Oz Politics Blog

Tomorrow, by-elections will be held for the Queensland seats of Redcliffe and Chatsworth. The by-elections were triggered by the resignations of the then Deputy Premier, Terry Mackenroth (Chatsworth), and the Speaker of Parliament Ray Hollis (Redcliffe). Hollis resigned after criticism over his hospitality and overseas travel costs.

The latest Newspoll of the Queensland electorate, a combined poll over the months of July and August 2005, predicts a state-wide, two-party-preferred swing of 5.5 per cent from the Labor Government to the Opposition since the 2004 state election. More worrying for the Government, the April-June poll had the Government 6 percentage points ahead of their current position.

The big problem for the Beattie Labor Government has been the ‘Dr Death’ Royal Commission into the employment of Dr Jayant Patel at the Bundaberg Hospital. Like all Royal Commissions, this is taking on a life of its own and going places where no one expected. The discovery of around 100,000 people on secret hospital waiting lists is just one example.

There are two critical questions: Has the Beattie gloss faded sufficiently for Labor to lose these seats? Will the safety of a protest vote that cannot change the Government see large numbers vote for the Opposition and minor candidates?

The Poll Bludger is predicting both seats will be retained by Labor with a much reduced margin. I am not so sure.

In the 2004 election, Hollis got 50.08 per cent of the first preference votes in Redcliffe, and that was because he did well in the postal and absentee votes. In the booths he only got 49.49 per cent. After the distribution of preferences he got 57.10 per cent. My guess is there will be a protest vote sufficient to unseat Labor in Redcliffe.

Things looked better for Labor in Chatsworth. Mackenroth got 56.26 per cent of the primary vote in 2004, which increased to 61.40 per cent after the distribution of preferences. While some of that vote would have been attributed to his personal following, I suspect there is a sufficient buffer for Labor to retain Chatsworth.

If you want to follow the results on election night, Queensland’s Electoral Commission website is here.

Newspoll released its latest fortnightly poll yesterday.

The most staggering result was Beazley’s satisfaction rate: 31 per cent. Beazley’s satisfaction rates have trended downwards for four months. Now Beazley is both less satisfying and more dissatisfying than Latham after the 2004 election.

Okay it is one poll, with substantial movement from the previous poll, so this result might be a random outlier. Nonetheless, if it continues in the doldrums for Beazley we may see another night of the long knives.

Newspoll had the Coalition ahead of Labor: 48 to 52 per cent.

In terms of the primary vote, Newspoll reported:

• Coalition — 45 per cent — up 3 per cent
• Labor — 37 per cent — down 4 per cent
• The Greens — 7 per cent — unchanged
• Other — 11 per cent — up 1 per cent

At 57 per cent, the Prime Minister had his best preferred prime minister result for six months.

The usual graphs are here (you may need to hit the refresh/reload button on your browser to see the latest).

GetUp is the latest fad in grassroots internet politics. It describes itself thus,

What is GetUp?

GetUp is a new political movement to build a more progressive Australia.

GetUp brings together like-minded people who want to bring participation back into our democracy. GetUp members use the latest online tools to act on the most important issues facing the country.

Why do we need GetUp?

After nearly a decade of conservative government, our country has changed. Millions of Australians don’t like the direction we’ve been heading. On August 9 the Coalition government takes control of the Senate. It will have more power than any government in a generation.

The other political parties aren’t providing a strong opposition, and the media is dominated by a handful of right-wing voices. People need to take politics into their own hands. GetUp provides them with a way to do this. GetUp members are building a ground-up movement of Australians who want to act, not just complain.

What do GetUp members do?

GetUp members take action. By signing up for updates, GetUp members will receive emails alerting them to new campaigns and providing ways of taking effective action. Whether it is sending an email to a member of parliament, calling a talk back radio station, or helping to get a television ad on the air, GetUp members will always be asked to take targeted, coordinated and effective action.

GetUp’s first campaign was targeted at Coalition senators as the Government took control of the Senate. It generated an email deluge. Apparently, in one week over 30,000 emails were sent to Coalition senators. An achievement reported to the GetUp faithful in these terms.

GetUp was profiled on the 7.30 Report last night. Coalition MP Andrew Robb claimed that Coalition Senators are “besides themselves” because they have been recieiving (sic) emails from the people they were elected to represent. Andrew Robb is so out of touch that he described ordinary Australians contacting their Senator as “spam.” … Keep up the good work!

You know you are getting old and crotchety when your first response to a website is, “Ah, the naivety of youth.”

My second response was not much better. As I clicked and scrolled, I found myself tripping over the spelling and punctuation errors on the site. As someone who struggled with English for morons in high school, I am loath to give advice on grammatical pedantry. I make enough mistakes on this blog. Nonetheless, i before e except after c was not too hard to remember. And could someone — please — find and kill the apostrophe-s gremlin.

My third response was one of anger. 30,000 emails is spam! The immediate response is likely to be two email in-boxes for parliamentarians. A personal email address and a public email address monitored by the office clerk.

But the long-term consequences of this mindless attack could be felt across the blog-sphere. The Joint Standing Committee on Electoral Matters is conducting an inquiry into the Conduct of the 2004 Federal Election. One of the critical issues before that committee is the role of the internet in future elections. The critical issue is potential amendments to the Electoral Act to require websites containing electoral material to identify a person authorising its content. Other constraints on political websites may be under consideration.

Thanks to GetUp’s naivety, the parliamentarians on that committee now know exactly how the Internet can be misused to swamp parliamentarians, and deny them the quality use of a communications technology. Unfortunately, this is an invitation to regulation.

A web site that promotes democratic engagement is to be lauded. But when misuse of the medium becomes the message, it’s time to grow up and get over it.

The latest Morgan Poll does not give much comfort to the government, predicting that an election over the last two weeks would have seen Labor win 52 per cent of the national two-party preferred vote.

The primary vote results were:

• Coalition — 41.5 per cent — unchanged
• Labor — 42 per cent — up 3.5 per cent
• Australian Democrats — 2 per cent — down half a per cent
• The Greens — 7.5 per cent — down half a per cent
• Family First — 2 per cent — up half a per cent
• One Nation — 1 per cent — down 1 per cent
• Other minor parties — 4 per cent — down 2 per cent

Perhaps the only good news for the government was that 61.5 per cent of the population expects it to win the next election (unchanged).

The usual graphs are here (you may need to hit the refresh/reload button on your browser to see the latest). Of note, all three opintion polls have trended in Labor’s direction over the last 8 weeks.

The probability that Costello will be the next leader of the Liberal Party has firmed at Centrebet from 27.3 per cent on Monday to 29.6 per cent this Friday morning.

At the same time the probability that the Coalition will win the next Federal election has fallen from 62.5 per cent to 58.9 per cent. Centrebet is now paying $1.57 for a Coalition win and $2.25 for a Labor win.