and fund training for nurses in rural and regional towns.

But Rural Doctors Association president Nola Maxfield says medical students need to be targeted early on through tailored training.

"To have a rural generalist pathway, as we call it, which will provide them with the type of training that will enable them to be competent rural doctors," she said.

 

[Keith]

And no comprehensive Veterans policy as yet?
 
Abbott pledges funding for Defence health
ABC NEWS

 
Tony Abbott says he wants to ensure the families of those in the Defence Force are looked after. (AAP: Dean Lewins)

Federal Opposition Leader Tony Abbott has pledged an extra $77 million for the health and dental care of Defence Force families.

He made the promise at Larakeyah barracks during a visit to Darwin where he was campaigning in the marginal Labor-held seat of Solomon.

Mr Abbott says he wants to ensure the families of those in the Defence Force are looked after.

"Their husbands, their fathers, their wives, their mothers are wearing our uniform," he said.

"They're doing great work for us and the ones they leave behind should never be forgotten and they certainly won't be forgotten by the Coalition."

Mr Abbott says his promise to expand the Defence dental scheme will not be extended to all Australians because there is not enough money in the budget.

"The problem is that the current Rudd-Gillard Government has massively mortgaged our future," he said.

"I just don't believe it would be responsible to do more than we are currently doing at this time."

Mr Abbott also announced more than 300 Defence houses in Darwin would be available to the public to ease the tight housing market.

The Coalition says it will excise land in Winnellie and release it for sale.

Mr Abbott says there are currently almost 400 houses on the land.

"It will still be available to Defence personnel under the ordinary kind of rental subsidy arrangements which Defence personnel can have, so the people who are currently in there need not fear eviction."

The Opposition Leader's trip north comes as the latest opinion polls show a major turnaround for the Federal Coalition in the past week.

The Nielsen poll, published in The Sydney Morning Herald today, shows the Coalition leading Labor 52 points to 48 on a two-party preferred basis.

The Coalition's primary vote is also up 4 points to 45 per cent while Labor's is down 6 points to 36 per cent.

But Julia Gillard is still the preferred prime minister. She leads Tony Abbott 49 points to 41.

Mr Abbott says the opinion polls are volatile.

"I think I am very much the underdog in this election," he said.

But the Opposition Leader says voters are starting to understand that Labor is "hopeless" at governing.

 
 
www.theaussiedigger.com The Aussie Digger
 
http://theaussiedigger.com/TheAussieDiggerForum/  Forum
 
http://www.austvetmatters.net/ Fraud and Wannabe Website
 
http://www.anzmi.net/  Fraud and Wannabe Website

[Keith]

 
With an Australian federal election around the corner, the Kiwi media examine Tim Lester's media tough guy shtick...
 
 
Scoop - New Zealand's top independent news website.
 
 
http://www.scoop.co.nz/stories/HL1007/S00246/aus-fed-election-journo-takes-down-senator.htm
 

Aus Fed Election: Journo Takes Down Senator?
Saturday, 31 July 2010, 3:20 pm
Article: Sasha Uzunov


Australian Federal Election: Journo Takes Down Senator By Sasha Uzunov

In what can only be described as a bizarre and poorly disguised takedown, Fairfax newspapers reporter Tim Lester has belittled Independent Senator Steve Fielding over a trip to Afghanistan to visit Australian troops, which coincided with the Federal Labor government announcing the next election to be held on August 21 this year.


Lester, formerly a television reporter with the ABC and Nine Networks, is a self styled "media tough guy" and ?defence expert? who made a name for himself covering the conflict in East Timor (Timor Leste) in 1999.

 
Related Stories on Scoop
Sasha Uzunov: ASIOs Poor Record 02/03/2010 http://www.scoop.co.nz/stories/HL1003/S00021.htm
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AFP Hasn't Been Asked To Investigate Moran Murder 09/12/2009 http://www.scoop.co.nz/stories/HL0912/S00083.htm
Commando Regiment In Firing Line 07/12/2009 http://www.scoop.co.nz/stories/HL0912/S00060.htm
'Witness To Timor Murders Steps Forward 23/11/2009 http://www.scoop.co.nz/stories/WO0911/S00751.htm


In an article for The Age and The Sydney Morning Herald newspapers titled: Steve Fielding, MIA [Missing In Action] in Afghanistan,? dated 22 July 2010, Tim Lester of Timor Leste fame wrote:  

www.theage.com.au/federal-election/steve-fielding-mia-in-afghanistan-20100721-10l65.html


STEVE Fielding's eccentric political career could end at next month's federal election, yet the Victorian senator has spent five vital days of the campaign on secret missions in southern Afghanistan.?


The story includes a digitally altered photo of an Australian soldier whose face is obscured with a Steve Fielding mask. You can get the gist of the story, ridiculing a politician for visiting troops in the field!


Lester, who has never served in uniform but acts as a defence expert, further wrote:


The senator declined to give details of what Australian forces had shown him in Tarin Kowt [Australian Army base in Afghanistan]. ''Some of the missions are secret,'' he said. ''A lot of the stuff has been high security.


The senator was already in Afghanistan when he learnt new Prime Minister Julia Gillard had called the election.


Senator Fielding won only 2 per cent of the primary vote in 2004, but was elected on Labor preferences. He is widely expected to lose his Senate spot in next month's election, though he rates his chances at 50-50.


He said his absence for the crucial opening days of the campaign ''will probably damage my re-election''.


However, his secret trip did not stop his campaign. While abroad, he issued seven press releases from his Melbourne office on domestic issues. None mentioned the Afghanistan trip.


''We're sending people here, you know with their lives at risk to make the world safer and the least that I could do was, you know, not to pull out for the sake of a couple of days with my own re-election campaign,'' he said.


 ''I thought it would probably be selfish doing that, selfish if I did come back.''


Although claiming an early departure on his behalf from Afghanistan would have sent ''all the troops the wrong message'', he later conceded he had asked defence officials in Tarin Kowt ''about trying to get back and ? is there any ways of getting back early''.


My response to all this is so what? The Senator was right in going to Afghanistan and right in trying to get back early. After all, the electors of Australia pay the wages of both the Senator and of the soldiers fighting in Afghanistan. In a democracy such as Australia and neighbouring New Zealand, politicians and soldiers are answerable to the people! Maybe Lester has forgotten this?


In essence this is a nothing story by a journalist who has been a war correspondent flexing his muscle or flashing his Media Sheriffs Badge in trying to show how tough he is. But people in glasshouses should not throw stones!


In 1999 as a serving Australian soldier I had the good fortune to be a man-servant in uniform to a high ranking Army officer in the Australian Defence Forces? (ADF) Media Support Unit in East Timor. As well making great coffee, espresso, cappuccino and Turkish, for the Commanding Officer (CO) Lieutenant Colonel Wild Bill Pickering I had the privilege of observing some of Australia?s top war reporters in action.


I remember when Tim Lester, then with the ABC, was being farewelled from Timor in late 1999. I was standing a few metres away when Lester struggled to place a souvenir Australian Army bush hat on his head, his fellow ABC colleague Ginny Stein, an excellent and tough reporter in her own right, giggled and joked to expatriate Australian film maker based in Bangkok, Lyndal Barry:


Tim would have to be the most unwarlike male war reporters I?ve come across. He is so disorganised. I have to do everything for him.

Both women then broke out in hearty laughter.


Lester who hails from the deep south Australian state of Tasmania was proclaimed a local hero by his home state newspaper, The Examiner, in September 1999:

www.examiner.com.au/news/local/news/general/lester-enjoys-work-despite-danger-says-dad/1319926.aspx


Longford woolgrower Michael Lester remembers that his son Tim was an established journalist working in Sydney when he started paying $30 a half-hour for elocution lessons.


Tim Lester has progressed and progressed in his career, reaching the coveted status of foreign correspondent, working as the South-East Asia correspondent for the ABC. He was among the last two ABC journalists to leave East Timor, fleeing Dili on Tuesday in a dramatic escape from the escalating drama.


Lester was flown to Darwin, where he is understood to have remained yesterday. His father was looking forward to speaking to him again. ``He is very involved and very dedicated to his work and certainly he's suited to it,'' Mr Lester said.

In 2008 Lester, as a reporter with the commercial network Nine, complained the ADF would not be his taxpayer funded cab service in Iraq to observe Australian troops pulling out. He moaned:
http://www.abc.net.au/mediawatch/transcripts/s2269473.htm


I am one of the reporters who wanted the necessary transport and protection to cover our 550 combat troops as they leave Tallil Air Base in Southern Iraq.


But surely the great Tim Lester of Timor Leste fame would not need ADF transport and protection to navigate through a warzone in Iraq?


Britains top war reporter Sir Max Hastings, in his autobiographical account of his career, Going to The Wars, tells of taking a private taxi to the Golan Heights during the 1973 Yom Kippur War that pitted Israel against its Arab neighbours and of driving with a colleague into the Sinai desert, after not receiving any assistance from the Israeli government.


What the Australian public deserves and needs are journalists willing to report the story without the Australian medias obsession with the media tough guy/gal reporter shtick and doses of Hollywood.


The irony is that one of Australias top war reporters, John Martinkus, and formerly with SBS TV?s Dateline program is cooling his heels in Tasmania as an academic instead of reporting in Afghanistan. Furthermore we need journalists of the calibre and strength of Ginny Stein, now with SBS Dateline, in Afghanistan as well.


(ENDS)
 
Sasha Uzunov graduated with a Bachelor of Arts degree in Journalism from the Royal Melbourne Institute of Technology, Australia, in 1991. He enlisted in the Australian Regular Army as a soldier in 1995 and was allocated to infantry. He served two peacekeeping tours in East Timor (1999 and 2001). In 2002 he returned to civilian life as a photo journalist and film maker and has worked in The Balkans, Iraq and Afghanistan. His documentary film Timor Tour of Duty made its international debut in New York in October 2009. It picked up a Platinum Reel Award from the 2009 Nevada Film Festival (US). He blogs at Team Uzunov.


TIMOR TOUR OF DUTY film website
http://timortourofduty.blogspot.com/

[Keith]

 
I wonder if Mr Abbott will now release some of the Liberals Veterans policy?

ABC NEWS

Abbott heads north for defence announcement


Mr Abbott is making his first visit to the Northern Territory of the election campaign. (AAP: Alan Porritt)

Federal Opposition Leader Tony Abbott is campaigning in Darwin today where he will make an announcement about a defence-related policy.

Mr Abbott is making his first visit to the Northern Territory of the election campaign.

He spent the night in Alice Springs and will visit a defence facility in Darwin today.

Mr Abbott is taking his campaign to the marginal seat of Solomon, held by Labor's Damien Hale by just 0.2 per cent.

His Country Liberal opponent is Palmerston Deputy Mayor Natasha Griggs.

The Opposition Leader's trip north comes as the latest opinion polls show a major turnaround for the Federal Coalition in the past week.

The Nielsen poll, publised in The Sydney Morning Herald today, shows the Coalition leading Labor 52 points to 48 on a two-party preferred basis.

The Coalition's primary vote is also up 4 points to 45 per cent while Labor's is down 6 points to 36 per cent.

But Julia Gillard is still the preferred prime minister. She leads Tony Abbott 49 points to 41.

Blow to Labor as Abbott surges

MICHELLE GRATTAN

THE AGE

July 31, 2010

THE Gillard government would be swept from power according to the latest poll, which shows Labor trailing the Coalition 48 to 52 on a two-party vote.

In a dramatic turnaround, Julia Gillard?s approval has plunged and her lead as preferred Prime Minister has been sharply eroded during a week when  government division was exposed by  an anti-Gillard leak of cabinet secrets.

The Age/Nielsen poll shows Labors two party vote fell six points in a week. The primary vote also fell six points, to 36per cent,  an unwinnable level.

The Coalitions primary vote was up four points to 45per cent while the Greens were steady on 12 per cent.

The poll shock for Labor comes as former prime minister Kevin Rudd threw fresh uncertainty into the Gillard campaign.

Mr Rudd, who was admitted to hospital yesterday for an operation to remove his gall bladder, said in a statement he intended to campaign in Queensland and the rest of the country as appropriate in support of the re-election of the government and Prime Minister Gillard.

Until now, Mr Rudd has said he would  campaign only in his own electorate of Griffith.

Ms Gillard and Labors national  campaign headquarters apparently had no warning of the Rudd plan. Earlier, Ms Gillard denied a newspaper report that he had been invited to campaign for Labor, saying: I am respecting Kevin Rudds wishes and Kevin Rudds wish is to focus on his electorate of Griffith.

The poll of 1356 people taken on Tuesday (the night the leak was reported)  to Thursday showed Ms Gillard?s approval at 51per cent, down five points, while her disapproval was up six points to 39per cent.

Mr Abbotts approval was up six points to 49per cent, and his disapproval was down six points to 45per cent. Ms Gillards net approval rating is now plus 12, while Mr Abbott?s is plus four.

Ms Gillard leads as preferred Prime Minister by 49per cent, down six points to Mr Abbotts 41per cent, up seven.

The two-party vote is a swing to the Coalition of nearly 5per cent since the election.

Women, who had flocked to Ms Gillard earlier, now appear to be having second thoughts. While Ms Gillard still has a higher approval among women than men 54 to 48 per cent the gender gap on voting intention has disappeared, with  primary and two-party-preferred votes now little different.

Despite the move against the government, nearly seven out of 10 voters  expect Labor to win the election. Around four in five voters  said they were strongly committed to their current primary voting intention.

Questions about Mr Rudd dominated a news conference at which Ms Gillard was launching a broadband policy. Ms Gillard insisted she was not going to be diverted by political chatter, but  her campaign was overshadowed by the Rudd issue.

Pressed on the former prime ministers campaign intentions, she said no one from campaign headquarters has done anything other than ... respect Kevins wishes to campaign in the community that he cares passionately about.

At a later press conference after  the announcement of Mr Rudd?s sudden illness, Ms Gillard said were all hoping, wishing, praying for a speedy recovery.

Ms Gillard said of his plan to campaign widely, that is for the future. What is now is to wish Kevin all the best ... as he deals with his health issue.

She said she had always said she wanted to respect Mr Rudd?s wishes about the campaign. I welcome his indication that when he is well enough again he will be happy to campaign for the re-election of the Gillard government. My re-election as Prime Minister. But, she said, I dont want there to be a sense of pressure for Kevin.

A spokesmen for Mr Rudd said  he had suffered acute abdominal pain and had tests on Thursday night and yesterday morning. He was admitted to hospital at lunchtime yesterday to have surgery later in the day.
Mr Rudds doctors advise hes likely to be in hospital for a couple of days ... Mr Rudd looks forward to resuming campaign activities next week.

In two-party terms, Labor is well ahead in Victoria (54 to 46).  In Queensland, where it is defending 10 marginals, it is on 50-50.

When the past three polls, all done this month, are put together Labor is comfortably ahead in Victoria, and has small leads in NSW and South Australia, but trails 47-53 per cent in Queensland and 46-54 per cent in Western Australia.

The poll found that  53 per cent of voters  opposed the governments plan for a citizens  assembly  on climate change. Six out of 10 people backed  an emissions trading scheme.

The ALPs  campaign launch will be on Brisbane on August 16.
 

[Keith]

Dear Mr Lindsay,
 
I sent the email below on 17 July as you may recall. At that time you kindly replied stating the Liberal Party would be releasing Veterans policy as the campaign progresses. I understand election campaigns are frenetic times for political parties but we are now at the end of week two. It is also true that the Liberals have had about 3 years to develop a comprehensive Veterans policy.
 
Could you let the community know when the Liberal Party will be releasing it's Veterans policy?
 
I can find no comprehensive policy here
http://www.liberal.org.au/Policies.aspx
 
Thank you.
 
Keith Tennent.
 
 
Mr Abbott, the Leader of the Opposition and Parliamentary Liberal Party leader, has a history of standing for policies which deny disabled War Veterans, War widows and ex Service members just entitlements and health care. He has also made some silly, out of touch and preposterous statements regarding serving members and ex service members.
 
Mr Abbott is on the record for stating the following.
 
1. That the US Presidential Medal of Freedom presented to former PM John Howard equals the Victoria Cross in importance. The VC is  the highest award Australia can bestow on Soldiers for Gallantry and Valour under fire.
 
2. Has hinted that the Department of Veterans Affairs should be scrapped and that all Veterans, War Widows and others serviced by DVA should be serviced by Centrelink.
 
3. Mr Abbott was a senior Minister in the former Government. For over 11 years that Government refused point blank, until the 11th hour at the 2007 election cycle, the fix many pressing issues which had plagued the Veteran and ex Service communities for years. In particular the former Government refused to fairly index the TPI compensation pension [ The Special Rate ] and it did nothing until it was boxed into a corner by the then Opposition Shadow DVA Minister Alan Griffin.
 
4. Mr Abbott has openly said that he sometimes says things which cannot be taken as Gospel unless they are in writing. Therefore the Veteran and ex Service communities must have all Opposition Veterans policies on everything in writing according to Mr Abbott. To take anything he just says would be making a mistake according to him.
 
 
Most damaging of all for War Veterans and ex Service members was the submission made by then Minister Abbott to the Clarke Inquiry [ 2002 ] when he was Workplace Relations Minister in the former Government. His full contempt for disabled War Veterans and ex Service members and indeed the serving Military is on glaring display for all to read in his submission.
 
His submission is attached and it is suggested you all read it again to remind yourselves of where Mr Abbott stood on Veterans compensation at that time.
 
We now need a clear Veterans policy from the Federal Opposition which rebuts all that Mr Abbott submitted in Clarke and a full rebuttal of his various ill informed and insulting comments about Veterans over the years. And we need all of this in writing.
 
Until the Veteran, ex Service and War widow communities see a new policy from the Opposition we must accept that what Mr Abbott wrote to Justice Clarke stands.
 
Please read the attached submission to Clarke from Mr Abbott.

TO READ SOURCES FOR THE STATEMENTS I HAVE MADE ABOVE PLEASE READ THROUGH THIS THREAD
http://theaussiedigger.com/TheAussieDiggerForum/index.php?topic=21.0

[Keith]

Two Morgans and a Galaxy

July 30, 2010 9:13 am, by Possum Comitatus

Today brings not one, not two, but three new polls on the vote estimates with a Morgan Phone poll and Galaxy taken Wednesday night and a Morgan face to face taken last weekend. All the results and their respective changes come in like this:





We normally get some polls out on the weekend papers during elections, so well wait until tomorrow to run our trend measures.Suffice to say that there appears to have been a point or two slip in the Labor vote over the last 7 days.

In other news, very shortly we should have the complete demographic cross-tabs of the Polliegraph that ran on Channel 7 during the leaders debate last Sunday so well be breaking them down, pulling them apart and seeing what interesting little tidbits pop up over the next few days or so.

[Keith]

Hi Keith
  First comment by me, I looked up the Liberal Party  election promises/wish list and found under Seniors a sub title Veterans about the DFRDB they are
promising by July 2011 to make the DFRDB aligned with the normal age pension Minumum award etc, it all sounds like what we were promised last time!
so we wont hold our breath that is for sure, promises, promises.   Thanks Mate lots of interesting news.
Terry

Yes that is correct Terry. They published their DFRDB policy around the place before the election was called and it is published in here and on the Liberal Party official website. But they make no mention of any other Veterans policies.

I am still waiting for the promised release of their policies which I hope is forthcoming.

[TJMALLIGAN]

Hi Keith
  First comment by me, I looked up the Liberal Party  election promises/wish list and found under Seniors a sub title Veterans about the DFRDB they are
promising by July 2011 to make the DFRDB aligned with the normal age pension Minumum award etc, it all sounds like what we were promised last time!
so we wont hold our breath that is for sure, promises, promises.   Thanks Mate lots of interesting news.
Terry

[Keith]

It has been said that Democracy is the dictatorship of the majority. I tend to agree with this assessment.

All these bits and pieces which have been polled by Newspoll look and sound pretty and dramatic. However they mean little. What matters is the two party preferred vote which always decides elections and gives trends during campaigns.
 
Preferred PM and PMs popularity for example mean nothing much on election day.
 
Keith.
 
 
From: Terry DAVIES
Sent: Tuesday, July 27, 2010 9:19 AM
Subject: Newspoll. 'The Issues.'


Newspoll. 'The Issues.'


Article: The Australian
http://resources.news.com.au/files/2010/07/27/1225897/254261-aus-file-newspoll-aug-27.pdf

[Dallas]

I am certainly not promoting a dictatorship but at least under a dictatorship things do happen as they are not bogged down by special interest groups, who's only  claim to fame is to make it impossible to govern. For the past two plus years years those things that Australians voted for in 2007 have been largely sunk by the mob that lost.
And we call that democracy. 

[Bob S]

 

AUGUST 21

 Angry
 Surely a two-party preferred system is only marginally better than a dictatorship

 

[Keith]

 
Julia Gillard v Tony Abbott debate: One in 10 still not convinced by either party

Stefanie Balogh
From: The Courier-Mail
July 26, 2010

THE election is up for grabs with an exclusive Galaxy poll revealing one in 10 Australians is yet to make up their minds.

Voters have also called Julia Gillard's bluff, with almost two-thirds believing the Prime Minister's re-jigged climate change approach shows Labor has difficulty making decisions.

Labor's primary vote is steady on 38 per cent but still more than five points below its 2007 election result. The Coalition has dropped three points to 41 per cent.

The perceived climate change policy vacuum has boosted the Greens to 15 per cent, their highest primary vote result in Galaxy's history.

The Prime Minister and Opposition Leader emerged from last night's debate, which fell short of a fight night, without a decisive winner. With no killer blows and debate centred on their political skeletons, neither Ms Gillard nor Tony Abbott will be able to use it as a springboard into week two of the campaign.

The results of the poll, conducted for The Courier-Mail, show the election outcome on August 21 is wide open.

``Voters appear genuinely unsure about which of the two leaders deserves their vote,'' Galaxy chief executive David Briggs said.

``Not only is the Green vote high but the proportion of respondents that did not nominate a party was an unusually high 10 per cent.

``This suggests that the election is far from over and that the performance of Julia Gillard and Tony Abbott in the campaign remains critical to the election outcome.''

If the election were held today, and assuming a preference flow similar to the last election, Labor would win on 52 to 48 two-party preferred.

Mr Briggs said it was possible Mr Abbott, who was bogged down on WorkChoices, would generate some momentum this week with his message that Labor was ``decision-challenged''.

Overall, 62 per cent of voters say Labor's plan for a 150-person Citizens' Assembly to report on ways to tackle climate change was designed to avoid making a decision.

The poll also showed that Labor's run for re-election could be undermined if the Reserve Bank lifted the official cash rate at its next meeting tomorrow week.

 Latest newspoll taken over the weekend.
 
http://resources.news.com.au/files/2010/07/26/1225896/809052-aus-news-file-newspoll-260710.pdf

The debates mean little if anything when the people get into the booths to mark their ballot papers. But is it usually good entertainment. Last night was boring in the extreme.

THE AGE

No clear winner in uneventful debate

July 26, 2010

Julia Gillard and Tony Abbott didn't give political value for money in last night's debate. They were too frightened of putting a foot wrong. Rehearsed to the hilt, they provided nothing new. Humour was lacking; there was little engagement between the two, no spontaneous moments. Neither was seriously caught out; where they didn't have answers they fudged.

Nor was there any clear winner. Some observers gave the verdict to Abbott; Gillard was greatly favoured by the Channel Nine worm. If Abbott did win, it became almost irrelevant, because the worm takes on a life of its own and reigns as king (or queen, with Gillard's success among women).

Gillard struck a pose of pleasant and friendly. Abbott had learnt from his unsuccessful encounter with Kevin Rudd in the health debate. He was restrained, careful, very aware of avoiding the slightest aggression. After the Nielsen poll exposed that Gillard is trouncing him among women, he was doubly wary about not offending female voters. He also pushed hard his generous paid parental leave scheme to score some positive points.

But he exposed a sensitive nerve on the gender issue when he said, ''So this election will determine whether the prime minister is to be elected by the people or by the power brokers, whether prime ministers are to be chosen on the basis of the job they've done or gender.'' Abbott is aware that he is being weighed down by gender.

The Opposition Leader took the risk of playing on being a family man when he opened with, ''This election is about a fair go for families ? My wife Margie and I know what it's like to raise a family, to wrestle with a big mortgage.''

Gillard made a telling point on the key issue of yesterday when she pointed out that Abbott's policy to slash immigration is something of a con - it would do just what the government will do on present trends. ''The trick here is that Tony has promised to the Australian people what I am already delivering to the Australian people.''

Gillard did not set out an immigration policy but she did talk in terms of trends and figures, which was rather different from last week when she insisted the debate about sustainable population was not one about immigration.

She floundered when asked for one example of how she had shown courage in this campaign. She defaulted unconvincingly to talking about the MySchool website. ''It wasn't easy staring down a strike by teachers,'' she said.

The PM struggled on climate change, where the government's policy for a citizens' assembly has been unconvincing. ''I don't make any apology for setting up processes that enable me to bring the Australian people with me ? I do want Australians to come with me.'' Asked how long we were from the point where Australia couldn't meet its climate change target, she said ''I'm an optimist.''

Gillard fell back on her usual vow of silence about not discussing the details of her conversations with Kevin Rudd before she deposed him. But the question remained hanging: how often did she warn him that the government was running off course?

Both tried to be tough on the boat arrival issue. Abbott pushed the point that Gillard should be ringing Nauru rather than pressing East Timor; Gillard replied that Nauru's government was in deadlock and in no position to sign the refugee convention. She's hoping that the voters will accept that she is trying and there is ''no quick fix ? I'm not going to set a false deadline'' , and remade her recent point that if you ''drill down'' there are areas of agreement between her and Abbott.

But Gillard tried to subtly patronise Abbott on what is an area of strength for the Coalition. ''Tony, I think you are a little naive about these questions. It may be an endearing trait,'' she said, going on to point out how the ''evil'' people sank boats if navy vessels tried to turn them around.

Abbott was vulnerable on WorkChoices and Gillard went in hard, insisting that whatever he said Abbott believed in it. Abbott might well keep his word on industrial relations if elected, but his argument for giving Labor's legislation a go is a hard one for him to get across convincingly to swinging voters who are by nature suspicious of politicians.

Michelle Grattan is Age political editor.

 

[Keith]

Nielsen: 54-46 to Labor; Westpoll marginal seat polls
http://blogs.crikey.com.au/pollbludger/2010/07/24/nielsen-54-46-westpoll-marginal-seat-polls/

Saturday, July 24, 2010 ? 1:04 am, by William Bowe
 
http://blogs.crikey.com.au/pollbludger/

The good polling news for Labor continues to pile up: the first Nielsen poll of the campaign, unusually published on a Saturday, has Labor with a two-party lead of 54-46, compared with 52-48 a fortnight ago. Labor is up three points on the primary vote to 42 per cent, with the Coalition down one to 41 per cent and the Greens down one to 12 per cent. Among women Labor?s two-party lead is 58-42, compared with 50-50 among men. Julia Gillard?s approval rating is 59 per cent among women, 53 per cent among men and 56 per cent overall, while her disapproval is up a point to 33 per cent. Tony Abbott has an approval rating of 43 per cent and disapproval of 51 per cent, both of which are unchanged. Gillard has a 28-point lead as preferred prime minister among women and a 14-point lead among men, translating to a 21-point lead overall. Labor would be especially pleased to learn that 51 per cent believe Abbott would break his promise not to reintroduce WorkChoices.

Courtesy of The West Australian, we also have Patterson Market Research/Westpoll surveys of four Perth marginal seats conducted from Saturday to Wednesday, each from samples of slightly over 400, which show Labor travelling a lot better than they were in Kevin Rudds last days. In Hasluck, earlier thought to be gone for all money, Labor has a two-party lead of 54-46 from primary votes of 47 per cent for Labor, 43 per cent for Liberal and 6 per cent for the Greens. Labor also has its nose in front in Canning, where former state government minister Alannah MacTiernan is challenging sitting member Don Randall. MacTiernan leads 51-49 on two-party preferred from primary votes of 45 per cent Liberal, 44 per cent Labor and 6 per cent Greens. There is better news for the Liberals in the two seats they gained from Labor in 2007. In Cowan, the Liberals hold a two-party lead of 53-47, from primary votes of 51 per cent Liberal, 40 per cent Labor and 7 per cent Greens. In Swan the Liberals lead 52-48 on two-party preferred and 47 per cent to 37 per cent on the primary vote, with the Greens on 10 per cent. The margin of error in any given seat is about 5 per cent; however, pooling the four together halves the margin of error and produces an overall swing to Labor of 1 per cent.

UPDATE: The Illawarra Mercury/IRIS poll from Gilmore http://www.illawarramercury.com.au/news/local/news/general/liberal-joanna-gash-takes-lead-in-labor-territory/1894088.aspx mentioned in the previous post turns out to have a sample of 400, and hence a margin of error of a bit under 5 per cent. It gives Liberal member Joanna Gash a hefty primary vote lead of 58 per cent to 31 per cent over Labor candidate Neil Reilly, with the Greens on 11 per cent. This translates into a 60-40 lead on two-party preferred, compared with a 0.4 per cent notional Labor margin after the redistribution.Website

[Keith]

Women love Julia
http://blogs.theaustralian.news.com.au/mumble/index.php/theaustralian/comments/women_love_julia/
 
Mumble Blog | July 24, 2010 |

Brilliant opinion polls for Julia Gillard and Labor during this first week of the campaign.

An ACNielsen in todays Fairfax papers, taken Tuesday to Thursday, has ALP ahead 54 to 46 after preferences.

From Pollbludger we learn of a Westpoll in the West Australian in four seats. They have Mickey-esque http://blogs.news.com.au/images/uploads/mickeymouse.gif 400 sample in each but ...


... you can lump them together for a big 1600 and about a one percent swing to Labor from the last election, which is of course a large swing from Kevin Rudds dying days.

And yesterday Mark Kenny reported http://www.adelaidenow.com.au/female-voters-run-from-liberal-leader/story-e6frea6u-1225895821284%20target= in the Adelaide Advertiser a poll in Kingston that has Labor ahead by a bonkers 67 to 33. (2007 result 54.4 to 45.6.) The sample size of 605 is on the small side but just ok, and a good effort for a smallish paper.

(Trivia/pedantry: other pollsters like Newspoll are now asking how will you vote on August 21 while Tiser is still asking how people would vote if an election were held tomorrow.)

See a Tiser Kingston poll http://www.adelaidenow.com.au/news/kingston-collapse-blow-for-howard/story-e6freo8c-1111114694732 from the same point in the 2007 campaign, which was within 2 percent of actual result.

On the Nielsen, Phil Coorey writes in the SMH that Half the nation does not believe the Opposition Leader, Tony Abbott, will keep his promise not to revisit Work Choices.

This is a killer for the Opposition, it always http://www.mumble.com.au/index_oldish45.html#jan2009IRstupid was going to be and its baffling that they remained nonchalant about it until so late.

On the Kingston poll: most people outside South Australia associate Gillard with Melbourne, but she grew up in Adelaide and folks there reckon shes a local. So there must be some of that in these numbers; achieving home town status in two states is good value.

Here are yesterdays Tiser primary vote numbers by gender (Source: The Advertiser Poll of Kingston Federal electorate, 21 July 2010. 8% undecided and 1% informal/none have been excluded):


 
So Julia is particularly going down well with women.

Nielsen agrees, with females splitting to Labor 58 and 42 to the Coalition. (The flipside is that men arent particularly keen; theyre saying 50:50.)

Here is the Nielsen data http://blogs.news.com.au/images/uploads/Nielsen_table_July_20_22_2010.pdf Please note: the state breakdowns, while interesting, have small samples and so large margins of error; they bounce around.

Am attempting to get Westpoll data; if I do Ill post them here.

[Keith]

I hate to say I told you so. But I told you so.

SMH

Women give Gillard the winning edge PHILLIP COOREY
July 24, 2010
 
A surge of female voters towards Julia Gillard has helped the Labor Party end the first week of the election campaign with a comfortable lead over the Coalition.

But support for Labor remains low in Queensland and Western Australia and large swings against the government in those states alone would still result in a tight contest.

The latest Herald/Nielsen poll also shows that almost 70 per cent of voters disapprove of the way Kevin Rudd was dumped as prime minister and 68 per cent believe he should be given the foreign affairs portfolio if Ms Gillard wins the election on August 21.

Half the nation does not believe the Opposition Leader, Tony Abbott, will keep his promise not to revisit Work Choices.

The poll of 1400 voters was taken from Tuesday night to Thursday evening.

It finds Labor leading the Coalition on a two-party preferred basis by 54 per cent to 46 per cent, a 2 percentage point swing to the government since the previous poll, published at the start of last week.

Labor's primary vote rose 3 points to 42 per cent, while the Coalition's fell 1 point to 41 per cent and the Greens fell a point to 12 per cent.

With Ms Gillard Australia's first female Prime Minister, women are shoring up Labor's numbers, with female voters preferring Labor by 58 per cent to 42 per cent, while support among men is tied at 50-50.

''There is a real gender gap in this election,'' the Nielsen poll director, John Stirton, said.

The poll also finds that 73 per cent of voters - an increase of 9 points in less than a fortnight - believe Labor will win the election, while only 16 per cent are backing the Coalition.

The Coalition trails slightly on another key predictive indicator - who deserves to win. The poll finds 52 per cent say the Coalition does not deserve to be elected while 48 per cent say the same of the government.

In a stump speech in Perth last night, Mr Abbott expressed confidence: ''I think that there will be a change of government and, yes, I think I will be the next prime minister of Australia.''

Ms Gillard continues to trounce Mr Abbott as preferred prime minister, by 55 per cent to 34 per cent, and has much higher net approval.

Her approval rating rose 2 points to 56 per cent and her disapproval was relatively steady at 33 per cent, giving her a net approval of plus 23 per cent.

Mr Abbott's approval rating was steady at 43 per cent and his disapproval steady at 51 per cent, giving him a net of minus 8 per cent.

Among women, Ms Gillard had a 28-point lead as preferred prime minister, compared with a 14-point lead among male voters. Her approval rate among women was also higher.

Yesterday, Ms Gillard released the first instalment of her climate change policy, which included a ''citizens' assembly'' that would be charged with testing community consensus for putting a price on carbon. That idea was met with widespread derision.

Mr Abbott campaigned on border protection and gave notice of an announcement this weekend that if elected, he would slash immigration numbers by about 100,000 people a year.

Ms Gillard said this week that immigration was not part of the population debate.

A Liberal strategist said Mr Abbott's announcement would ''sharpen a few differences''.

The polling period was dominated by Mr Rudd's impact on the campaign and Mr Abbott's attempts to disentangle himself from Work Choices.

On the day the election was called, Mr Abbott promised no changes to workplace relations legislation for his first term if he was elected.

But the poll finds that half the nation - 51 per cent - believes he will break that promise. Against that, 43 per cent believes he will keep it.

A Labor strategist said Work Choices has been ''stapled'' to Mr Abbott's head.

The 54-46 two-party lead to Labor indicates a swing to the government of 1.3 per cent since the last election. If replicated uniformly on polling day, Labor would pick up an extra nine seats.

However, swings are never uniform and the poll shows Labor trailing the Coalition 46-54 in Queensland and Western Australia, a finding repeated from the previous poll.

Mr Stirton said there were in effect two elections - one in Queensland and WA, and one in the rest of the country. ''Of most importance is Queensland where there are 10 seats that would go to the Coalition in a swing away from Labor of 5 per cent,'' he said.

''The two most recent Nielsen polls suggest such a swing is possible in Queensland.''

The two leaders will return to Canberra tomorrow for the only debate of the campaign.

[Keith]

This link http://www.liberal.org.au/Policies.aspx takes you to the policy page of the Liberal Party. I cannot find any mention of a Veterans policy. Maybe they intend to make media releases on Veterans policy.
 

[Keith]

Well I hate to boast but I did say this a few days ago.

Coalition's chances may be cruelled by gender drift

Cameron Stewart
From: The Australian
July 22, 2010

THE Coalition's worst fears about Tony Abbott's appeal to women voters are being realised.

New figures show a clear drift in female support away from the Opposition Leader to Julia Gillard.

Previously unpublished Newspoll data from last weekend reveals a gap of nine percentage points in the support for Mr Abbott between male and female Coalition voters. This compares with only a four-point gender gap in Coalition voter support for Mr Abbott in April.

The research from July 16-18 -- the first Newspoll since the election was called -- reveals the Prime Minister is capitalising on Mr Abbott's flagging support among women.

Mr Abbott has enlisted the help of at least one advertising agency to improve his sales pitch to women amid concerns that it could cruel Coalition hopes in the 16 marginal Labor seats where the percentage of working women exceeds the national average.

The effect of Ms Gillard's political honeymoon since becoming Prime Minister is that she appears to be stealing female votes from both the Coalition and the Greens.

Whereas Labor voters were split evenly along gender lines in their support for Kevin Rudd, Ms Gillard enjoys five points more support from female Labor voters than men, which suggests many women are attracted to the prospect of electing a female leader.

Last weekend's poll shows that Labor's 42 per cent primary vote is driven by 44 per cent support from women compared with 39 per cent from men. Newspoll chief executive Martin O'Shannessy told The Australian: "We can see from the latest poll that women voters have an issue with Tony Abbott.

"There is a brittleness in the female vote for Tony Abbott and this is being compounded by the Julia Gillard effect."

Mr O'Shannessy said the rise in female voter support for Ms Gillard from Mr Rudd's figures in April indicated that Ms Gillard was capturing female support at Mr Abbott's expense.

He said it was also likely that some women were moving towards Ms Gillard largely because she was a woman.

This carried some risks for Labor because of the potential for this gender benefit to disappear more quickly than support based on policy positions. "It does raise questions as to whether it can it can be sustained,' he said.

Mr O'Shannessy said the most recent Newspoll revealed that Mr Abbott's female support was flagging, with the Coalition's 38 per cent primary vote comprising 42 per cent support from men and only 33 per cent from women.

"That is almost a 10-point difference so there is clearly a female effect in play here," he said.

The head of the advertising agency hired by the Coalition to improve Mr Abbott's image with women said the perception that female voters had a problem with Mr Abbott had been overblown.

Amanda Stevens, managing director of Splash Consulting Group, said: "Tony is a leader surrounded by women, he has a female deputy leader, a female media adviser, three daughters and there is a lot for women to look favourably on in the Coalition's policies."

Ms Stevens said the manner of Mr Rudd's political execution would also turn some women away from Labor. "I think the way Kevin Rudd was disposed of will be more of an issue for women than it will be for men," she said.

Mr Abbott has alienated many women in the past with his outspoken views on abortion, on the abortion drug RU486, on virginity and his ambivalence towards contraception. The Coalition has hoped that any backlash from women against Mr Abbott was largely confined to women from urban inner-city areas who are already rusted-on Labor voters, rather than from women living in outer suburban heartlands.

Veteran pollster Rod Cameron of ANOP Research Services believes that "the hard heads" in the Coalition recognise Mr Abbott is deeply vulnerable with women voters and this is what drove him to embrace his surprise proposal of a six months paid parental leave.

Given that working women have shown a greater tendency to vote Labor than stay-at-home mums in previous elections, Mr Abbott will be most vulnerable in electorates where the percentage of working women is higher than the national average.

This is likely to make it harder for the Liberals to win several key marginal Labor seats including Bennelong in NSW (47.6 per cent working women), Franklin in Tasmania (47.8 per cent), Brisbane in Queensland (48.3 per cent) and Deakin in Victoria (47.1).

 

 
 
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[Keith]

Subject: Re: WHAT MR ABBOTT STANDS FOR IN VETERANS AFFAIRS

From: Abbott, Tony (MP)
To: Keith Tennent
Sent: Wednesday, July 21, 2010 2:43 PM
Subject: Thank you for your email to the Leader of the Opposition, the Hon Tony Abbott MP



Thank you for your recent email to the Leader of the Opposition, Tony Abbott.

As you may be aware, the Prime Minister has called a federal election.

Unfortunately, from Opposition, we do not have the resources to respond to your email in detail during the campaign period, but your concerns will be brought to Tony?s attention and that of the Coalition Team.

After three years of Labor Government failures, Australians now have a choice.

Broken promises, increased cost of living pressures, massive debt, a Budget deficit, waste and mismanagement and new taxes are all placing unnecessary pressures on Australians. Further, Labor have removed a Prime Minister quickly and ruthlessly, ignoring the wishes of Australian voters. But it is the same government with the same problems creating the same mess.

I hope you will get behind Tony in the weeks ahead as he seeks to stand up for Australia and take real action to end the waste, repay the debt, stop the taxes and ease the cost of living pressures on families.

If you would like to read more detailed policy information please go to www.liberal.org.au.

[Keith]

As is usual at elections the Government of the day will point to it's record in the previous term of Government. To read the Governments record on Veterans, ex Service ,War widow and ADF matters please go here
 
http://minister.dva.gov.au/update2010.pdf
 
 
QUOTE MINISTER GRIFFIN " I have made it clear that I will announce our position on military superannuation before the election so there will be no confusion about what we are saying we will do and what we are saying we will not do."
 
"There will be some limited additional announcements in the lead up to the election, but like any government we will tend to point to what we have done and those matters that are still underway." UNQUOTE
 
 
As I have stated I will post the Coalition policy as I receive it.
Keith Tennent.
 
 

[Keith]

QUOTE DVA Minister Griffin " I have made it clear that I will announce our position on military superannuation before the election so there will be no confusion about what we are saying we will do and what we are saying we will not do." UNQUOTE
 
 
From: National Office
To: National Office
Sent: Wednesday, July 21, 2010 12:05 PM
Subject: Rann pleads for military pensions to be CPI-linked (TheAustralian Article)


The Australian

Rann pleads for military pensions to be CPI-linked

From: TheAustralian
July 21, 2010
THE PM has ignored a plea from SA Premier Mike Rann to match a Coalition promise to index military pensions to the CPI jut as aged pensions.

Alternatively, you can copy and paste this link into your browser:
http://www.theaustralian.com.au/national-affairs/rann-pleads-for-military-pensions-to-be-cpi-linked/story-fn59niix-1225894768940

[Keith]

An interesting interactive election site
 
 
http://www.abc.net.au/elections/federal/2010/campaignpulse/#


Australian population
Source: Australian Bureau of Statistics
22,428,773

Australians enrolled to vote
Source: Australian Electoral Commission
13,869,021

[Charlie]

Plan floated for boatpeople to evict defence families Dennis Shanahan, Political editor From: The Australian July 17, 2010 12:00AM

OVERCROWDING of boatpeople at Christmas Island has forced the federal government to consider shifting defence personnel families.
Under the plan, the families of serving defence personnel could be moved into inferior housing to make way for asylum-seekers at Darwin's Berrimah defence base.

A new plane load of 81 asylum-seekers arrived in Darwin yesterday from the overflowing Christmas Island detention centre, which yesterday received its latest batch of arrivals, to join 128 people from Iraq, Iran and Afghanistan held in a workers' camp near Darwin Airport.

The diversion to hostel and camp accommodation is necessary because Darwin's 500-berth Northern Detention centre in Berrimah, near the defence camp, is holding 460 people and is near capacity.

The departments of Immigration and Defence have been in negotiations for months over the possibility of shifting 162 defence families out of the base at Berrimah and putting asylum-seekers into their hostel and family housing early next year.

 
Defence warned Minister John Faulkner that there were already tensions and concerns among the families of defence personnel about the proximity of the asylum-seeker accommodation so close their homes, and there would be particularly problems with a "phased" transfer moving boatpeople into defence housing as defence personnel were shifted.

A ministerial briefing note from last month, obtained by The Weekend Australian, also raises the possibility of concerns that the defence housing for families if they were shifted from Berrimah would be worse than that given to the asylum-seekers.

The briefing to the Defence Minister estimated the cost of refurbishing the housing for defence families would cost $2 million and take until 2013 to complete.

Defence had also looked at using housing at bases in Western Australia and Victoria.

Last night a spokesman for the Defence Minister said Senator Faulkner guaranteed no defence families would be moved into housing until it was completely refurbished and up to date in about 2013. Defence has made RAAF Curtin available to the Department of Immigration and Citizenship for the accommodation of asylum-seekers and continues to work with them for contingency planning purposes, the spokesman said.

He said the use of the Berrimah base was "not supported in the absence of suitable alternative working and living accommodation".

"There is currently no capacity at other Defence establishments in Darwin to provide alternative working accommodation for those 177 personnel who would need to relocate." the spokesman said.

"The current living-in accommodation is used by all services, including for surge capacity for major exercise, and this accommodation is fully committed."

There are 4083 irregular maritime arrivals, or boatpeople, housed in 17 different detention centres and accommodation facilities across Australia.

Christmas Island plays host to the greatest number, with 2538 asylum-seekers presently living at the detention centre.

A group of 66 boatpeople who arrived in the Northern Territory are being housed in alternative and community detention facilities in Darwin. Those facilities, as well as the city's Northern Immigration Centre, also act as a temporary home to 150 of the boats' crew who are not seeking asylum. One further crew member is housed in alternative or community detention in Perth.


 

 

[Keith]

Does this mean there will be cuts to the Department of Veterans Affairs? We need this clarified. DVA has been undergoing staff cuts for years now and can ill afford more. Does this also mean cuts in DVA compensation and health care and will there be directions to DVA assessors to toughen up on granting pensions? Mr Lindsay, the Liberal member for Herbert in North Queensland has told me that the Coalition will be unveiling Veterans policy as the campaign progresses. I will pass on this policy as I receive it.
 
ABC NEWS
 
Abbott takes axe to Rudd's 'bureaucracy'
By online political correspondent Emma Rodgers

LtoR: Andrew Robb, Tony Abbott and Joe Hockey have flagged cuts to bureaucracy. (AAP: Dean Lewins)

A Coalition government would stop holding community cabinet meetings and scrap Australia's bid for a seat on the United Nations Security Council as part of a $1.2 billion package of spending cuts announced today.

Taking aim at schemes identified with Kevin Rudd, Opposition Leader Tony Abbott said $300 million would be saved by abolishing the Carbon Capture and Storage Institute established and touted on the international stage by the former prime minister.

The Coalition would also save $400m by getting rid of the infrastructure funds Mr Rudd offered Western Australia and Queensland in the midst of the mining tax stoush, while COAG meetings would be cut back to just two a year.

Mr Abbott unveiled the spending promises on the campaign trail in Melbourne this morning as part of the Coalition's economic pitch to voters.

Attacking the Government for acting like it was on a "spending spree", he sought to emphasise that the Coalition understood pressure on families.

"Everything we can do to get Government spending down means ultimately less borrowing," he said.

"That means less up pressure on interest rates and that means a better deal for families struggling with mortgage stress and cots of living pressures."

Mr Abbott said the measures brought the total savings identified by the Coalition to just under $46b.

He described debt and deficit as the "critical issue" of the election campaign and said if families were being forced to tighten their belts then so should the government.

Mr Abbott said the cuts would be made to "bureaucracy" and not services.

"The essential point is that Government is borrowing $100 million a day every day," he said.

"Over the course of this campaign debt will increase by $3.5 billion because of the spending spree of the Rudd Government."

Opposition Treasury spokesman Joe Hockey said the Coalition had now announced 60 savings measures totalling $46 billion.

"The best way to reduce the pressure on cost of living for everyday consumers is to vote for the Coalition," he said.

Just before the election date was announced Prime Minister Julia Gillard foreshadowed that some "unpopular" cuts would be made to ensure the budget came back to surplus.

Opposition finance spokesman Andrew Robb has demanded Ms Gillard outline her plans.

"If they are going to make unpopular decisions in cuts we need to see it," he said.

Speaking from Sydney where she has announced a national cadetships program, Ms Gillard defended COAG and community cabinet meetings.

"I always think talking to Australians is a good way to spend time," she said.

Ms Gillard launched the new cadetship scheme at Richmond High School Trades Training Centre in Sydney.

She said students from years 9 to 12 could take some technical classes that would count towards an apprenticesip. The program would cost $3 million over two years."

 
 
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[Keith]

NEWSPOLL
http://resources.news.com.au/files/2010/07/19/1225893/703978-aus-news-file-newspoll-190710.pdf

 
Labor builds poll lead under Gillard
http://www.abc.net.au/news/stories/2010/07/19/2957166.htm

Labor's leadership change appears to be paying off, with the first Newspoll conducted since Prime Minister Julia Gillard called the federal election showing the ALP has a commanding lead over the Coalition.

Today's Newspoll, published in The Australian newspaper, puts Labor 10 points ahead on a two-party preferred basis, leading the Coalition 55 per cent to 45 per cent, a four-point increase on the previous Newspoll.

 
 
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[Keith]

VETERAN HOUSING AFFORDABILITY
 
Gillard pledges housing boost for regional cities
By online political correspondent Emma Rodgers

ABC NEWS

 
The first full day of campaigning has seen Julia Gillard hug babies in Brisbane. (ABC: Hayden Cooper)

A re-elected Labor Government would give $200 million to help boost affordable housing in regional cities in a bid to take pressure off ever-growing urban centres, Prime Minister Julia Gillard has announced.

Ms Gillard made the announcement in Brisbane where she kicked off her first full day of the election campaign by cuddling babies at a family picnic.

Labor is likely to focus heavily on campaigning in Queensland where it holds 10 seats which are on a margin under 5 per cent.

In a speech to the Eidos Institute Ms Gillard has moved to focus on population concerns.

Ms Gillard says the August 21 election is on a "knife edge" and will be a "referendum on our quality of life".

She says a re-elected Labor Government would give $200 million to local councils so they can build more affordable homes.

"I say to regional Australia, let us use common sense and hard work as our compass and partnership as our way ahead," she said.

"I want to work very closely with you. I want to help you achieve your goals so that together we can build a sustainable Australia."

Ms Gillard says the program is aimed at providing more homes in regional centres as Australia's major cities become more crowded.

However only certain cities will be invited to apply and out of those applications it is expected that 15 cities will receive around $15 million each.

Councils would use the money to fund infrastructure projects such as roads, drains and community facilities that would be needed for new housing projects.

"One of the greatest pressures on sustainability is housing affordability," Ms Gillard said.

"Our cities are under stress and so are many families."

She has also used her speech to target anxiety among those living in outer-metropolitan seats in Brisbane who are dealing with traffic congestion and infrastructure problems.

In a swipe at the Coalition Ms Gillard says will always put Australians quality of life first.

"This is a time for choosing between cuts or services, fear and optimism, going backwards or going forwards," she said.

"What I am saying is that growth should make life better for Australian families - not make things harder.

"Growth should not mean greater congestion, longer queues and more intense competition for scarce resources like housing and water."

In her first official event of the campaign, Ms Gillard this morning joined her deputy Wayne Swan at the annual meet the babies family day he holds in his electorate of Lilley.

In amongst the stalls and jumping castles, the Prime Minister mingled with parents and had time for the obligatory campaign photographs with several babies.

Ms Gillard told those gathered she believes every child deserves access to a good education and decent health services.

As Ms Gillard seeks to connect with voters in Brisbane, Opposition Leader Tony Abbott is today visiting western Sydney.

Mr Abbott has spent time with a local family discussing cost of living pressures.

He did not make any policy announcements but reiterated that the Coalition would cut $47 billion of government spending.

Mr Abbott has accused the Government of rushing into a quick fix on a population policy after it abandoned former leader Kevin Rudd's support of a "big Australia".

 
 
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[Dallas]

Maybe Jim Mavromatis could give us an idea of what he thinks "in the national interest" really means. Seems to me these days the national interest has more to do with "self interest" than any hairy chested idea of what many may define as in the national interest. You see Jim as a vet I don't see us being in Afghanistan as being in the national interest however there are many who would disagree with me.

[Keith]

Dear readers,
 
As most of you know I have a habit of making comment at election time and I try to be as objective as I can by presenting the facts. I called the last election result well before polling day and even if I say so myself I was very close to the mark.
 
However I am not game to call a result for this election at this stage because there are too many unknowns and I will have to wait and pick up trends.
 
However, while I am not game to call the result just yet I am game to make a statement regarding the election.
 
I am certain that this election will be decided by the female vote.
 
So there. Let's see if I am right or wrong on Aug 21.
 
Keith Tennent.
 
PS. Veterans, War widows and ex Service members do not just vote according to how a Government or Opposition performs in the direct areas which affect us. Other influences come into play. However when it comes down to critical matters Veterans matters can play a critical part in how we vote.
 
 
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[Keith]

Time running out to get on electoral roll
STEPHANIE PEATLING AND SARAH WHYTE
July 18, 2010

SMH

PEOPLE have until 8pm tomorrow to enrol to vote. The Prime Minister will not issue the writs until tomorrow to give a chance to people eligible to vote but not yet on the electoral roll.

''It's not a question of who people are going to vote for. Whatever way they are going to vote people should be enrolled to vote,'' Julia Gillard said.

''Around our world there are people who literally fight and die for the right to vote. People should get themselves on the roll.''

Not issuing the writs immediately will also allow one final cabinet meeting to be held.

Labor has been trying to amend changes to electoral laws made by the Coalition when it was in government. John Howard changed the law so that new voters have only until 8pm on the day the writs are issued to get onto the electoral roll.

Labor has been unsuccessful in its attempts to return to the previous system, whereby people had seven days after the writs were issued to enrol or change their details.

Last week the Youth Minister, Kate Ellis, launched a campaign urging young people not to delay.

"My message to young Australians who aren't yet on the electoral roll is - do not wait. Enrol to vote or update your details today," Ms Ellis said.

The Electoral Commissioner, Ed Killesteyn, said all Australian citizens aged 18 years and over are required by law to enrol and vote in the 2010 federal election.

A report on the 2007 election indicated there were 1.4 million eligible voters not on the roll. About 70 per cent of those were were aged 18 to 39. The eligible voting population is 15,311,497.

''I also urge anyone who has moved address at any time and is not 100 per cent sure that their enrolment details are up to date to act and check immediately,'' Mr Killesteyn said.

''The [Australian Electoral Commission] removes people from the roll who do not update their electoral roll details, and the deadline applies to these people also.''

A group of young university students were thrilled to hear yesterday that they would be able to cast their first vote in a federal election.

''I'm pretty excited about the prospect of voting and having some say in the government,'' said Bradley Gill, 18, a journalism and politics student from the Lingiari electorate.

''Before I was just a passive spectator and now I feel more actively involved. Since doing legal studies in year 10 I have been waiting three years to finally cast my vote.''

Nevertheless, he said, having to make the choice between parties was difficult as he felt the ALP were ''going so right-wing''.

''I feel trapped into voting Labor. It's a flawed system.''

''I hope I don't stuff up, because I want my vote to count,'' said Carla Gates, 19, a theatre and media student from Bradfield.

''I think it's great that Julia Gillard is a ranga - it's a dying hair colour in Australia.''

''I am a bit nervous about voting to be honest,'' said Alex Skipworth, 19, an education student from Albury. ''But I will be voting for Julia Gillard because it is good to see a female standing up to be a leader in our changing society and what she has done with education.''

Tom King, 19, from Gilmore, liked the idea of a female leader.

''Julia Gillard needs a go. It's probably time for a woman.''

Q & A

How much time do I have? The legal writs will be issued tomorrow. If you are enrolling to vote for the first time, you have until 8pm on the day the writs are issued to enrol. Exceptions are: if you are 17 and will turn 18 before the election or if you will become an Australian citizen before the election. In these cases, you have three working days to enrol.

What if I need to change my address? If you are changing your address or name details on the roll, you have three working days to enrol.

How do I enrol Enrolment forms can be downloaded from the Australian Electoral Commission's website (aec.gov.au/enrol). You must fill it in, print it out and sign it. Deliver it to an electoral office in person, by email or by fax. Email forms must be scanned and signed.

What if I am overseas You can vote overseas at an Australian diplomatic post or print a postal vote application form, available on the Electoral Commission's website.

How can I be sure?

Check if you are on the electoral roll at the right address at the website: aec.gov.au/check.

ABC NEWS
 
Poll puts Labor ahead as campaign begins
 

The first opinion poll of the 2010 election campaign shows Labor leading the Coalition after preferences by 52 to 48.

The Galaxy poll, published in News Limited papers today, has the Liberal primary vote at 42 per cent, Labor is below that on 39 per cent and the Greens on 13 per cent.

It is the Greens preferences that give Labor its lead over the Coalition.

Opposition Leader Tony Abbott has been attacking Labor over the way former prime minister Kevin Rudd lost the leadership to Julia Gillard, calling it an assassination.

The Galaxy poll finds 57 per cent of those surveyed think the way it happened will harm Labor's re-election chances.

But Ms Gillard has a 23 point lead over Mr Abbott as preferred prime minister.

Most people surveyed say they think the Labor party will win the election.

After intense media speculation, Ms Gillard called the election yesterday.

Today is the first full day of campaigning for Mr Abbott and Ms Gillard.

Ms Gillard is expected in Brisbane this morning - the home of ousted leader Kevin Rudd, while Mr Abbott will be campaigning in Sydney.

In her first speech of the campaign Ms Gillard made it clear that Labor's election pitch would focus on "moving forward".

"In this the forthcoming election campaign I'll be asking the Australian people for their trust," she said.

"This election I believe presents Australia with a very clear choice.

"This election is about the choice as to whether we move Australia forward or go back."

Ms Gillard said the Government would focus on measures to keep the economy strong, and deal with climate change and border protection.

But Mr Abbott told voters he was expecting a "filthy" campaign from Labor.

In his first address to media for the campaign, he stressed that Labor's brutal toppling of Mr Rudd proves they cannot be trusted.

"Why should people trust Julia Gillard, when even Kevin Rudd couldn't," he said.

"Why should people trust a Prime Minister who can't guarantee a full term because she can't be sure that the factions would let her?"

 
Its IR versus economic competence
  
Mumble Blog | July 17, 2010

The circus is finally in town and isnt packing up until Saturday August 21.

Usually the campaign doesnt make much difference to an election outcome. This one will. The contest is wide open more open than most believe.

Betting markets give the Coalition a one in four chance of success. Most observers also greatly favour the Labor government to win. I dont. This election really could ...


... go either way.

Julia Gillard could be returned, perhaps with an increased majority, even from a smaller two party preferred vote than last time. That could happen. But the Coalition might win too.

In fact, I slightly favour a Tony Abbott victory. There, Ive put it in writing. Ever so slightly.

But like everyone else, my expectations will guided by the opinion polls between now and election day.

The Coalitions biggest problem is industrial relations and Abbott has now, belatedly, really and truly sworn off Workchoices. This may not be enough; he has after all been insisting for months that he is a conviction politician.

Gillard should have waited until October before going to the polls. She needed to become the boring, safe incumbent.

If people vote on who is tougher on border protection, the Coalition wins. But that will be an issue only if the prime minister wants it to be.

Oddly, given Australia?s performance through the global financial crisis, economic management is the governments Achilles heel. Government debt in particular worries many people. Finance minister Lindsay Tanner aside, no government minister has hitherto shown much inclination to explain to voters why going into deficit was desirable or inevitable.

It is difficult to believe Gillard and treasurer Wayne Swan are suddenly up to that task.

Labor hardheads may reckon that in a campaign the Gillard hooplah will end and Abbott will come under scrutiny. But Julia is still the centre of attention. Tony may remain under the radar.

Under normal circumstances Abbott would be all but unelectable from opposition. But this campaign isnt normal because Gillard has contrived to make it a contest between two opposition leaders. In deliberately eschewing her government?s record, she may find she carries its negatives but none of the positives.

Gillard is not the safe, boring option and Abbott looks less risky by comparison.

This opposition leader is a proven gaffe-maker and says odd things on occasion.

But the prime ministers political instincts are also open to question. She seems susceptible to big stories about values, cut through and momentum. That way lies danger.

Everyone agrees Queensland will be important. The third largest state contains a fifth of the countrys seats. It is volatile and has more than its share of marginal electorates. The Coalition will almost certainly make (net) gains there, but how many?

Whether Liberal frontbencher Peter Dutton achieves a swing to hold his seat of Dickson will be one to watch.

The government will probably cop a swing in New South Wales too, although perhaps one that doesn?t translate into many seats.

It is no coincidence that in these two states - more than half the electorate between them - sit the oldest, least popular Labor governments.

And a seat loss or two in Tasmania (where Labor currently holds five out of five) is on the cards.

But the other three will probably favour the government, at least in relative terms. Yes, even Western Australia because it comes off such a low 2007 base.

The latest Nielsen and Galaxy have Labor on 52 to the Coalition?s 48. But the latest Essential Research and Morgan give the government stronger leads.

Newspoll is in the field as we speak.

As previously mentioned , the Coalition will almost certainly need more than the pendulum?s 49 percent of the two party preferred vote to take government. But perhaps not a great deal more.

Normally we would favour a government to prevail with anything more than 49 percent. But again, the incumbency factor, important in the marginal seats, is unknown this time.

(Mackerras pendulum here. http://www.theaustralian.com.au/national-affairs/mackerras-pendulum/story-fn59niix-1225886183422

Finally, Im dubbing this the Lindsay election because of the governments apparent conviction that if it can just control voters in that outer western Sydney seat it can control the country.

Who says theres no sentimentality left in Australias oldest party?

Election Live
July 18, 2010
7:27 AM

http://www.abc.net.au/elections/federal/2010/liveblog/

Good morning

Our live blog will follow the leaders and the morning TV show circuit this morning.

So what have the papers made of Day 1?

News Limited's Sunday papers carry the first poll of the campaign http://www.dailytelegraph.com.au/news/sunday-telegraph/julilas-election-winning-lead/story-e6frewt0-1225893419954 (though it was conducted on Friday night)

The result echos the previous Galaxy poll with 52-48, 2-party preferred to Labor.

The Age - thinks this campaign will be one of the "narrowest in recent memory http://www.theage.com.au/national/the-battle-begins-20100717-10fd4.html with both leaders "scrambling to neutralise contentious issues"

Coming up today:

Julia Gillard will be in Brisbane

Tony Abbott will be campaigning in Sydney

On the Sunday morning TV's programs:

Nicola Roxon on Meet the Press at 8am

Tony Abbott is on Sky at 8.30am

Wayne Swan is on the Today show at 8.40am

ABC1 Insiders has Tony Burke at 9am

 
 
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[Jim Mavromatis]

Congratulations on those that have made a political statement in this forum.  Thank you for the facts regarding Tony Abbott's posturings re veterans and other military issues.  However, let's look at the bigger picture, the one that affects the whole nation.  When was the last time a CO was overthrown by a group of junior NCOs?  When was the last time a CO spent millions of taxpayer's money keeping a battalion in work?  When was the last time a CO tried to engage the enemy but forgot to inform the allies they were going to use their bases as staging points?  When was the last time a CO bought a pile of ammunition for $10  and realised after they had purchased them they were all duds?
Maybe we could really think about what influence this forum has on our soldiers, ESO's and veterans and maybe, just maybe, we could get the RSL, our only political voice, to change Tony Abbott's mind.  Maybe, just maybe, we could get all ESO's to unite as one and address the issues in this forum. 
I have heard the same arguments year in year out since 1966, we still get shafted, we still get ignored and we still are frustrated, however that has not swayed my thinking when it comes to issues of national interest, those that we, our forefathers and future generations have and will fight for.
 

[Dallas]

I am not pushing anyones barrow when it comes to who to vote for come 21 August but I will say everyone who has ever worn a uniform would be well advised to read what Keith has written and digest what he has said. Even if it only for those serving in the military today and those in Afghanistan and other countries who will pay the price for the decision we make on election day.
 

[Keith]

 
Mr Abbott, the Leader of the Opposition and Parliamentary Liberal Party leader, has a history of standing for policies which deny disabled War Veterans, War widows and ex Service members just entitlements and health care. He has also made some silly, out of touch and preposterous statements regarding serving members and ex service members.
 
Mr Abbott is on the record for stating the following.
 
1. That the US Presidential Medal of Freedom presented for former PM John Howard equals the Victoria Cross in importance. The VC is  the highest award Australia can bestow on Soldiers for Gallantry and Valour under fire.
 
2. Has hinted that the Department of Veterans Affairs should be scrapped and that all Veterans, War Widows and others serviced by DVA should be serviced by Centrelink.
 
3. Mr Abbott was a senior Minister in the former Government. For over 11 years that Government refused point blank, until the 11th hour at the 2007 election cycle, the fix many pressing issues which had plagued the Veteran and ex Service communities for years. In particular the former Government refused to fairly index the TPI compensation pension [ The Special Rate ] and it did nothing until it was boxed into a corner by the then Opposition Shadow DVA Minister Alan Griffin.
 
4. Mr Abbott has openly said that he sometimes says things which cannot be taken as Gospel unless they are in writing. Therefore the Veteran and ex Service communities must have all Opposition Veterans policies on everything in writing according to Mr Abbott. To take anything he just says would be making a mistake according to him.
 
 
Most damaging of all for War Veterans and ex Service members was the submission made by then Minister Abbott to the Clarke Inquiry [ 2002 ] when he was Workplace Relations Minister in the former Government. His full contempt for disabled War Veterans and ex Service members and indeed the serving Military is on glaring display for all to read in his submission.
 
His submission is attached and it is suggested you all read it again to remind yourselves of where Mr Abbott stood on Veterans compensation at that time.
 
We now need a clear Veterans policy from the Federal Opposition which rebuts all that Mr Abbott submitted in Clarke and a full rebuttal of his various ill informed and insulting comments about Veterans over the years. And we need all of this in writing.
 
Until the Veteran, ex Service and War widow communities see a new policy from the Opposition we must accept that what Mr Abbott wrote to Justice Clarke stands.
 
Please read the attached submission to Clarke from Mr Abbott.

TO READ SOURCES FOR THE STATEMENTS I HAVE MADE ABOVE PLEASE READ THROUGH THIS THREAD
http://theaussiedigger.com/TheAussieDiggerForum/index.php?topic=21.0
 
 

[Keith]

The Federal election will be held on Saturday 21 August 2010.

[Keith]

My kingdom for a bellwether
http://blogs.theaustralian.news.com.au/mumble/index.php/theaustralian/comments/my_kingdom_for_a_bellwether/  
Mumble Blog | July 14, 2010 |


Eden-Monaro is everybodys favourite bellwether seat because at every election this side of 1969 it has gone with the side that won government.

Opposition leader Tony Abbott went to the NSW electorate yesterday and said we cannot win the election unless we win Eden-Monaro and I can think of no better person to win Eden- Monaro than [Liberal candidate] David Gazard

Of course, this statement put the cart before the horse. A win overall tends to produce a win in Eden-Monaro but ...


... it doesnt work the other way around.





Its doubtful, however, that Tony was really confusing cause and effect; he was probably indulging in what he might call ?a bit of hyperbole?.

But over on the other side, something strange does seem to have crept into the ALP?s thinking about another bellwether seat, outer western Sydneys Lindsay.

Lindsay swung big to John Howard in 1996. The national swing was a touch over five percent but Lindsay went by almost twelve.

This table shows the top twenty swingers at that election. Colours represent todays post-redistribution notional situation: red is Labor held, blue Coalition. The AEC has (pretty vague) four geographic categories: O means outer suburban, I means inner suburban, R is rural and P provincial.

As you can see, it was mainly a mixture of non-urban Queensland and outer suburban Sydney. The neigbouring seats of Lindsay, Macarthur and Hughes were the biggest NSW swingers, and because they changed hands huge stories were told about them.

In two, it was supposedly due to the knockabout appeal of Liberal candidates Jackie Kelly (Lindsay) and Danna Vale (Hughes). (Because recently defeated NSW premier John Fahey was the Macarthur winner, a political rags to riches story did not work there.)

But in reality these Liberals were in the right place at the right time. The demographic over-represented in these seats, middle-income, middle class, young families, tradespeople, mono-cultural, tend to swing like that.

This table has top 20 ranked by 2007 swing to Labor under Kevin Rudd, when the national swing was 5.4 percent. Again, largely the same sorts of seats from the same two states, and of NSW it?s Macarthur again at the top followed by Lindsay. (Hughes this time drops off the list, putting in a feeble 6.3 percent.)





Because Macarthur didnt quite change hands, no songs have been sung about it. But Lindsay now has a Labor member, David Bradbury, and last week prime minister Gillard dragged him up to Darwin to front cameras to show his electorate he was tough on border protection, just like her.

Was this just for one seat? Or do Labor strategists think Lindsay pulls the country with it? Sometimes you do wonder.

The Labor candidate for Macarthur, now notionally Labor, is Nick Bleasdale, and perhaps he should be involved in a few stunts too. And candidates in other winnable seats, and every other vulnerable sitting member.

Lindsay may be the sort of seat that swings when a change is on, but if they think they can stop the swing by controlling Lindsay, well ... something is malfunctioning the top.

Finally, below is one more table which poses questions for the future.

In 1993, the NSW federal Labor two party preferred vote was 54.4 percent, the largest since the early 1970s. In 2007 it was 53.7, which is pretty close. We can compare which seats have moved where in that time.

This table adds all the swings in each of electorates in that state over the five elections from 1996 to 2007 to give a cumulative swing.

The swings shown are to Labor, so negative ones at the top are those that have moved to the Coalition.



Despite big movements in 2007, Sydneys outer south-west, including the terrible trio of Hughes Macarthur Lindsay, have shifted overall to the Liberals. (Ignore Calare, its mainly independent status mucks its numbers up.)

And at the bottom of the table inner city seats predominate.

What does this mean? What happens from here? We might suggest two possible future scenarios.

One is that this ?outer middle? moves again, relative to everyone else, towards Labor in 2010, because many voters there are conservative, pro-incumbent and reluctant to change (until the very end). This is what happened at John Howard?s first re-election; Hughes actually swung to the government in 1998 while the country as a whole went by 4.5 percent to Labor.

Alternatively, it may be that these seats simply contain more Liberal voters than they used to.

Who knows what the answer is?

Well know more after the election.

 
 
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[Keith]

http://theaussiedigger.com/TheAussieDiggerForum/index.php?topic=549.0

[Keith]

July 13, 2010
How to Vote Guide
http://blogs.abc.net.au/antonygreen/2010/07/how-to-vote-guide.html#more

The ABC Election Site will be launched later this week. Here's my how to vote guide from the site.

Remember, with an election soon to be called, it is time to update your electoral enrolment. Once the writ for the election is issued, the electoral roll will close and you could miss out on your chance to vote. Now is the time to ensure you are correctly enrolled.

If you have turned 18 or taken out Australian citizenship, you will not be on the electoral roll unless you have sent the Electoral Commission a completed enrolment form.

If you have moved address in the last three years and not updated your electoral enrolment, you may have been removed from the electoral roll without your knowledge.

You can check if you are correctly enrolled via this link to the Australian Electoral Commission https://oevf.aec.gov.au/

How to enrol or update your enrolment can be found at http://www.aec.gov.au/Enrolling_to_vote/Update_enrolment.htm.

If you have any questions about electoral enrolment or voting, contact the Australian Electoral Commission via its voting and enrolment enquiry line at 13 23 26.

Note that until the writ is issued, you cannot register for postal votes. It is also a waste of time asking the Australian Electoral Commission about candidates as the Commission only deals with nominated candidates, and until the close of nominations there are no candidates.

Here's a few hints on how to vote.


How To Vote Guide
Where can I vote?
Check the list of polling places in your local paper, or the full list in the major metropolitan dailies on election day. Alternatively, visit the Australian Electoral Commission's website at www.aec.gov.au for information on polling. The same site also provides the addresses and times of opening for early voting centres.

Do I have to vote?
Compulsory voting means you must attend a polling place, have your name crossed off the electoral roll, accept ballot papers, retire to a voting enclosure to vote and then deposit the ballot papers in the appropriate ballot box. If you can't attend on the day, there is ample opportunity to vote ahead either in person at an early voting centre or by post. Nursing homes and hospitals are also catered for by mobile polling teams.

If you don't want to vote, don't kick up a fuss. Ranting about the inequities of compulsory voting might make you feel better, but it just makes life more difficult for other members of the public, including the polling officials who are setting aside a day to work in a polling booth. Take the ballot paper, and even if you don't fill it in, or just scrawl vile observations on the policies of the major parties, there is no point making a nuisance of yourself in public. And remember to put you ballot paper in the box on the way out. Removing ballot papers from the polling place is an offence, and also makes the task of reconciling the votes during the count more difficult.

Will I be fined if I forget to vote?
If the AEC does not have a record of you voting, you will be sent a letter in the month after the election. It will include a fine notice, but if you offer a reasonable excuse, the fine will be waived. Sometimes it is just clerical error that results in a fine notice being sent, as it has been known for the wrong name to be crossed off the roll.

The best strategy for voting in the House.
Fill in the candidates in the order you want to see them elected. Give a '1' to your first choice, '2' to your second choice, and so on. I know making that 8th, 9th and 10th choice gets a bit tedious, but you have to do it to make your other choices count.  If you are not sure who all the other candidates are on the ballot paper, there is nothing wrong with following a how-to-vote card from your candidate or party of choice. However, the preferences are your choice. You don't have to follow a how-to-vote card, and when the votes are counted, the electoral officials will follow the preferences on your ballot paper, not operate under instructions from candidates and parties. In the House of Representatives, preferences are decided by the voter, not by the candidates.

Can I vote in such a way to deny victory to a candidate I dislike?
Not really. You can put your least preferred candidate last on your ballot paper, so ensuring your preference never gets to them. However, strategic voting is more a feature of first past the post voting where you only have one vote. In the United Kingdom, voters often face the choice of deciding whether to vote for their most preferred candidate, or to vote strategically for the candidate most likely to defeat their least preferred candidate. In recent years, UK elections have seen many voters prepared to switch between Labour and Liberal Democrat candidates not because they are voting for a preferred candidate, but in a deliberate attempt to prevent their least preferred Conservative candidate winning. Voting this way is not necessary under preferential voting, as if your most preferred candidate is not elected, your preferences can still work to defeat your least preferred candidate.

What happens if I duplicate a number on the House ballot paper?
If you duplicate a number on the ballot paper, your vote will be informal and will not count. There is a theory that does the rounds saying you can deny the major parties your preferences by voting 1,2,2,.... This is not correct. If you duplicate any number, your vote will not count and be placed in the informal pile. It may be grossly undemocratic, but if you want to cast a valid vote, you are going to have to provide a valid sequence of numbers for every candidate, numbering from 1 to however many candidates there are on the ballot paper. If you make a numbering error, go pack to the polling officials and get another ballot paper.

What happens if I miss a number?
Your vote will be informal. Don't give a sequence of numbers and then fill in the last square with 100 or 999 or something. This will invalidate your vote. You must number from 1 to however many candidates there are on the ballot paper. Again, if you make an error, go and get another ballot paper from the polling officials.

Can I deny my preferences to the major parties?
No. You must provide a valid preference for EVERY candidate on the ballot paper, or the first preference for your candidate of choice will not count. So, in the end, you will have to choose between Labor and the Coalition, or between the Socialist Alliance and the Citizens Electoral Council. Optional preferential voting, as is used in NSW, Queensland, Tasmania and the ACT would be much fairer, but it doesn't apply at Federal elections. If you want all your main preferences to count, you are going to have to hold your nose and choose between the flotsam and jetsam as well.

What is the best way to vote strategically?
The best strategic vote is to number the candidates in the order you would like to see them elected. If you had perfect knowledge of how everyone else was going to vote, you could try and convince blocks of voters to shift around and engineer a particular outcome. But in electorate of more than 90,000 voters, and without perfect knowledge, such a strategy is not possible. Anyway, you only have one vote, so what are the odds of your one vote deciding the outcome? Simply number the the ballot paper in the order you would like to see candidates elected.

Can I write on the ballot paper?
Yes, but remember this, the only people who see the ballot papers are the people who count the votes. If you are trying to send a message to Julia Gillard or Tony Abbott, they will never see it. But feel free to express yourself if it makes you feel better. There are two golden rules however. DON'T write in such a way that the voting squares will be obscured. This will make your vote informal. And DON'T put your name or address on the ballot paper. Your vote will be informal if you can be identified from the ballot paper.

What are my choices for the Senate ballot paper?
You can vote for a single party above the line by choosing one of the group voting squares, or you can vote for candidate below the line. The major problem with voting below the line is that you must fill in every square if you choose to vote below the line. In NSW at the 2004 election, this meant filling in 78 squares, quite an arduous challenge.

If you vote above the line, your preferences will be counted according to a ticket pre-lodged by that political party. If you want to vote for a particular party, you can check all preferences tickets on the ABC's website once the tickets are published, or can ask to see the booklets of group ticket votes available in each polling place. However, it will probably be quicker to make your own choice and vote below the line rather than try and understand the group ticket voting book.

If you really want to vote below the line, why not print out the list of candidates available on the ABC's website after the close of nominations. You can work out your preferences and take it along as a guide.

Remember, if you make an error, ask for another ballot paper. If you vote below the line, you must fill in every square. Up to three sequencing errors are allowed on your ballot paper before your vote becomes informal.

What happens if I vote both above and below the line?
A below the line takes precedence over an above the line vote. However, an advantage of voting above and below the line is that if your below the line vote works out to be informal, then your above the line vote will stand.

Posted by Antony Green on July 13, 20

[Keith]

Gillards lead not enough
   http://blogs.theaustralian.news.com.au/mumble/index.php/theaustralian/comments/gillards_lead_not_enough/
Mumble Blog | July 12, 2010 |


This mornings two polls, ACNielsen in Fairfax broadsheets and Galaxy in News Ltd tabloids, agree that after last weeks all singing and dancing asylum seeker spectacle, Labor is on 39 percent of the primary vote, the Coalition on 42 and Greens on 13 or 14. Together the surveys have a hefty sample of around 2500 - a margin of error of about 2 percent.

If these votes were repeated at an election, Labor would win comfortably, probably with around the 52 percent of the two party preferred vote both pollsters estimate.

But 52 percent after preferences was also ...


... Kevin Rudds final published poll number - the Newspoll the weekend before his party cut him down. And across all polls, the Coalition?s primary support is, if anything, a little higher under Gillard than it was under Rudd.

Normally you would favour a first term government entering a campaign with four point two party preferred lead. But normally that government would have the buttress of new incumbency.

Im sorry I go on about incumbency so much, but it is an undervalued asset - if one that depletes over time. It makes the government the serious, no frills but safe option. Whatever voters think of them, they reckon they know how to run the country. The opposition by contrast is gimmicky and untried and risky.

Under Rudd lots of commentators complained that Labor?s re-election strategy was going to focus on the oppositions negatives rather than the government?s record. But all campaigns are like that - another benefit of incumbency.

The ALP threw away incumbency when it toppled Rudd, and the current prime minister shows no interest in regaining it. On the contrary, all this ?moving forward? is about distancing herself from those two and a half years of government.

Gillard operates in the media narrative, the limelight, releasing quickly thought out policy and avoiding scrutiny. Voters know shes clearing the decks for an early election; everybody?s in on the game, wink wink nudge nudge, everybody loves Julia.

All this un-prime ministerial behaviour makes the prospect of Tony Abbott as prime minister less scary. And legitimising extreme border protection rhetoric gives the opposition more space.

In every published poll Ive seen under Gillard, Abbott?s net approval rating is higher than it was under Rudd.

According to Phil Coorey in the SMH, ?Labor is now statistically tied with the Coalition as the party to best handle the asylum seeker issue [but the] Coalition?s tougher approach is still the most preferred option, by 34 per cent to 25 per cent.

Excellent work prime minister: if it becomes, as you seem so determined to make it, a contest about who is tougher on border security, the Coalition wins.

If the campaign returns to the economy - with voters asking which alternative will most likely see them remain employed and prosper - usually the main ingredient of a campaign, what then? Government debt, the issue a tongue-tied Rudd government allowed the Coalition to make hay with, still worries voters. Are Gillard and Swan able to talk about that?

Visiting the Governor General this week, as most expect the prime minister to do, would be a risk.

This government is making a mess of re-election, trashing its advantages and playing to its weaknesses. Gillard needs to stop the circus and become a prime minister, which means delaying the poll for several months.

And give border protection a rest.

Can Greens direct preferences?
http://blogs.theaustralian.news.com.au/mumble/index.php/theaustralian/comments/green_preferences/  
Mumble Blog | July 09, 2010 |


When Labor ?moves to the right? on asylum-seekers, the expectation is that they will bleed votes from their left to the Greens.

And then comes the question: will Greens preferences make much difference to the 2010 election?

You bet they will. Greens preferences decided the last one. In 2007, Greens got 7.8 percent of the total ...


... House of Representatives vote, and around eight in ten of those votes flowed to Labor in preferences while the other two ended up with the Coalition. If, instead, every single Greens voter had preferenced the Howard government, the Coalitions two party preferred vote would have been about 53.5 instead of 47.3 and they would have retained government with an increased majority.

Even a 50-50 split of Greens preferences between the two sides would have given Howard around 49.6 percent, very likely enough for victory.

And with Greens likely to get around nine or ten percent in 2010, their preferences will be even more influential.

But thats just being silly isn?t it; it?s not what people mean when they pose the Greens preference question. But what they do mean is not always clear.

Sometimes the question seems to be: in how many seats will Greens votes turn Coalition primary vote leads into Labor wins after preferences?

The answer to that one is: quite a few.

At the 2007 election, Labor overhauled the Coalition after preferences in ten electorates: Bass and Braddon (Tasmania), Bennelong, Page and Robertson (NSW), Corangamite and Deakin (Victoria), Flynn and Forde (Queensland) and Hasluck (WA).

If the Coalition had won those seats instead, they would have won 75 seats and so probably retained government with the help of independents.

But again that?s not a very sensible supposition, as most of those Greens votes were always just Labor votes under another name.

The least ambitious formulation of the Greens preferences question is about the effect of the party ?directing them?.

As minor party politicians are want to patiently point out when asked about this, it is up to voters to fill in their lower house ballot paper. Parties and candidates can hand out ?how to vote? cards but each elector decides whether to follow them.

Evidence suggests supporters of different parties have different levels of preference directability. The major party ones tend to be quite obedient.

Democrats voters, on the other hand, were believed to be not very directable because they tended to think for themselves.

A greater proportion of Family First and One Nation voters, meanwhile, do seem to do as their partys how to vote card says.

And Greens voters Theyre not very obedient. In 2007, Labor got 77.1 percent of Greens preferences in the 16 seats in which Greens preferenced (on ?how to vote cards?) neither major party, and 79.9 percent in seats where they preferenced Labor. (The Greens preferenced the Coalition in none.)

Is that difference, 2.8 percent, a lot or a little? Bear in mind that it is 2.8 percent of the Greens vote, which nationwide was 7.8 percent. So we can roughly estimate that the difference between the Greens preferencing Labor in every seat across the country, and running dead in every seat, would be 2.8 percent of 7.8 percent, which is 0.2 percent of the two party preferred vote.

If the Greens get 10 percent this year, then the difference is about 0.3 percent.

Thats not a great deal, but of course if the result is close enough it would make a difference. And major party strategists obsess, as we know, about close results.

But really, from Labors point of view a deal with the Greens is not worth much.

The vast majority of Green preferences will flow where they will flow, come what may, and there?s little anyone can do about it.

 
Quentin Bryce to head overseas

From: AAP
July 12, 2010 12:39PM
GOVERNOR Quentin Bryce will leave Australia on Saturday for a five-day overseas trip, prompting media speculation about a possible federal election announcement.

Traditionally, the prime minister of the day visits the governor-general at Government House in Canberra to seek a dissolution of parliament and the calling of an election.

The governor-general must issue the writs for a House of Representatives election.

If Prime Minister Julia Gillard wants to call an election for August 21, a date considered a possibility by some pundits, she will need to pay a call on Ms Bryce before the governor-general leaves the country.

Ms Bryce will be away from Saturday to next Wednesday representing Australia at a dedication ceremony for a World War I cemetery at Fromelles in France.

Fromelles was the site of the single biggest loss of life in Australian military history.

The 1916 battle claimed the lives of 1917 Australian soldiers and almost all of them have been reburied at the new cemetery.

Ms Bryce will attend the cemetery's opening on Monday. The Prince of Wales and the Duchess of Cornwall will also attend.



Read more: http://www.news.com.au/breaking-news/quentin-bryce-to-head-overseas/story-e6frfku0-1225890721648#ixzz0tRBNZ9tv

 

[Keith]

 
From: vvfatimmccombe
To: Graham Walker
Sent: Friday, July 09, 2010 2:48 PM
Subject: Election Promises Watchlist Update
 

(Branch and Sub Branch Presidents)

Dear Presidents,

Election Promises Watchlist Update

As requested, attached is an e-copy of our Election Promises Watchlist Update.

The watchlist gives in detail the progress being made in honouring the government?s 2007 Federal Election Veteran Affairs promises.

Regards,

Tim McCombe
National President

PLEASE OPEN THE ATTACHMENT
 

 

[Keith]

Peter Brent started Mumble in 2001. He mainly goes on about electoral behaviour. You can follow him on Twitter @mumbletwits

 
Easy on the pendulum
Friday, July 02, 10 (07:25 am)
Why Tony Abbott will need more than 49 percent to win

Malcolm Mackerras is the man who invented the pendulum. Malcolm loves his pendulum, and so should you; it is a very useful tool.

Since the AEC started doing full preference counts in all seats in the 1980s, it has been possible for anyone to make a pendulum by simply ranking all seats in order of two party preferred vote. Here http://mumble.com.au/pdfs/federal/mackFEDERAL%20PENDULUM.pdf is the current (very pretty) Mackerras pendulum; itll open in a new window and you can toggle.

As the election approaches, you will increasingly hear and read that the Coalition needs a swing of 1.7 percent to form government. Its reasonable that people say that, because the pendulum does (as does Antony Greens splendid calculator) http://www.abc.net.au/elections/federal/2010/calculator/
but its not really true and it should not be put with such certainty.

Statements like that assume a net uniform swing, which is particularly unlikely at this election.

Todays pendulum says the Coalition needs only 49 percent (their 47.3 percent from last time plus 1.7) to win, but they will almost certainly need more than that. Federal oppositions usually need more than half the vote, because governments can porkbarrel and because marginal seats are over-represented by risk-averse voters who tend to stick with incumbents ... for a while.

At the election following a change of government, the pendulum is likely to underestimate the vote needed by the opposition because those incumbency benefits are new. And if the previous election had seen lots of seats change hands - as was the case in 2007 - it understates it again because of what Americans call the sophomore surge.

This has been introduced into the Australian context by - yes - Malcolm Mackerras. It begins with the idea that sitting members naturally accrue a personal vote. This comes from voters who aren?t much interested in politics but have seen their guy or gal in the local rag or at an event and reckon theyre ok and so vote for them when they would otherwise have supported the other party. It obviously varies between electorates; let?s assume it is about one percent.

In 2007, 24 seats moved from being Coalition-held to Labor-held and two went the other way. Many, like Eden Monaro, involved the defeat of a sitting member (in that case Liberal Gary Nairn), while others, like Lindsay, where Jackie Kelly had retired, did not. In Eden Monoro you would give current member Mike Kelly an extra percent for his own new personal vote, and another percent because Nairn is no longer there. In Lindsay you would give David Bradbury only one percent because there was no personal vote for a Liberal in 2007.

Without going crazy with the maths or attempting to predict individual seat outcomes, you can see that a national swing against the government should on average be smaller in those class of 2007 seats because their current margins understate the level of ALP support. And most of them are, of course, marginal.

The last time we were in this situation was John Howards first re-election in 1998.Then the Labor opposition got a very big 4.6 percent swing which according to the pendulum should have given them 80 seats and so government. But they only got 67 seats and remained in opposition, in part because of the sophomore surge. In seats the Coalition had taken from Labor in 1996 the swing was about 3.5 percent.

If the government is returned, future pendulums will paint a more realistic picture. But lets use this one with care.

July 02, 2010
Rudd/Gillard Government Serves Record First Term
If Julia Gillard calls an election for August, will she just be scurrying off to an early election?

It depends what you mean by early. Yes, it is three months short of the three year anniversary of the Labor government's election in November 2007, and six months short of when the House of Representatives expires in February 2011.

However, an August election would still see the Labor government serving the longest first term in office of any Federal government since the Second World War.


If the election is held in August, the Labor government will have served 2 years and nine months since being elected under Kevin Rudd in 2007. That will be two months longer than John Howard's first term between 1996 and 1998, and considerably longer than every other first term government since the Second World War, as shown by the following table.

Period in Office of First Term Governments Party PM Elected Next Election Term
Coalition Menzies 10 December 1949 28 April 1951 1 year 4 months
Labor Whitlam 2 December 1972 18 May 1974 1 yr 5 months
Coalition Fraser 13 December 1975 10 December 1977 2 years
Labor Hawke 5 March 1983 1 December 1984 1 year 9 months
Coalition Howard 2 March 1996 3 October 1998 2 years 7 months
Labor Rudd/Gillard 24 November 2007 August 2010  2 years 9 months

Whitlam, Fraser and Hawke all called early elections to keep House elections in line with a Senate terms, with all three government being required by the Constitution to hold a mid-term Senate election. Whitlam's early election was a double dissolution called for the date previously set for a Senate election. Fraser's term may also be classed as 2 years one month, as he had been appointed Prime Minister one month before the election on the dismissal of the Whitlam government.

Menzies' early election was a double dissolution to remove the Labor Senate majority created by changes to the electoral system. The 1949 election had seen the introduction of proportional representation for Senate elections, the Senate also increased in size from 36 to 60 seats. This was achieved by electing 42 Senators, seven from each state, the Coalition winning 23 seats to Labor's 19. However, the 18 Senators elected in 1946 continued in office, and Labor had won 15 of the 18 vacancies in 1946, meaning Labor had an absolute Senate majority during Menzies' first term.

The previous change of government in 1941 was a more complex affair. The parliament elected in September 1940 lasted through to 21 August 1943 when the Curtin government was re-elected in a landslide. However, the Curtin government came to office mid-term in October 1941 after the resignation of first Menzies and then Fadden as Prime Minister.

The last first term government that is viewed to have gone full term was Joe Lyons' United Australia Party government elected on 19 December 1931, re-elected on 15 September 1934. The UAP had a majority in its own right during its first term and did not bring the Country Party into Coalition until after the 1934 election at which the UAP lost seats.

So Lyons' full term was 2 years 9 months, exactly the term of the current Labor government if it goes to an August election. So if Julia Gillard calls an election for August, whether it is early or not depends on what you  mean by early.

Posted by Antony Green on July 02, 2010 at 02:37 PM

 

[Keith]

 
Dear readers,
 
There are many new members on the Aussie Digger system since election 2007 was held.
 
I want to point out that The Aussie Digger is non Party political. This means we respect your right to vote for whomever you think is worth your vote and we never push the barrow of any political Party. At times, because of the nature of things, this may not seem so, but it is.
 
The Aussie Digger recognises that from the time a Veteran,ex Service member and member of the Military Forces wakes in the morning until they go to bed at night our lives are affected by politics.
 
Therefore as we swing into election mode this list will be publishing some matters political.
 
Regards.
 
Keith Tennent.

June 26, 2010

Possible Federal Election Dates

http://blogs.abc.net.au/antonygreen/2010/06/possible-federal-election-date.html#more

(Re-posted due to constant questions about possible election dates. Dates already passed are struck out of the table. This post was originally published on 11 February 2010.)

With a Federal election due in 2010, an analysis of available dates points to the election being held between mid-July and mid-September.

While the defeat of the Carbon Pollution Reduction Scheme legislation last November allows the Rudd government to call an earlier double dissolution election, constitutional issues point to the government delaying an election until after 1 July 2010.

Constitutional timing issues make the seven Saturdays between 7 August and 18 September the most likely dates. On these seven dates, the government is free to choose between calling a normal House and Half-Senate election, or to use the deadlock provisions in Section 57 of the Commonwealth Constitution to hold a double dissolution for the House and the whole of the Senate. (Update June 2010: dipping polls for the government have greatly diminished prospects of a double dissolution.)

Section 13 of the Constitution prevents a normal House and half-Senate election being held before 7 August, while limits on double dissolutions in the last six months of a Parliament prevent a double dissolution being held after 16 October, though 18 September is the more likely last practical date for a double dissolution election.

Three states also face elections in 2010, all three on fixed dates. Tasmania and South Australia go to the polls on 20 March, Victoria following at the end of the year on 27 November.

The fixed date for the Victorian election means the Federal election is certain to be over before 2 November when the Victorian parliament is dissolved for the state campaign.

The last legal date for a Federal election is 16 April 2011. This would overlap with the fixed date for the next NSW election on 26 March 2011. The chances of the Rudd government mixing its re-election campaign with that of the doomed NSW Labor government are remote.

(Update June 2010: Draft Victorian electoral boundaries will be published on 30 July. If the election is announced before this date, the draft boundaries will not be released. The final boundaries cannot be gazetted in place until December, so the issue of draft boundaries can only confuse voters as the election is certain to be fought on the old boundaries.)

The table below sets out all possible election dates between May and November. The table shows the polling day and the last date for the issue of writs. The Prime Minister usually announces the election date a few days before the issue of the writ, but the issue of the writs must take place by the Monday 33 days before polling day.

(Update June 2010: The government has been trying to overturn the Howard government's change to the Electoral Act to close the electoral rolls on the day the writ is issued. The Rudd government wants to leave the rolls open for a week after the writs is issued. The change is unlikely to pass the Senate. The Rudd government can side-step this argument by announcing the election date but then not issue the writ for a week. This is what used to happen before 1990.)

The table indicates when double dissolution and normal House and half-Senate elections are permitted. Also shown are school holidays, long weekends and major sporting events that coincide with possible polling days. The most likely dates for elections are underlined.

Possible 2010 Federal Election Dates
 
Polling
 Last Day
 Double
 House &
 School
 Long
 
Day
 for Writs
 Dissolution
 Half-Sen
 Holidays
 Weekends
 Sport
 
1 May
 29 Mar
 Allowed
 -
  QLD
 
8 May
 5 Apr
 Allowed
 -
   
15 May
 12 Apr
 Allowed
 -
   
22 May
 19 Apr
 Allowed
 -
   
29 May
 26 Apr
 Allowed
 -
 TAS
   
5 June
 3 May
 Allowed
 -
 TAS
 WA
 
12 Jun
 10 May
 Allowed
 -
 TAS
 All except WA
 World Cup
 
19 Jun
 17 May
 Allowed
 -
 NT
  World Cup
 
26 Jun
 24 May
 Allowed
 -
 VIC QLD NT
  World Cup
 
3 Jul
 31 May
 Allowed
 -
 All except TAS
  World Cup
 
10 Jul
 7 Jun
 Allowed
 -
 All except TAS
  World Cup
 
17 Jul
 14 Jun
 Allowed
 -
 NSW WA SA ACT NT
   
24 Jul
 21 Jun
 Allowed
 -
   
31 Jul
 28 Jun
 Allowed
 -
  NT
 
7 Aug
 5 Jul
 Allowed
 Allowed
   
14 Aug
 12 Jul
 Allowed
 Allowed
   
21 Aug
 19 Jul
 Allowed
 Allowed
   
28 Aug
 26 Jul
 Allowed
 Allowed
   
4 Sept
 2 Aug
 Allowed
 Allowed
 TAS
  AFL Finals
 
11 Sept
 9 Aug
 Allowed
 Allowed
 TAS
  AFL/NRL Finals
 
18 Sept
 16 Aug
 Allowed *
 Allowed
 VIC QLD TAS
  AFL/NRL Finals
 
25 Sept
 23 Aug
 Allowed *
 Allowed
 All except TAS
 WA
 AFL Grand Final/NRL Finals
 
2 Oct
 30 Aug
 Allowed *
 Allowed
 All except TAS
 NSW SA ACT
 NRL Grand Final
 
9 Oct
 6 Sep
 Allowed *
 Allowed
 NSW WA SA ACT
  Commonwealth Games
 
16 Oct
 13 Sep
 Allowed *
 Allowed
   
23 Oct
 20 Sep
 -
 Allowed
   
30 Oct
 27 Sep
 -
 Allowed
   
6 Nov
 4 Oct
 -
 Allowed
   
13 Nov
 11 Oct
 -
 Allowed
   
20 Nov
 18 Oct
 -
 Allowed
   

(* - These writ dates are for a House and half-Senate elections only. While a double dissolution can be held on these days, Constitutional provisions mean the dissolution of Parliament ahead of a double dissolution election must take place by 10 August 2010, with up to 10 days allowed for the issue of writs.)

Several points need to be made concerning the Constitutional limitations on calling elections.

While the Rudd government now has a trigger to hold a double dissolution election, the provisions of Section 57 of the Constiutution make it unlikely that the government would hold the election before Saturday 3 July.

Double dissolutions break the normal cycle of fixed Senate terms, with all Senate terms being reset after a double dissolution. Terms are back-dated to the previous July, so any election before 1 July 2010 would reset Senate terms to 1 July 2009. This means another Senate election would have to be held by May 2012, and with the normal preference for joint elections, means a double dissolution in the first half of 2010 would mean another election in 2012.

If the government waits until after 1 July 2010, the next Senate terms would expire in mid-2013, giving the government close to a normal three year term. The writs for a double dissolution can be issued before 1 July, but the election must be held after 1 July.

A normal House and half-Senate election cannot be held until 7 August because the Constitution prevents writs being issued until 12 months before the end of a Senate term. The half-Senate facing election expires on 30 June 2011, so writs can be issued after 1 July 2010. With a minimum 33 day campaign and polling day on a Saturday, 7 August is the first allowed date for a House and half-Senate election.

Nothing prevents the holding of an election on a public holiday or during school holidays, but practical issues concerning access to and staffing of schools as polling places mean that holiday weekends tend to be avoided. Note that of the sporting events, the AFL Grand Final is on a Saturday, ruling out 25 September as election day. The NRL Grand Final the following weekend is held on a Sunday afternoon, avoiding a clash with polling but still making it an unlikely weekend for the election.

In choosing between a double dissolution and normal House and half-Senate election, the government would weigh the chance to make immediate changes to the Senate numbers against the possible problems that flow from the change in election quota at a double dissolutiuon.

After a double dissolution, all Senators would take their seats at once. A half-Senate election would leave all state Senators in place until 30 June 2011. A double dissolution would rid the government of the need to negotiate with Family First Senator Steve Fielding at once and remove up to half-a-dozen Coalition Senators. A half-Senate election would leave all these Senators in place until 30 June 2011.

A double dissolution would also give the government the right to call a joint sitting if the legislation used as a trigger to call the double dissolution election was blocked in the Senate after the election. A joint sitting would almost certainly allow the government to pass its legislation without having to negotiate its passage with the Greens.

However, a double dissolution changes the mathematics of the Senate election. A normal half-Senate election elects six Senators with a quota of 14.3%, a party electing three of the six Senate vacancies in a state with 42.9% of the vote. At a double dissolution, twelve Senators are elected and the quota falls to 7.7%, a party electing 6 of 12 Senators in a state with 46.2% of the vote.

If the Labor Party repeated its vote from the 2007 election, it may have a better Senate result from holding a half-Senate election. However, if its vote is higher, it could have a better result from a double dissolution. (See this previous post for a comparison of election secenarios based on Labor repeating its 2007 result.)

The Greens would have roughly the same result under both half-Senate and double dissolution election scenarios. Whichever election is called, the Greens will almosty certainly hold the balance of power in the new Senate, assuming the Rudd government is re-elected.

Based on current polling, the big loser at a double dissolution would be the Coalition, losing up to half-a-dozen Senators and immediately losing its current dominant position in the Senate.

One additional advantage that may be gained by the government from a double dissolution election is in the re-allocation of Senators to short and long term seats. The Constitution states that the Senate shall allocate Senators to short and long terms, but no mechanism is provided.

After previous double dissolutions, the order of election has been used to allocate members to terms. In the current Senate, this means the first six elected would be handed 6-year terms, and those elected to positions 7 to 12 allocated 3-year terms.

The Labor Party has committed itself to adopt a new procedure allowed for in the Electoral Act. Twelve Senators would be declared elected, after which a second count of ballot papers would be done assuming only six vacancies. The Six Senators elected by this second count would be allocated the 6-year terms, the balance of six elected Senators given the 3-year term.

Under either method, the Labor Party would elect more 6-year Senators than the Coalition, giving the Labor government a stronger position after the 2013 election.