THE DONKEY VOTE

Day 14 on the Federal Election trail is over.

And here is the scoop on what took place!

Kevin Rudd spent the day in Queensland on the Gold Coast and announced a $1billion Water Policy while visiting the desalination plant being built there.

John Howard’s day was ruined by repeated speculation about inner party turmoil highlighted by the apparent leaking of cabinet business by Malcolm Turnbull. John Howard spent much of the day trying to hose down rumours of a rift while also being put on the back foot by increased drama regarding interest rates and his 2004 claim to keep them down.

The Labor Party, Greens and Democrats have allied to take down Coalition rule of the Senate and have launched an ad campaign featuring all three parties.

The Greens urged voters to restore the balance of power in the Senate while Nationals leader Mark Vaile leap to the defence of the Coalition’s use of it’s Senate majority.

Prime Minister John Howard did unveil some new policies today such as $393 million towards skills training and a $150million pledge to upgrade the Frankston bypass in Victoria.

Queensland’s The Sunday Mail released a poll that shows Labor’s Wayne Swan is on track to increase his margin in the Electorate of Lilley. Probably not news to many political observers, who would have preferred a poll on a marginal Electorate.

The Greens launched their National Election Campaign in Melbourne.

Finally Labor announced a $3million towards the upgrading of Leichhardt Oval, home of the Wests Tigers NRL club

A lot of other stuff probably happened, but how am I supposed to know?

I am just a donkey.

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Are the Liberals already admitting defeat internally and are factions positioning to fight over the scrapes of Opposition? Will turf wars between these factions spill over into the Federal Election campaign?

According to this NEWS.COM.AU article titled “Shaky Libs in internal uproar” there is internal strife.

I think certainly Malcolm Turnbull has leadership aspirations, but I doubt he will beat out Peter Costello, my favourite Liberal (That isn’t saying much.) and anti hero.

But he can only contest Opposition leadership if he is actually still in Parliament. It seems that big Mal is getting a bit desperate and so he should be with the slender margin he holds over his electorate of Wentworth of only 2.5%.

Speculation is that recent apparent non apparent backflipping on Kyoto and public airing of his pro Kyoto views in cabinet are aimed at distancing himself from unpopular Coalition policy. Turnbull ‘trying to save skin’

I think it would be great for the media to focus more on the post Election aftermath and leadership battles than the Federal Election with the Coalition, just to get old Mr Howard cranky.

But it is weird to think that if the Coalition lose, we won’t be seeing much more of John Howard politically, that’s it. But I will be happy to see the back of him.

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Porn scandel engulfs Family First. Here we go, the Election soap opera throws us another curve ball. Pornographic pictures rock Family First

Mr Quah, 22, had earlier admitted to posing for two images, one partly undressed and the other clutching his private parts, attached to an email circulating across the country.

He said he could not rule out being responsible for producing a third image attached to the email featuring graphic shots of a man’s genitalia.

The hilarity of this situation is that sure this is a bit of a mess for any politician but this is Family First, a party that is diametrically opposed to porn and naughty stuff.

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 NEWSLINK - Democrats, Greens swap Qld preferences 

Well the bag of sawdust…I mean Pauline Hanson is getting a few headlines at the moment. Unfortunately there will always be a market for redneck extremist votes. But the Greens and Democrats have come together in a preferencing deal designed to shut her out of the Senate….

They are a bit worried because apparently Pauline is polling at approximately the combined Democrat/Greens vote for the Senate.

Wow actually as least her campaign website is dial up friendly. - http://www.paulinehanson.com.au/

I don’t want her in parliament, but both Sheldon and I would agree, she would be pretty funny offering much laughter at her ignorance and xenophobia.

And comedy is a decent merit of justification in my world.

But on a last note, let’s not worry about trade union elements in Labor…I’d just like to remind everyone that Pauline Hanson used to be a Liberal!

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Labor has maintained it’s TTP lead in all recent polls and also all these polls seem to be agreeing with each other, offering Labor a 54-56% TTP vote, certainly good news for the Rudd team heading into Week 3 of the Federal election.

It shows that John Howard and the Coalition have a LONG way to go, they have clawed back a fraction of Labor’s lead but they need to dent Kevin’s none stick armour first.

Morgan Poll face-to-face: 56 Labor - 44 Coalition

Morgan Poll phone: 54.5 Labor - 45.5 Coalition

ACNielsen Online Poll: 56 Labor - 44 Coalition

CanberraTimes/Eden-Monaro Electorate Poll: 56 Labor -44 Coalition

It seems likely that these figures will translate on Election Day, but I never ever underestimate the ability of people to break my heart.

While Labor has gone ahead in the polls during the campaign before, the key difference is that John Howard always ruled supreme in the Preferred Prime Minister, that isn’t the case in 2007.

The Coalition have a good chance of winning the Treasurer’s Debate this Tuesday, but even if they had a storming victory, I’m not sure how much it would reasonate in the general public and media.

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I had an amusing time during the week watching Bronwin Bishop on Sky News ranting and raving how we are a bunch of Commos and Socialists. There is a great candidate for retirement there and then.

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Green surge. There seems like there are a lot of signs that many people will be voting for the Greens in the coming election, either due to increased concern for the environment, protest votes against Coalition/Labor policy or just a general dislike of the two major political forces. This is especially the case in Tasmania. This is really good because the environment is very important, but not as important as their preferences with the Labor Party!

Hopefully we will see a preference deal sewn up in the near future between the Greens and the ALP.

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I was thinking that Labor has a bit of advantage in that they can take existing Federal government policy and giving it a facelift or funding upgrade and unveil it again. That has to count for some significant extra political smileage.

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It’s Labor Policy time…

Media Statement - Regional Australia’s Choice: Proper Broadband Now Or Wait 35 Years

Media Statement - Federal Labor’s Volunteer Grants Program - Helping Volunteers With Petrol Costs

……. damn these Policies are in PDF which are killing my dial up war reactors….

Labor Policy - Solar Schools, Solar Homes

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I don’t know what Sheldon is whinging on about, about my lack of research, he didn’t offer any research just generalisations and stuff that is already in my head.

1. Yes Interest Rates will devastate the Coalition

2. Yes Howard campaigning in Beeninalong will cut his ability to campaign abroad.

You are a genius Sheldon. Attacking Beeninalong is actually a real cunning strategy by Labor because it keeps Howard in two minds and it is hard to attack the Electorate and all those marginal seats when you are worried about your defences back home.

If she wins the seat or not, Labor candidate for Beeninalong Lisa McCune has certainly helped Labor in it’s quest for government. I mean Maxine McKew.

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Sheldon…

Hey I just realised… I’m doing Brad’s work again. That last paragraph was the kind of research that the Labor fanatic should be doing. I guess we all know now who’s the backbone of this operation…

Look Shell when you are right, as often as I am, you will find the need for research and structured arguement is rather redundant.

And you would have had to have used the internet to work out what “Bah Weep Grah Nah Weep Nini Bong” means because I know you haven’t seen the fantastic Transformers Animated Movie, not the dodgy bullshit offering we had this year, but the 1985 classic!

Sheldon is just a pretender, he has no heart.

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Thanks must go to William Bowe from The Poll Bludger from the TDV team (Me, Sheldon, Yak and Donkey.) We appreciate the shout out for us. Both me and Sheldon have been regular readers of your site for a good while and I really enjoy it. Thanks William!

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Come on Brad, we’re trying to create a serious blog here and we’ve just been plugged by the Poll Bludger. Posting Transformer references probably won’t help our attempt to look respectable and serious. Then again, I did link to a video of Rudd eating his ear wax so I’m probably not one to talk.

Unfortunately I will be working on Tuesday and be unable to watch the debate with Brad and be beaten up by pub patrons. That might be positive actually. My feeling is that Costello will convincingly beat Swan in the debate, that is if he can keep his smirk under control which is always a worry. Should be interesting viewing although I’m not sure how much notice people take of a treasurer’s debate, it might have greater relevance with Costello likely to become the next Prime Minister if the Coalition can somehow find a way of winning.

Well it looks like all that noise about the early closing of electoral rolls leading to a lock out of the youth vote has proved to be general rubbish with the number of 18 year olds registering to vote jumping by 10% from the last election. If it was the Coalition’s plan to reduce the voting numbers of an age group that would be likely to support Labor then it’s failed miserably. Personally, I think this early closure of the rolls and all the ad campaigning about it has increased awareness which has helped increase the numbers of young people enrolling. I’m using the word “young people” and I’m 25, I feel very old. In any case, I hope those critics will recognise that regardless of the intentions of the decision that overall it probably was a good decision.

Labor has finally dumped the union bully Joe McDonald. The government had just started showing ads attacking him the day before and now Howard is claiming this is a sign of weak leadership by Rudd, suggesting I suppose that he crumbles under any pressure. It is an interesting back flip and there probably are questions over the strength of Rudd’s leadership but he’s had such a dream run that there’s been few issues for him to deal with. If you’re basically just using the same policies as the government with a little twist at the end then you’re probably not going to have too many problems. Unfortunately for the government though unions still aren’t a big issue for most Australians in this election campaign.

There’s nothing like an election to produce an outbreak of “Post-Prime Minister Syndrome”. This syndrome periodically forces ex-PMs into making press statements and speeches just so they can see their names in the paper once more.  There’s Hawke talking about Howard’s performance as treasurer in the Fraser government, Keating supporting the unions and attacking Costello as a lazy treasurer and Fraser going on about things that involve morality and ethics which generally cause me to laugh and make snide comments about 1975. But one thing you will notice about this syndrome is that the statements generally produced will be negative ones, usually about the party in office.

I usually don’t take much notice the outpourings of this syndrome as it’s the bitter rantings of people that miss the power and prestige of government. I prefer the bitter rantings of people posting on the internet, mainly because the rantings are hidden by poor web design and clashing colour combinations.

It’s hard to believe how an issue can be turned on its head in three years. Well actually, it’s probably not all hard to believe. In any case Rudd’s now pushing the line that Howard can’t be trusted on interest rates with Howard claiming that the Liberal Party ad that ran for two nights in the last election that promised that a Howard government would keep interest rates at record lows wasn’t an actual promise because he didn’t say it. I tend to think that interest rates will prove to be the final killer for the Coalition. Howard is back in Bennelong this weekend for campaigning which probably means he’ll spend more time in his electorate this election campaign then he has in all the other campaigns combined. Winning his seat might be his best hope for a good result in this election

Hey I just realised… I’m doing Brad’s work again. That last paragraph was the kind of research that the Labor fanatic should be doing. I guess we all know now who’s the backbone of this operation…

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With four weeks to go before the Federal election, the latest face-to-face Morgan Poll (October 20/21) shows the ALP 12 points ahead of the L-NP on a two-party preferred basis (56% cf. 44%).

An Australia-wide telephone Morgan Poll conducted over the last two nights (October 24/25) shows an even narrower gap of nine points (ALP 54.5%, L-NP 45.5%).

If an election were held today, the ALP would still win easily.

Face-to-face Morgan Poll

PRIMARY VOTE
Coalition - 39.5% (Unchanged)
Labor - 47% (Down 2.5%)

TWO PARTY PREFERRED
Coalition - 44% (Up 1%)
Labor - 56% (Down 1%)

Telephone Morgan Poll

PRIMARY VOTE
Coalition - 41% (Up 1.5%)
Labor - 44% (Down 1%)

TWO PARTY PREFERRED
Coalition - 45.5% (Up 1%)
Labor - 54.5% (Down 1%)

CLICK TO VIEW THE ENTIRE MORGAN POLL

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Hahaha how many of you got that? If you did without the aid of the internet, you are cool.

My fellow Victorians, here we are at the end of Week 2 and I would have to award Week 2 to Kevin Rudd and the Labor Party. And my good mate David Speers agrees.

An interesting rumour is that the Coalition are abandoning marginal seats in southern Brisbane because they aren’t matching Labor committments in those areas. But it is a long campaign and it remains to be seen if such suggestions are true.

In even better news, this time from Adelaide….

SA voters turn against Howard

It put Labor’s two-party-preferred vote a stunning 64 per cent to the Liberals’ 36 per cent.

I swear if Adelaide and South Australia fall in behind Rudd I will never make fun of them again, I won’t crack any more jokes about SA or Adelaide. It’s a tough, very tough concession, but if they make the move to Labor, I’m willing to reward them.

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But what I am really looking forward to is the Costello v Swan debate, I think it will be the television event of the century.

It will be on SKY NEWS, I picture me and Sheldon going down to the pub and asking if we can switch it over from the sport to the debate. Unfortunately he might be working, but I think he should take the day off. We should both be enjoying this type of thing.

Come on Sheldon. This is my challenge to Mr Sheldon…take a sickie and watch the debate with me!

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Here is a link to a story about Labor getting a bit arrogant.

Labor doesn’t need friends like these

Let’s hope we don’t get complacent, we don’t need to be giving the enemy free bullets. It would be a PR disaster to have little nuggets leak out into the public of Labor connectons being unsportinglike.

There will be plenty of time for partying, gloating and paying out Sheldon for the next three years once we win…I mean if we win….after we climb Mount Franklin and all that.

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Well with new inflation figures out it seems that interest rates are probably set to rise next month which may be the death blow for the Howard government if it happens. If you’re going to run a campaign based mainly on your ability to run the economy then events like this have a greater impact on your re-elections chances. Personally, I find it hard to see what the Coalition can do at this point in this campaign to give themselves a chance of victory. The best result at this stage would probably be a close loss.

But as they always say, a week is a long time in politics. And it would be quite sweet for something miraculous to happen to cause the Howard government to be returned to office just to see Brad’s face. For future reference he is stockpiling weapons in case Rudd doesn’t win power. In any case I’ll be hanging around here covering things for you conservatives that haven’t jumped off the nearest bridge yet.

The union attack ads are still being rolled out by the government, one that’s targeting a member of the ALP Joe McDonald of the Construction, Forestry, Mining and Energy Union. Apparently he was trespassing onto constructions sites and you can read the story if you want to know the details. The Coalition’s spin is that he should be expelled from the ALP as Rudd himself suggested earlier in the year but he’s remained a member. It’s a nothing sort of story but I’d imagine a few ads like this will be forthcoming by the Coalition.

My feel good story of the week has to the choir member who told Rudd and his entourage that “you spoiled the party. You ignorant bastards” which I think is awesome.  Rudd had gone to a birthday celebration for a seniors’ club thinking he had been invited when he apparently hadn’t been. I suppose it was lucky it wasn’t Latham on the visit, he probably would have layed the poor guy out cold.

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Kevin Rudd’s popularity reached new heights today with him being mobbed by students Melbourne’s Eumemmerring College. It’s great to see such scenes and I doubt you’d hear that sort of support for John Howard….possibly some chants, but different ones…

Meanwhile still on the school yard topic, but this time with the Liberals, they didn’t fair so well…and didn’t find themselves as welcomed as Mr Rudd….

Federal Education Minister Julie Bishop found herself in an awkward position today when she arrived at a Queensland school which was not expecting her.

HAHA.

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Well it looks like rates will rise, which isn’t really a good thing for millions of Australians already under massive economic stress. And a rates rise would be a devastating blow for the Coaltion’s re-election hopes…so what that means is that I had better get my bet on Labor while the odds are still as high as they are!

The Australian Bureau of Statistics has released its Consumer Price Index figures, showing inflation went up 1 per cent in the September quarter.

In a disgraceful and deceitful dance today both Howard and Costello basically lied to the Australian public saying that the figures weren’t too bad while sighting the wrong data from the new report, the one that the Reserve Bank will not use to determine what they will do with interest rates.

I laughed when hearing Wayne Swan on the radio this arvo describing Peter Costello’s style of economic management as voodoo economics. I found that pretty funny.

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Oh here we go, now if Labor get in and abolish WorkChoices, we are going to have a recession! That is according to the bible of Peter Costello.

I’d love to know one thing, if Workchoices is so friendly to workers, why would it’s abolition be so detrimental to the mighty $1.1 trillion Australian economy? Unless it is either complete bullshit….hhhmmmm, I am leaning that way.

Or Workchoices only enables employer’s in paying their employees even less money!

That’s a great piece of legislation. Australia is enjoying an economic golden era, but don’t expect the workers to enjoy the spoils! That is for shareholders and boardmembers and executives. What a fair country we live in…

We even have had Peter Costello and John Howard both admit that the WorkChoices legislation is a mechanism for wage control!

I think Kevin ripping up these bullshit laws will be the greatest moment I’ve witnessed, better than all the grand finals and State of Origins, better than pelting Sheldon with apples in my high school years and all the other super hilarious things I did.

That will be the moment Australia becomes the FAIR country once again, what could compare with that?

Well maybe Super Mario Galaxy on Nintendo Wii, that comes out 5 days after the election…and it’s supposed to be pretty amazing. But maybe I can have both, a Labor Federal Government and some awesome mushroom stomping action.

OK, I admit it, sometimes I must sound like the Labor Party’s PR department, but Sheldon can attest to me actually being like this.

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And let’s wind up with a quote from the greatest Australian Prime Minister ever.

“This man (John Howard) he’s had so many conversions on the road to Damascus – climate change, reconciliation – if he’s going round the marginal electorates handing out money for roads, he ought to make a contribution to the government of Syria to repave the road to Damascus because he’s worn it out,” Mr Bob Hawke said.

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