2007 Federal Election - Coalition or Labor/Howard or Rudd? (4 Viewers)

[Triangulum]

http://www.theaustralian.news.com.au/story/0,25197,22731032-12377,00.html

A UNION is distributing condoms in a campaign against the Federal Government's industrial relations (IR) laws.

The Construction, Forestry, Mining and Energy Union (CFMEU) has begun handing out the condoms outside north Queensland nightclubs.

The condoms are contained in a cardboard wrapper with slogans such as: "This election, don't let lil' Johnny slide back in!"

Other slogans include: "SAFE SEX: The best type of union" and "This election make sure you're well protected!".

A spokeswoman for Workplace Relations Minister Joe Hockey, who visited the north Queensland city of Townsville today, said the unions had reached a "new low".

"This is another example of how the unions and Labor are treating this campaign as a joke," Mr Hockey's said.

"This is not funny – this tacky, tasteless stunt is typical of the unions' and Labor's campaign."

CFMEU Queensland secretary for mining and energy Jim Valery said it was a novel way of promoting a message about the dangers of the current workplace laws.

"We could buys ads in the paper but we decided to do a health thing," Mr Valery said.

"It's 2007 – it's not as if a condom is a totally unheard of thing.

"It's all a bit of fun."

...

He said those giving out the condoms had to stick by strict rules.

Male union organisers could only give them to other men and only female organisers could give them to women.

The condoms were only given out over a period of about an hour before midnight.

 

[jb_nc]

Re: 2007 Federal Election - Coalition or Labor/Howard or Beazley?

The first Morgan Poll since this week’s interest rate rise (interviewing conducted by telephone November 7/8) finds the ALP has a 12% lead on a two-party preferred basis: ALP 56% (up 1.5% from the last telephone Morgan Poll on October 24/25), L-NP 44% (down 1.5%).

However, the face-to-face Morgan Poll conducted last weekend (November 3/4) showed the ALP with a record lead of 24% (62% cf. 38%). Although this was before the increase in interest rates, the latest CPI figure had been released, foreshadowing a likely interest rate rise. It was also after Tony Abbott made derogatory remarks about asbestos sufferer Bernie Banton, as well as turning up late for his debate with Nicola Roxon, in which he was caught swearing on camera.

The ALP would win in a landslide if the Federal election were to be held now, the latest Morgan Polls finds.

http://www.roymorgan.com/news/polls/2007/4237/

This would be the result of the TPP: http://www.abc.net.au/elections/fed...wa=0&sa=0&tas=0&act=0&nt=0&retiringfactor=1.5

 

[Rafy]

You really take Morgan seriously?

3 polls were conducted last weekend:
Newspoll 53/47
Galaxy 54/46
Morgan 62/38

The morgan phone poll also released today was 56/44.

Morgan is the laughing stock of the polling world. (There is a reason the media have completely ignored them for the last 7 years)

 

[jb_nc]

You really take Morgan seriously?

3 polls were conducted last weekend:
Newspoll 53/47
Galaxy 54/46
Morgan 62/38

The morgan phone poll also released today was 56/44.

Morgan is the laughing stock of the polling world. (There is a reason the media have completely ignored them for the last 7 years)

While it's obviously not true I still think it would be hilarious.

 

[Generator]

Touche, but I get quite angry at the misuse of incumbency by Labor people as well. (I wasn't even aware that members were allowed to use their allowances once the campaign has begun.)

Belated response to a post that appeared last month -

Brace yourselves, the campaign is about to begin

Better late than never, and though I'm fairly certain that you have already seen the piece in question, I thought that it would be best to post the link so that the other members of the forum could be made aware of this sad state of affairs.

 

[Triangulum]

Labor's HTV cards for each electorate are available here. Can't find anything equivalent on the Liberal site.

Edit: in my electorate they've put the CDP 5th out of 8, which is way higher than they deserve. Not that it matters at all, but still.

 

[Triangulum]

Glenn Milne says that ALP ads for the final fortnight will target Howard's retirement:

The research will drive a new Labor advertising campaign featuring a picture of an untrustworthy-looking Mr Howard with the words, "He's retiring", and a stamp stating, "It's official".

A confidential report to Labor's campaign director Tim Gartrell, from the party's national campaign research and analysis team, says: "Retirement a negative for Howard - blocker for Government future messaging: Working through the focus groups is a growing sense of the ridiculous in the situation: Howard is saying 'vote for me, I'm better able to manage the future' but that he will then retire. Swinging voters are struggling to see the logic in Howard's position."

According to the ALP research, the Prime Minister's retirement is now seen as one of the top "worries" among swinging voters. Voters were asked to rate the issue on a scale from 0 to 10 with an 8 to 10 score rating as "intense".

Forty per cent of voters rated the Prime Minister's announced departure as an "intense" concern, putting Mr Howard's retirement in the top bracket of voters' worries about voting for the Coalition.

http://www.news.com.au/couriermail/story/0,23739,22737604-952,00.html

 

[Smithereens]

Thats what the people from Insiders said this morning. The commercial with that same woman on the interest rates rise- is now on about Costello.

 

[withoutaface]

The ALP have run ads for the last two elections about Costello potentially becoming PM, and they haven't made an iota of difference.

 

[Triangulum]

The ALP have run ads for the last two elections about Costello potentially becoming PM, and they haven't made an iota of difference.

I tend to agree with that. Then again, maybe the confirmation that Howard is retiring will crystallise the issue in the voters' minds.

 

[jb_nc]

The ALP have run ads for the last two elections about Costello potentially becoming PM, and they haven't made an iota of difference.

I think they didn't matter because that was potentially. This time it is definite that John Howard is going to retire through the term and hand over to Costello or someone else, but he has said Mr Costello himself.

I think that will matter because no one likes Mr Costello.

 

[Triangulum]

Here's the ad. It isn't very heavy on Costello, but it makes the point, among various education, climate change, interest rate messages, that a vote for John Howard is a vote for smirky.

 

[withoutaface]

Parody Ad: You wouldn't steal a tax policy.

 

[_dhj_]

I think we're at the point where the coalition cannot win. But it can make spending promises that Labor has to match, allowing it to dictate Labor policy for at least Rudd's first term.

 

[Triangulum]

I think we're at the point where the coalition cannot win. But it can make spending promises that Labor has to match, allowing it to dictate Labor policy for at least Rudd's first term.

Unless Rudd gets his non-core promise on and says that he'll have to abandon some spending because of inflation.

 

[Iron]

I think we're at the point where the coalition cannot win. But it can make spending promises that Labor has to match, allowing it to dictate Labor policy for at least Rudd's first term.

How bold!
I'm trying to stay humble and say that we'll probably just fall short - so the victory if it does come, Rudd willing, will be all the sweeter.

 

[Triangulum]

While I disagree that the Coalition can't win, I think that they're very unlikely to. Their campaign seems to be in neutral, they're running scare ads that are getting so overwrought they're almost ridiculous and they can't get a coherent line on inflation and interest rates (witness Minchin shooting his mouth off today about skills).

On the topic of the liberal campaign, there's an interesting article in this week's Bulletin that people might want to have a read of. Lots of good stuff in the Bulletin during election campaigns, just ignore the idiotic spewings of Rob "I was Queensland premier for two years, that makes me an Experienced Political Operative" Borbidge. The article's apparently not on their website, but here are some extracts:

At [Liberal campaign HQ at] No. 120, Collins St [Melbourne], the mood is prone to rapid oscillation, from elation at the delivery of an appalling - as opposed to just another catastrophic - poll, to depression, disbelief and downright outrage at the jackass behaviour of, say, Tony Abbott or Malcolm Turnbull.

...

Howard parked himself in Melbourne for four full days and nights. It's little wonder why. For he and his team had to confront the horror of - and formulate a strategy to deal with - what was then this week's likely interest-rate rise. And there was also another good reason to stop in Melbourne. More Liberal research showed the party was in danger of losing a swag of outer-Melbourne and Victorian seats, including McMillan, La Trobe, McEwen, Deakin and Corangamite. Frighteningly for the Liberals, all these seats are held by margins of at least 5% - higher than the 4.8% swing Labor must record if it is to win back the 16 seats it needs to form government.

"It was clear that by the end of that second week, we weren't travelling well at all, even if the wheels weren't quite falling off," says a Liberal source. "We just weren't moving."

For the next four days, Howard hunkered down in Melbourne with his campaign director, Brian Loughnane, his advertising team Ted Horton and Mark Pearson, his pollster Mark Textor, and key members of his tactics team, including Darcy Tronson and John Gaul, who has worked on every federal campaign for the Liberals since 1972.

Tronson, a former principal private secretary to Malcolm Fraser and one-time chief of staff to two Liberal premiers, has been a Liberal strategist for 30 years. Liberal frontbencher Andrew Robb was also on hand throughout the week. Alexander Downer was frequently called on for advice.

Downer is one of their strategists? No wonder the campaign is floundering.

...

Last week in Melbourne, Howard and his advertising team formulated a new series of attack ads predicated on a rates rise this week. It's a brazen, some would say desperate, strategy that seeks to exploit any rates rise as a product of a new economic uncertainty that is out of its hand. They will pose the audacious question: Can you trust Labor to manage the economy in such circumstances?

Howard gave us a sneak preview of this strategy at the weekend, when he said: "I would say to the Australian people: there are inflationary pressures in the economy which put pressure on interest rates. Is this a time to hand over to a party that has an inflationary industrial relations policy? It has a policy that will lead to a potential wages surge, not based on productivity, but simply based on a new industrial relations system ..."

Got that? Here's what the government is now saying: interest rates have gone up all those times since the last election. But the inflationary pressure is not our fault. However, if rates go up under a Labor government, it will be their fault alone.

"They are desperate and they are in very deep shit indeed to be trying this one on," says a senior Labor figure.

Labor and the government are both armed with research showing exactly the same thing, namely that the government, for the first time in 11 1/2 years, is widely exposed on the "affordability" issue.

...

For its part, Labor is about to mount its own final fortnight of attack ads, pitched squarely on the back of the "affordability" question. How, they will ask, will you cope with another interest rates rise after the government has already done away with your overtime through WorkChoices?

Howard is in uncharted, unfriendly territory on interest rates for a prime minister in an election campaign. For just as climate change became a negative, albeit fleetingly, for Labor during the campaign's third week, the economy could now become Howard's Achilles heel as the campaign closes.

It must be very worrying for the liberals that people are starting to talk about the campaign beginning to reach a close or 'the endgame'. Unless the polls in the next couple of days show consistent 52s and 53s they're going to start being written off.

 

[Iron]

Triangulum, thankyou for your contributions on the election. They're great!
But please change your avatar. It's hideous!
Sincerely,
etc

 

[Triangulum]

Triangulum, thankyou for your contributions on the election. They're great!
But please change your avatar. It's hideous!
Sincerely,
etc

I was actually considering changing it, but now I'm going to leave it just to spite you.

 

[withoutaface]

Newspoll at 55/45. This is very bad news.

TPP needs to be brought down below 52 for the marginal seat strategies to work...