Australia - 7 September 2013

[RogueBeaver]

There's also the Howard/Beazley '07 precedent- Abbott could trail in PPM for a while but still lead in 2PP. As for vision, that's partly the partywide post-WC scare to run as Generic Liberal... to my knowledge no one's seriously proposed revisiting said decision.

The problem with that theory is that Rudd took over from Beazley almost a year before the 2007 election, we don't actually know then, which way the PPM would have ended up had Beazley stayed on.

And... that's not a vision.

Re vision: that's my point. Boldness has gone.

[Fmr President & Senator Polnut]

There's also the Howard/Beazley '07 precedent- Abbott could trail in PPM for a while but still lead in 2PP. As for vision, that's partly the partywide post-WC scare to run as Generic Liberal... to my knowledge no one's seriously proposed revisiting said decision.

The problem with that theory is that Rudd took over from Beazley almost a year before the 2007 election, we don't actually know then, which way the PPM would have ended up had Beazley stayed on.

And... that's not a vision.

Re vision: that's my point. Boldness has gone.

Fair point, but that's only looking at one area...

[Fmr President & Senator Polnut]

Rudd looking more and more towards an October election with a two-week sitting period.

[RogueBeaver]

Greens aren't fans of that idea, but I highly doubt they vote against Lab on confidence matters.

[Fmr President & Senator Polnut]

Greens aren't fans of that idea, but I highly doubt they vote against Lab on confidence matters.

Considering the swing against the Greens is sitting at about 3%... not the wisest plan.

[Wake Me Up When The Hard Border Ends]

Rudd looking more and more towards an October election with a two-week sitting period.

Sounds about right, considering that time is ticking for a pre-September 14 election, and going in November would show a sign of desperation.

This article discusses Rudd weighing his options, political academic Nick Economou believes an October election would harm Rudd's chances:
http://www.skynews.com.au/politics/article.aspx?id=886145

[Platypus]

Small target works well in state politics, where nobody really pays attention anyway (sorry Smid). But federally, it'll be interesting to see if it works at the ballot box.

[You kip if you want to...]

Looking at the polls it seems that even given how unpopular Gillard was, Abbot was not able to get a consistent lead over Gillard on the question of who is better PM.  Now that Rudd is back it seems that Abbot is losing by a mile.  It is most likely too late but did not the fact that Abbot was not able to win in 2010 and given the fact that Abbot was not that much more popular than Gillard despite ongoing Labor civil war mean that the Liberals should have thought about dumping Abbot and replacing him with someone more likely to be more popular.  Or were the Liberals sure they would run against Gillard so it does not matter.

They kept him because the Libs far outperformed expectations in 2010, even coming within a whisker of Abbott becoming PM. And following the election, the Liberals gained a solid lead so there wasn't the panic that comes with bad polls.

[Fmr President & Senator Polnut]

Two new polls out... both with a roughly +2% ALP house effect...

Essential (unchanged)
Coalition: 52%
ALP: 48%

Essential has some interesting numbers on issues, including only 29% wanting to scrap the mining tax and 39% wanting to bin the carbon tax outright...


Morgan (self allocated preferences)
ALP: 54.5% (+3%)
Coalition: 45.5% (-3%)

Morgan (based on 2010 preference flows)
ALP: 52.5% (+1%)
Coalition: 47.5% (-1%)

[Wake Me Up When The Hard Border Ends]

Latest Newspoll out, parties are 50-50 on 2PP, and Abbott trails Rudd as preferred PM by 22 points:
http://www.skynews.com.au/topstories/article.aspx?id=886277

[You kip if you want to...]

How long until Joe Hockey starts canvassing?

[Fmr President & Senator Polnut]

That preferred PM number is terrible and wouldn't shock me if it became THE story tomorrow.

Edit:

Preferred PM
Abbott: 31% (-4%)
Rudd: 53% (+4%)

[You kip if you want to...]

Surely the ALP has room to improve as well?

A lot of opposition is surely built on what voters see as a fractious, divided party. If they can get rid of that image, they can grow.

[You kip if you want to...]

From the same Newspoll:

Election before 14/9 24%
On 14/9 25%
After 14/9 9%

[Fmr President & Senator Polnut]

Surely the ALP has room to improve as well?

A lot of opposition is surely built on what voters see as a fractious, divided party. If they can get rid of that image, they can grow.

That's the issue - was the first set of polls ' a sugar high ' that would wear off or was it somewhere to grow from. I don't think we have a clear idea yet... But only Essential hasn't shown some further improvement from the initial kick.

The ALP of course has room to move, but that could be up or down.

[You kip if you want to...]

I'm obviously not in a place to be able to say, but this just doesn't seem like a change election, especially if the ALP can play on the buyer's remorse in Victoria and Queensland.

[Talleyrand]

I'm obviously not in a place to be able to say, but this just doesn't seem like a change election, especially if the ALP can play on the buyer's remorse in Victoria and Queensland.

In Victoria, I think they are effectively maxed out in terms of seats, so Rudd's goal will probably be to maintain the marginals like La Trobe and Corangamite if at all possible. 2010 appears to have been a high-water mark in the state, although Labor's quite lucky that the Baillieu/Napthine government has been in power, rather than the Brumby government, as that will reduce the (likely) swing against them.

If the "swing" towards Labor in Queensland persists until election day, Rudd probably has a decent chance to pick up seats like Longman and Brisbane (there are 6-8 marginal LNP seats in the state), although I'm still skeptical that'll persist. However, it does look like Labor will probably be able maintain at least 8 seats in the state, while that looked close to impossible when Gillard was at the helm.

[Platypus]

Dunkley would be the only gain possible, and perhaps even likely if Billson resigned, but it won't happen this time around.

[RogueBeaver]

Whoa.

[You kip if you want to...]

Whoa.

That's true treachery.

Surely JG didn't know.

[RogueBeaver]

She probably didn't, given the depth of her bunker mentality in those final days.

[You kip if you want to...]

[Fmr President & Senator Polnut]

Whoa.

That's true treachery.

Surely JG didn't know.

Sorry, but I don't see this as that big of a deal... EVERYBODY knew something would happen that week.

Discussing realistic contingencies eh... Plus Swan didnt vote or move against her.

[morgieb]

Good news for Kevin Rudd, though Morgan is very ALP-leaning (although this is multi-node rather than purely F2F....).

ER's results don't really change much as IIRC their sample stays consistent as it's a panel...so movement is less likely to be flaky.

[morgieb]

I'd still wait for more polls...but the signs are good that the bounce is sticking with the ALP largely.