)...a truly dismal campaign .. probably the least inspiring I've ever experienced. (& that's saying something!
;....The risk that Julia Gillard might turn out to be a not-so-good prime minister, nauseously implicit in the weird East Timor shemozzle, the climate change people's assembly idea (are you serious?) and the idea that this woman's strength of character and personal conviction could be overwhelmed so readily by campaign advisers that she would behave like an automaton for two weeks just because they thought it would be a good idea.
The risk, on the other hand, that Tony Abbott might be even worse: a man who changes his mind as regularly as he does his Speedos, who advocated Coalition support for the Government's emissions trading scheme six months before he became personally responsible for blowing it up, who promised no new taxes but then announced a big new one he didn't even mention to his shadow Cabinet because he knew what they'd say and in any event he believes it's better to seek forgiveness than ask permission.
Wow. It's some choice. .....
.....The lack of attention to serious policy issues seems to have been one of the most common complaints about the 2010 federal election. Voters seem apathetic, the media cynical, politicians clueless. Above all, the dominant theme seems to be disengagement: between politicians and voters, between politicians and the media, and between the media and voters. As Hugh McKay asked pointedly on the weekend, "What if the best ad campaign wins an election for its party?"
Many people fear that we have already arrived at just such a place. The widespread unease among voters in this election about the triviality of it all, and the contrived, controlled, photo-opportunity-driven character of the major parties' campaigns sets off a clanging alarm in our heads: has it really come to this? .....
) : ...The five 2PP figures for 2007 and 2010 reported above apply only to the four electorates in each state. They are not 2-party preferred figures for each state, and the Galaxy tables have been very precise in setting out the 4-seats per state nature of the poll.
What someone has done is take the five entries in the 2010 2PP column and average them to get a national figure. Wrong. Very wrong.
There are two serious errors commited here. First, the figures are for four electorates, NOT the states. Second, while the state samples are the same size, the state populations are not. To get a National 2PP figure, you need a weighted average of the state swings, NOT a simple average of the survey 2PPs by state. ....
Saturdays headlines: Labor surges to election winning lead.
Sundays headlines; Swing in marginals enough to give coalition government.
Mondays headlines perhaps; Polls proven reliable according to one poll, unreliable in another. Meanwhile, in other news...
...Broadly speaking, of course.
