Two pictures on page one of the Sydney Morning Herald this morning show us a lot about the way Australia is governed. Read more »
Two pictures on page one of the Sydney Morning Herald this morning show us a lot about the way Australia is governed. Read more »
Fiscal space. It's the latest addition to my vocabulary from the wonderful world of international economics courtesy of the International Monetary Fund. Sometimes, says an IMF report out this week, "fiscal space" is used to refer to the scope for financing a country's deficit tout court or for financing the deficit without either a sharp increase in funding costs or undue crowding out of private investment. For this IMF analysis the authors have used what they call "a simpler, starker definition—namely, fiscal space is the difference between the current level of public debt and the debt limit implied by the country’s historical record of fiscal adjustment."
By that measure Australia is doing quite nicely thank you whatever the would-be Treasurer Joe Hockey has been telling us in recent months. Australia clearly has one of the most manageable public debts in the world with the sobering evolution of public debt in advanced economies since the crisis, as well as IMF projections for debt ratios over the next five years shown in the following table: Read more »
Consider this story:
New South Wales minister Paul McLeay resigns from Parliament | News.com.au: Read more »
The US Republican Party is bringing out The Young Guns as its campaign for November’s Congr Read more »
The major Wall Street banks may be back in the business of paying big bonuses to staff but the United States banking system overall clearly still has its problems.

Overnight the FDIC reported that 829 banks with assets of $403 billion were now on its "problem" list. While the number was up from 775 banks at the end of the first quarter of this year, the total assets at risk was down slightly at $431 billion.
The oft forgotten part of the Labor Government's economic stimulus program was the boost given to providing more government owned housing. Building approval figures out from the Bureau of Statistics show that in the year ended July public dwellings have provided the greatest share of the total since the mid 1980s..

In the 12 months to the end of July this year, of the total dwellings approvals of 170,824, public housing accounted for 15,597 or 9.1% of the total. The last time public housing reached this level was back in August 1984.
At the close of counting today the Australian Electoral Commission had this election about as close to a dead heat as you can get with the Coalition in front by a whisker on the two party preferred vote.
Party Votes % Swing
The Independent member for Denison, Andrew Wilkie, was reported tonight as saying that his support for a government would only extend to supporting supply bills and to opposing "reckless" no-confidence motions. To me that seems like the very sensible position for someone elected as an independent to take.
Graft-Fighting Prosecutor Fired in Afghanistan - NYTimes.com:
"One of the country’s most senior prosecutors said Saturday that President Hamid Karzai fired him last week after he repeatedly refused to block corruption investigations at the highest levels of Mr. Karzai’s government. Read more »
Well I think we have reached the point where we now know who won what last Saturday. Not that we are any the wiser about who will become Prime Minister.
The figures tonight from the Australian Electoral Commission can be summarised thus:

In terms of seats won it is 72 all with the Coalition having the National Party member from Western Australia saying he will not support a Labor Government while refusing to join the Coalition and a Green saying he would support a "progressive" Labor Government. I guess we can call that 73 all.
That leaves the victor to be chosen by four independents - three of them former National Party members and a fourth who became an independent via membership of the Greens after a stint as a Liberal Party man. Read more »
The Australian election: When the hat doesn't fit, head lines The Economist: "Australia’s dead-heat election was exciting. But the drama masks a desperately impoverished politics". Read more »
No sooner had I praised Tony Abbott for having the good sense to refrain from publicly giving advice to the three country independents than the man goes and gives a press conference on the subject. I apologise. The man has not learned to be politically smart at all. He has just been incredibly lucky.
Like it or not we have a bicameral Parliament and from 1 July next year it is the Green Senators who will determine what things become law and what don't. Without the agreement of the Greens any pact with the Independents will be worthless when it comes to guaranteeing that a government, whether of the Coalition or the Labor variety, can actually govern. That harsh reality means there really is no choice for the Independents if stability is a principal aim as they seem to be saying. The idea of a Coalition-Green alliance is a sick joke and just not on.
If the sacking of Kevin Rudd had an influence on Labor's poor Queensland vote the available evidence suggests it was because of the way the deed was done rather than any great popularity for the former Prime Minister himself. The statewide swing against Labor in the northern state on Saturday night's primary votes was 8.9% yet in Rudd's own seat of Griffith it was slightly higher at 9.1%.
The only newcomer of note was the Australian S-x Party which ended Saturday night on 1.99%. That there is hope of life after death was shown by the Democratic Labor Party whose 2.2% in Victoria (1% nationwide) has given it an aside chance of actually winning a Senate seat.
I'm not certain about the importance of election campaigns in determining who wins elections. To me the evidence is not clear that anything said or done in the 30 plus days after an Australian federal election is called actually influences the votes. But because I'm someone who used to play the game of the strategist I got into the habit of judging who won each and every day even though it might well have been meaningless.
For this campaign my judgment is that the campaigns were largely irrelevant. I cannot think, for example, of one political party advertisement that would have influenced one person to change their mind. And the operatives on both sides have been equally skilled in presenting their candidate in a favourable light for the television news bulletins.
On my score chart I have the Coalition winning on more days with Labor marginally ahead overall. Read more »
It was almost a gaff free campaign for Tony Abbott. None of the slips of the tongue for which he was renowned before becoming Liberal Leader. Always polite on the campaign trail. Nothing said or done out of place. Until virtually election eve when he called in at a Manly pub and ordered a shandy. For God's sake, a shandy! Beer and lemonade! What kind of man is that? If God had meant us to drink that he would have put the lemonade in the bottle.
Meanwhile Julia Gillard was out drinking Toohey's old. A dark and proper working person's beer.
The contrast was stark.
Was this election of 2010 won and lost in the pub?
One in four Americans wrongly believe Barack Obama is Muslim - Telegraph:
"An increasing number of Americans wrongly believe that President Barack Obama is a Muslim, with nearly one in four saying he is a follower of Islam, according to a new poll."
Having pronounced an extended family connection with Lady Ga Ga, Julia Gillard might like to follow the example of US Senator Frank Lautenberg and include listening to Beautiful Dirty Rich as part of a future fund raising event. The 86 year old New Jersey Democrat has booked a luxury suite at a Lady Ga Ga concert on 7 September as the scene for his next campaign fund raiser. Read more »
Satire banned in Brazil ahead of presidential election - Telegraph:
The headline on the ABC web site nearly gave me apoplexy this morning: Scots create whisky based fuel. Don't tell me, I feared that things have come to the pretty pass where they are burning the beautiful elixir rather than drinking it. And just when that wonderfulvideo feature on Crikey yesterday had sent me down to the local for fresh supplies. Oh the relief to read that it is just the by-products of the distilling process that are being used to make the butanol biofuel. And how great to know that with every tipple I will be helping reduce the world's reliance on fossil fuel!
When Kevin Rudd was called down to give his protege Maxine McKew a hand in her seat of Bennelong it was a clear sign that Labor thought things were getting close. Now I notice that the bookmakers have got the contest close to even money take your pick. Will John Alexander provide John Howard with some belated revenge?
Election campaigns truly are wonderful things.
From the smh website's description of Tony Abbott on the trail as Julia Gillard delivered her delayed policy launch.'Boatman' Abbott hits the trail: "Five marginal seats in ten hours. It must be the last week of the election campaign.
Opposition Leader Tony Abbott needed all his action man mojo on Monday as he launched a blitz on marginal seats in western Sydney ahead of Saturday's vote.
Photo opportunities abounded - kids kicking soccer balls, others lined up for martial arts, a trip to a glassworks factory.
A $5 million pledge to boost local football grounds in Penrith, a $10 million splash for the war against bikies."
It's hard for a politician to compete with the footy but the champion teams Collingwood and Geelong both having great victories probably means the feeling of contentment will continue in Victoria and ensure that the incumbent's advantage continues in Victoria. Nothing as helpful north of the border in New South Wales where those Westies will be lamenting Penrith falling in a rugby league hole. That's enough for me to declare Saturday a nil all draw in the campaign stakes.

The market this morning had a look at those marginal seat opinion polls and decided they favoured the Coalition. Read more »
Labor is back as the front runner. Some of the opinion polls are now showing it but, more importantly, it is the clear message from our own Election Indicator.
Last Sunday the Indicator had Labor down to being a 60% probability of winning after being as high as 79% at the start of the formal campaign proceedings.This morning Labor is rated as a 77% chance.

The hung parliament stories are starting to appear as some opinion polls -- but not the Read more »
Liberal Leader Tony Abbott was out and appealing again to the golden oldies -- this time a gathering of war veterans. Julia Gillard had younger people on her agenda with a national broadband opening in Tasmania followed by another occasion to put on a hard hat and talk about jobs and training.
Each leader was playing to their strengths really. In picture terms another winning day for Labor. A lot of men in suits just don't attract the attention of the casual television news viewer. What might have got the attention was Australia's most famous television journalist. Mark Latham steals the show wherever he bobs up and I have to admit I like his style in asking the kind of questions that journalists avoid.
Eventually someone twigged that asking people to vote for a Yes or a No was not going to be very revealing and the names of the leaders was substituted.As a long time print journalist I found it quite depressing the first time I sat behind the one way glass and watched a skilled researcher tease out of people their opinions (or quite often their lack of them) about politics and where they gained their information from. Rare it was to find a swinging voter who was influenced by anything they read in a newspaper. A quick glance at a headline anything to do with politics and the page was turned pronto. And as for party political advertisements they were an absolute no-no paid no attention at all.
I am not really surprised then to find that stories about who has promised what to whom in a day of election campaigning rarely feature in the list of most read items on newspaper websites. The great majority of Australians have other things on their mind that are of far more interest to them. Stories like these that were top of the lists at midnight last night:
Fairfax Sites Read more »
Politicians the world over have a wonderful capacity not to get too worried about a little bit of hypocrisy and of no one is that truer than the Republican Newt Gingrich, who is leading the fundraising pack in the quest for his party's next presidential nomination. Among his many policy claims, Gingrich is a family values man who repeatedly warns that President Obama’s "secular, socialist machine" is threatening to destroy America by undermining the Judeo-Christian "values" upon which the country was built. Read more »
The Liberals went for the footballing vote yesterday with a re-announcement by the candidate for the marginal seat of Corangamite of money to expand the Skilled Stadium home ground of the Geelong Cats. Read more »
I wonder how long it will be before a politician starts making a promise to do something 10 years from now.? Not long probably, as the current lot of promises -- such as Labor's new railway for Sydney's Western suburbs -- have starting dates well into the parliament after next. It really is becoming a nonsense.
As for yesterday's National Press Club debate on the economy all that needs to be said is that it was completely irrelevant. Not a vote will have changed because of it.
Labor has made little effort to date to maximise its share of Green preferences. Read more »
She seems to float from one day to the next outwardly unperturbed by the campaign disasters surrounding her. If she is prone to the temperamental tantrums of her immediate predecessor as Prime Minister she sure is a mistress of disguise. There's an occasional display of tough talking but never a sign of anger and for the casual follower of politics -- and that is the vast majority of Australian voters, especially at this stage of the campaign -- she gives off an aura of being in control. In image terms, yesterday was probably her most successful so far. When appearing on an education stage Ms Gillard she is relaxed and confident and it's hard for a politician to find a better backdrop for the television news than groups of children.
Ehey will be appearing one after the other and not alongside each other, but perhaps that means that the forum being planned by The Daily Telegraph on Wednesday in Sydney will actually result in some real debate. Goodness knows we could do with it. Anyway, my congratulations to the Tele for trying.
From the London Daily Telegraph comes this report:
Groom accidentally kills three relatives at wedding
A groom accidentally killed three relatives at his wedding in Turkey when he fired into the air with an assault rifle in celebration, according to reports
I wonder if figures like these will cause the Coalition to reconsider its policy of ending economic stimulus spending ASAP? Without the public housing and school building components of the Labor package there would certainly be a rise in building worker unemployment. Read more »
It's good to see that class is alive and well as a political issue in modern Britain but this piece does tell us something about political campaigning too. Public image is everything and to hell with a sister's wedding.
Did David Cameron need to dock his tails? - Telegraph: "The Prime Minister's decision not to wear a morning suit at his sister's wedding stemmed from an unfortunate incident involving plus-fours and a photographer, says Nigel Farndale" Read more »
Tired of the Center-Right: New Poll Finds Merkel Government at Rock Bottom - SPIEGEL ONLINE - News - International: "Germany's economy may be on the mend, but Chancellor Angela Merkel's government is less popular than ever. Fully 83 percent of Germans aren't happy with her coalition -- and the future of the opposition Social Democrats may be looking bright."
In Madison, Wisconsin, USA, free speech had a setback when a court barred a candidate for a state Assembly seaI confess to being confused about this election. I have been writing about them, and participating in them, federal and state, for nearly 50 years but have not come across anything like this one. My experience tells me that first-term governments don't lose when economic conditions are basically good. Yet, a first-term government in good economic times that sacks its leaders on the eve of the campaign and then welcomes the vanquished back to campaign on his record? What are the public going to make of that? Frankly, I just don't know. If there is ever going to be an election that a government loses because of its own stupidity, this is it.
There is one benefit from promising to be a changed woman on the campaign trail - today the journalists concentrated on Julia Gillard rather than Kevin Rudd.
That change was needed is shown by these figures from the review of the political week by Media Monitors.

It was Labor's first bit of good news for the week - Collingwood trounced Carlton and went to the top of the AFL ladder. If only the Magpies can keep on winning until election day there might yet be a swing to the Government in Victoria come election day. And if that's all a bit confusing to you then have a look at my piece earlier this month on the very latest research on voting behaviour showing that a win by a high attendance or championship football team on the eve of a political election results in the incumbent party gaining an additional 2.42 percentage points and 2.30 percentage points respectively. Read more »
As a rough rule the ABC and the commercial television networks tend to give each side equal time on their news bulletins which is why the parties work so hard at devising photogenic events that will tell a story they want told. Which is all very good in theory but it only works if there is virtually no alternative to showing the day's party line. Unfortunately for Julia Gillard the Labor leader Kevin Rudd has been a major distraction on many days this week that the journalists find far more interesting than anything she has to say. Yesterday at the start it was not anything that Kevin was quoted as saying but a story in the Sydney Morning Herald saying he had to been asked to take a more important role in a wavering campaign. Not as vicious a background briefing as the one earlier in the week but Ms Gillard felt obliged to comment that she knew nothing of it. Then, after being rushed off to hospital for a gall bladder operation, Mr Rudd. through his spokesman, struck again with some words that made Ms Gillard look a bit stupid. Read more »
From NY Times columnist Paul Krugman this week:
Why does the Obama administration keep looking for love in all the wrong places? Why does it go out of its way to alienate its friends, while wooing people who will never waver in their hatred? ...
The point is that Mr. Obama’s attempts to avoid confrontation have been counterproductive. His opponents remain filled with a passionate intensity, while his supporters, having received no respect, lack all conviction. ...
Just to be clear, progressives would be foolish to sit out this election: Mr. Obama may not be the politician of their dreams, but his enemies are definitely the stuff of their nightmares. But Mr. Obama has a responsibility, too. He can’t expect strong support from people his administration keeps ignoring and insulting.
Early today the US National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration released its 2009 State of the Climate report drawing on data for 10 key climate indicators that all point to the same finding: the scientific evidence that our world is warming is unmistakable. Read more »
It was a campaign day when nothing seemed to go right for Labor and the Coalition coasted by with barely a problem at all. Watching and listening to the television and radio news bulletins and current affairs shows was to witness a lead disappearing. The saboteurs within the Labor camp keep coming up with ammunition and Laurie Oakes is, sensibly, very happy to fire it. And when you avoid all serious content who can blame the rest of the media following along with enthusiasm.By my count it was the easiest win any side has had in the campaign so far and takes the Coalition to the overall lead for the first time. A few more days like this one and we really will have a contest. Read more »
If it really is working class red-necks in the outer suburbs who are angry with Labor then giving them a bonus trade in on old bombs is probably sensible vote-winning politics. I'm not sure about the environmental advantage of the $2000 for clunkers policy, mind you, but then neither side is the slightest bit interested at the moment in policies that might actually be to the long term good of the country. Everything said and done at the is a a crude appeal for the votes of the unthinking. Saturday's Liberal Party recycling of money for security cameras to "cut down" on suburban crime is another wonderful example of that..
Saturday was another clear campaigning win for the Government. Far too much in the first week of Tony Abbott talking to men in suits and talking about wife and daughters is not going in itself to make him more appealing to women voters.
A clear Labor win on the day and a six point lead for the week. Read more »
Compulsory euthanasia for retired people must surely be the next proposal from environmental groups to save the planet from greenhouse gas emissions. Culling the aged would follow on nicely from the suggestion by the Nature Conservancy and the Pew Environment Group that feral animals be destroyed. Read more »
We all just love being a big bully don't we. Telling those Fijians how they should behave. Respect democracy. Adhere to one man one vote. We'll punish you when you don't.
It's just so good being the big boy in the school yard throwing your weight around on those little fellows. It makes up for having to be the supine coward when we deal with those bigger than us. So while we preach our great principles to the South Pacific we kowtow to the totalitarian Chinese.
Such is diplomatic life.
Fashion writing is finally coming of age. Yesterday afternoon's London Evening Standard: Read more »
Tony Abbott, the conservative politician on the verge of becoming Australia's next Prime Minister has confessed that people should not believe something just because he said it. The only truths of his that are to be believed are those promises that he has actually written down.
And today we learn that the Australian Tony is not the only Tony who feels no guilt about telling porky pies. The long serving British Labour Prime Minister Tony Blair, like Mr Abbott a man who calls himself a devout and practising Roman Catholic, has a similar attitude towards the truth. Read more »
With so many countries - Germany, the United Kingdom, Japan - thinking they can rely on increasing exports to stimulate their growth while cutting back their spending at home to reduce government debt, what is happening in the world's biggest market takes on extra significance. And in the United States the signals are not good as its economy staggers along with unemployment still approaching 10 per cent and growth insufficient to stop it rising further.
These extracts from the article No Clothes - on Tim Duy's Fed Watch website give the flavour of the problems ahead. Read more »
I find myself in agreement with New York Times Op-Ed Columnist Hob Herbert who reminds us that "the goal when fighting any war should be peace, not a permanent simmer of nonstop maiming and killing. Wars are meant to be won," writes Herbert, "— if they have to be fought at all — not endlessly looked after." Yet allowing for a permanent simmering appears to be what the US and its allies like Australia are settling for in Afghanistan. Even the politicians are not trying to kid us that this is a war that the west can actually win. Containment of terrorists - terrorists who have largely moved elsewhere anyhow (see my recent post Australian Troops for Somalia?) - is what the lives of an increasing number of soldiers are being sacrificed for. Read more »
Perhaps the demonstrations in Darwin by the Indonesian crew members who brought boat people to Australia are at last getting the message that being part of the people smuggling business is not a simple way of supplementing a low income. The very fact that they do not like the conditions they are being held under is the best possible way of cutting off the illegal trade. By all means speed up the process of charging them with an illegal activity and transfer them to a Darwin jail from as detention centre after a court appearance but continue to send the message that the price of aiding and abetting people smuggling is being locked up for a long period.
SEE ALSO - Canada attracting Tamils
There is nothing particularly unique about Australia attracting Sri Lankans to arrive by boat uninvited. Canada has become a prized location too and for ship loans rather than small boat loads. Earlier this month 492 Tamil asylum seekers arrived in British Columbia aboard the MV Sun Sea and today the Toronto Globe and Mail reports on the arrival in Thailand of another major group awaiting a suitable ship to take them across the Pacific.

If fighting international terrorism really is the vital matter that both Australia's potential governments maintain then over in the Defence Department they should be drawing up the plans to send our troops to Somalia. Afghanistan, it is now clear, is no longer the centre of the evil Al Qaeda's activities but that does not mean the terrorist threat has disappeared. It has simply moved elsewhere. Read more »
I'm not sure who is actually going to be in charge of the Australian Government in the months ahead. Quite clearly it will not be whoever is the nominal Prime Minister. He or she will be too busy attending the funerals of Australian soldiers killed in Afghanistan.
How we got in to this ridiculous situation where the head of our government attends every military funeral I don't know. I guess it was the John Howard version of spin, an attempt to show he understood the sacrifice that was being made by our army participating in an Iraq war being fought on the basis of the lie that Saddam Hussein's regime was in possession of weapons of mass destruction.
Neither Coalition nor Labor politicians since then have had the courage to confess that they supported sending our soldiers to Iraq to be sacrificed for no reason at all really. None of them have wanted to answer the question posed in today's edition of USA Today: was it worth it? Read more »
So we had an election. And no one has won. Well it's the second rate story anyway. Read more »
What do they mean "unclean"?
If there was an award for the political art of providing media photo opportunities it would surely be no contest. Russian Prime Minister Vladimir Putin would win hands down. The man who is expected to reclaim his former job as the country's President at the next election has mastered the art of using television to cultivate the image, as the Moscow Times put it this week "a rugged leader beloved by the Russian people." Read more »
Outsourced Call Centers Return, To U.S. Homes : NPR:
"For years, Americans have had their phone calls about credit card bills and broken cell phones handled by people in the Philippines or India. But American firms are starting to bring call centers back to the U.S. — and this time around, they are hiring more people to work in their own homes.Ten years ago, it made a lot of sense to outsource these jobs overseas. But that's changing. Increasingly, companies that want to outsource their customer service jobs are happy with these domestic arrangements. Read more »
When fears about the future of the Greek economy were at their highest back in May the gap between the interest rate Germany paid on a 10 year bond and what the Greek Government had to fork out peaked at 9.63 percentage points (or basis points as the experts put it.)
Read more »
At least we won't have to listen to government politicians -- a government of whatever colours -- talking about having a mandate for their actions. Neither the Coalition nor Labor can claim to have one when they both got well under 50% of the primary vote and just about shared the two party preferred measure.
I thought the continuing member for New England Tony Windsor put things nicely in one of his television interview when he could not distinguish between the two alternatives for government, describing them both as nothing more than two sets of career managers after the same jobs.
I'm pleased I don't work for Tony Abbott. In the election campaigns that I helped run we used to call the game over at midday on Friday and adjourn to a decent restaurant where the party leader would shout us lunch. Nothing more we can do, we would say, as we tucked into another bottle.
Not so with this lot of leaders. Tony is so wound up he threatens to keep campaigning right through until 6pm on Saturday! And Julia Gillard waited until Friday night to have dinner with her staff at the Penrith Leagues Club. The Penrith Leagues Club?
Things just ain't what they used to be.
And election campaigns aren't either.
The discussion of ideas, policies for the future, have finally disappeared from the agenda. This election has been the classic demonstration of the truth of that principle that two ice cream sellers on the same beach gravitate towards standing alongside each other in the middle so they can share the market. Read more »
Electoral system provides only an illusion of democracy:
"Party leaders and prime ministers come and go without reference to the voters. There is no mechanism to ensure promises are kept.
The Labor Party is concerned that too many people think it will win Saturday's election and that complacency will convince some of its disappointed normal supporters to make a protest vote in the belief that it is safe to teach it a lesson without there being any danger of the other lot actually being elected. Hence the leaking to television journalists tonight that while in front 52 to 48 on the nationwide vote Labor's internal polling showed a considerable variation between States and between electorates that was putting the Government in danger.
Unless there has been an outbreak of honesty since I had a role in that grubby task of election campaigning there is very little likelihood that such "internal polling" actually exists except in the imagination of the leaker. In my day I certainly conducted most of this kind of survey all on my own and always found exactly the result reported so breathlessly tonight. To me the amazing thing is the eagerness of journalists to believe any nonsense that they can turn into a rattling good yarn. Read more »
The votes are counted. The party's over. You supported a loser. You are now embarrassed to have that bumper sticker on your car. You need help.
Understanding the keen, green nature of my audience I therefore bring you this advice from the Planet Green website:

Rupert Murdoch donates $1m to Republican party - Telegraph: Read more »
"Rupert Murdoch has donated $1 million to the Republican party, more than doubling its fundraising in the second quarter of the year and giving a boost to candidates in the November mid-term elections."
All this whiz-bang business of robo telephone calls soliciting voting intentions from 28,000 people as reported by the Fairfax press this morning has left me reeling. I have not the faintest, foggiest clue as to whether the pollster involved is using a methodology that has a chance of producing an accurate result. I am confident that the Fairfax journalists who have breathlessly reported the findings have no idea either.
Call me old-fashioned but I'm continuing with my commitment to try and put all opinion polls out of my mind as I make my guess about what is happening in the electorates of Australia. The only external guide I take the slightest notice of is the information from the Crikey Election Indicator that measures the opinions of all the participants in a market on the outcome. My leaning towards the market rather than the polls is because experience has shown it to be a slightly better guide as this analysis of the Iowa Electronic Markets run by the business school of the University of Iowa illustrates: Read more »
I know there’s been a bit of biffo in a couple of electorates and some eggs thrown yesterday at a candidate’s car that provoked some minor child abuse but if this campaign is notable for anything it is a lack of real passion. In a perverse kind of way it is this apparent lack of interest that makes the campaign of 2010 such a fascinating one to diehard election watchers like me. I can’t remember any election like it when so few people really care about the outcome that it is difficult to predict the outcome.
Taliban kill couple in public stoning - Telegraph: "A man and woman have been stoned to death in northern Afghanistan after being accused by the Taliban of having an affair."
14 August 2010 A listing of probabilities of victory by party for all House of Representative seats. Small Labor losses the best guess
As the pollsters keep telling us that the Greens are on course to do substantially better at this election than in the past the pundits keep warning us that the eventual Green vote will be less than what is being predicted. Why that is the accepted wisdom of the media experts I'm not sure. Looking at what has happened at recent elections seems to suggest, if anything, that the actual Green vote will be higher than the predicted one rather than the reverse.

The opinion poll figure in the above table is the prediction in the second last Newspoll published before election day. In all four cases the actual Green vote was higher than the prediction. Read more »
Goodness knows what to say about the opinion polls. In the last two days we have had Morgan putting Labor's two party preferred vote share at 57.5% and apparently AC Nielsen in the morning has them on 53%. I just don't believe that public opinion moves in as dramatic a fashion as these and the other pollsters are telling us.
I'll stick with the market as providing the best guide and at midnight it suggested Labor was at about 52.3% nationally. Making a few adjustments to suggest that Labor is doing worse than that in Queensland and NSW and better in Victoria and South Australia the best guess by electorate follows: Read more »
The chat around the tea trolley (or water cooler for you Gen Yers) where those who did have a look give their impressions to their colleagues has an impact as well. So too does the verdict of those on the morning television and radio shows. On this score Wednesday was a good day for Tony Abbott. The conventional part of the day's campaigning was nothing out of the ordinary by him or by Julia Gillard but talking to a group of seemingly quite ordinary Sydney-siders saw the Opposition Leader thrive. He clearly has done this kind of performance before -- as he explained when he descended from the state to be on the same level as his audience.
As a long time print journalist I found it quite depressing the first time I sat behind the one way glass and watched a skilled researcher tease out of people their opinions (or quite often their lack of them) about politics and where they gained their information from. Rare it was to find a swinging voter who was influenced by anything they read in a newspaper. A quick glance at a headline anything to do with politics and the page was turned pronto. And as for party political advertisements they were an absolute no-no paid no attention at all.
I am not really surprised then to find that stories about who has promised what to whom in a day of election campaigning rarely feature in the list of most read items on newspaper websites. The great majority of Australians have other things on their mind that are of far more interest to them. Stories like these that were top of the lists at midnight last night:
Fairfax Sites Read more »
Politicians the world over have a wonderful capacity not to get too worried about a little bit of hypocrisy and of no one is that truer than the Republican Newt Gingrich, who is leading the fundraising pack in the quest for his party's next presidential nomination. Among his many policy claims, Gingrich is a family values man who repeatedly warns that President Obama’s "secular, socialist machine" is threatening to destroy America by undermining the Judeo-Christian "values" upon which the country was built. Read more »
The Liberals went for the footballing vote yesterday with a re-announcement by the candidate for the marginal seat of Corangamite of money to expand the Skilled Stadium home ground of the Geelong Cats. Read more »
I wonder how long it will be before a politician starts making a promise to do something 10 years from now.? Not long probably, as the current lot of promises -- such as Labor's new railway for Sydney's Western suburbs -- have starting dates well into the parliament after next. It really is becoming a nonsense.
As for yesterday's National Press Club debate on the economy all that needs to be said is that it was completely irrelevant. Not a vote will have changed because of it.
Labor has made little effort to date to maximise its share of Green preferences. Read more »
She seems to float from one day to the next outwardly unperturbed by the campaign disasters surrounding her. If she is prone to the temperamental tantrums of her immediate predecessor as Prime Minister she sure is a mistress of disguise. There's an occasional display of tough talking but never a sign of anger and for the casual follower of politics -- and that is the vast majority of Australian voters, especially at this stage of the campaign -- she gives off an aura of being in control. In image terms, yesterday was probably her most successful so far. When appearing on an education stage Ms Gillard she is relaxed and confident and it's hard for a politician to find a better backdrop for the television news than groups of children.
Maybe it’s just relief at no longer looking as if they are facing the near annihilation that the pollsters were indicating last year, but there does seem to be a certain smugness creeping into the attitude of the Coalition with two weeks to go in this election campaign. It is a dangerous thing to happen and the opposition leader Tony Abbott is more to blame than anyone. He just cannot bring himself to consistently play the role of the battling underdog. Even if he occasionally remembers to say it his body language is increasingly that of a man who fancies he will soon be prime minister.
Julia Gillard, Tony Abbott agree to meet under same roof for public forum | News.com.au: Read more »
Friday seemed almost like an old-fashioned election campaign day. The leaders of the two parties getting about their business in the orthodox campaigning way and even talking about an issue or two against the backdrop of their made for television photo opportunity. No a Kevin Rudd or John Howard in sight.
And then came Saturday and election 2010 took on the aspect of Punch and Judy show with Julia Gillard as Judy and Kevin Rudd as Punch until Mark Latham came along to show Kevin how to really play the part of the bully boy. Current affairs television in this country has come to a pretty pass when bitter and twisted men are given prime time to vent their years old spleen. Even more distressing is that the story of the Latham intervention for 60 Minutes quickly became the most read story on the internet news sites. That's almost the first time that has happened in the 23 days of this campaign proper. Read more »
We are given virtual democracy in exchange for real power - Telegraph: "Doubtless to celebrate the arrival of the silly season, the European Parliament has commissioned an online role-playing game called Citzalia which, as the think-tank Open Europe reported last week, allows citizens to imagine that they are participating in the parliament's important work. Citzalia is proclaimed as 'a world you inhabit and help to create. Using your avatar, you can walk around, network, debate issues of the day, propose legislation.'
All this sounds remarkably like the 'virtual democracy' we already have in Westminster, under our new Coalition Government. One of its first acts, you may recall, was to open a website on which voters could propose new laws and policies. Read more »
But back to the main event, where the daily parade of babies, schoolchildren, the aged and the ill keeps getting longer every day. Tweedle dee Gillard and Tweedle dum Abbott give us similar pictures on the television every night. Day-care centres, schools, old folks gathering places and hospitals are it, with the occasional shopping mall for a little variety. By the end of another fortnight we will have seen every one of them in Queensland. Not much in it for yet another night really, and who wins the day depends on what impact the phantom Rudd runner is actually having on the mob.
One thing the government, all the members of it, should start doing is to talk about the Labor government. Forget this business of always personalising it as the Gillard government. Having admitted that its not a one-woman band, get less presidential. At least if they call it the Labor government ministers can selectively pick out the good bits from the record of the past three years without having to mention the dreaded Rudd government words.
Now here’s another thing our campaign could do with?—?a masonic conspiracy theory. Italy has one at the moment as the ruling party of premier Silvio Berlusconi breaks apart over claims of corruption, masonic conspiracies, wire-tap abuses, and attempts to interfere with the courts and free speech. We are a pretty tame lot by comparison.
The quote of the morning just has to be former Foreign Minister Alexander Downer talking about Kevin Rudd: Read more »
I'm sure that in the list of candidates for the Australian election of 21 August there are some pretty odd ball people but I wonder if any can compare with former Marine, Basil Marceaux who is running dead last in a four-way race for Tennessee's GOP gubernatorial nomination. Read more »

Yesterday Julia Gillard continued her macho woman approach by making a threatening, but completely hollow, promise to sack from a future Gillard Cabinet any minister naughty enough to leak details of a Cabinet meeting to a member of the press.Wonderful to see the redhead firing up a little at her press conference yesterday but it would be nice if the new-found passion extended to a few matters of policy too. All the politicians seem to be getting excited about in this campaign is telling us what they will not be doing rather than what they will be doing.
At least one thing has gone right for Labor this week. The consumer price index figures released today by the Australian Bureau of Statistics should put an end to any thoughts the Reserve Bank board might have had about putting up interest rates. Inflation by all the measures is on the way down rather than up and safely inside the range the bank has as its policy goal. Read more »
If you are really beastly careless about what happens on election night but still want to put some excitement into those hours in front of the tele at the Don’s Party equivalent you feel you have to attend then there are a couple of solutions.The first and easiest one is to put an entry into the Read more »
I admit to having difficulty coming to grips with declaring that Labor had a winning Friday on the campaign trail yesterday when the keynote speech of the Prime Minister was full of such fatuous and meaningless spin. Yet give the day to Labor we must because most people will not be judging Julia Gillard on what she actually said but the way she said it. That's the sad truth of politics in the television age and on the box she managed to give the impression of being concerned with the future of the warming planet without offering anything other than more talks about what to do to stop global warming.
Then there was the composure Ms Gillard showed in the face of hostile heckling from students as she plowed on delivering her nothingness. As the security men hauled the demonstrator away she did not miss a beat and will get merit marks for being so unflappable. Read more »
They are wonderful things those economists' models. Tweak a figure here and a figure there and billions of dollars just jump in. We saw that yesterday when Treasurer Wayne Swan gave us his update on economic conditions. Take a cheerful view of future iron ore and coal prices and suddenly things look much better. Thank you China.
But what goes up can also go down so I wish that Treasurer Swan would stop talking as if a projection about what things will be like in two or three years time was some kind of fact. It isn't. It is just today's best guess.
And I wonder how much weight was given to this factor, as reported in the International Herald Tribune, in the latest optimistic modelling? Read more »
They are a bludging lot those Tasmanians. They have significantly fewer people in the workforce as a proportion than any other state - only 58.1% of them in June according to the Australian Bureau of Statistics.The national average is 62% and where the Federal Government rules - the Northern Territory and the Australian Capital Territory - the figures are 71.2% and 70.5% respectively. Those New South Welshmen and South Australians are a pretty slack lot too both being well below the national average. Victoria about holds its own but Queensland and Western Australia clearly are the working states. Read more »
The Trotskyists will be happy. Concern about state capitalism is making a comeback. Read more »