Election 2004 - update:
If an election was held tomorrow which way would you vote?
Democrats - 2%
Greens - 22%
Labor - 55%
Liberal - 17%
Other - 2%
Total Votes: 1189
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This is getting interesting .... progress results after but a few hours polling. Mind you, it's the AGE newspaper. I wonder what sort of feedback the Herald/Sun would get today? But even by AGE standards things are looking far more optimistic for Labor.
Adrian wrote:Yeah, but it makes me shudder to think how much extra funding they're going to get after this election. They have already sucked a whole heap of votes out of the Democrats and there are a few Labour seats that will suffer. The more primary votes they get, the more federal funding they get.
I think it's healthy, Adrian. There are many so similarities b/n the Libs & Labor on many important policies & issues. I'm sure that I'm not the only one would like a bit more diversity in Oz politics. As for the Democrats: They can thank Meg Lees & her support of the GST for their slide. A shame.
And I have a lot of respect for Bob Brown & his line on many issues, like education, detention of refugees, etc. Refreshing after all the machine politics that we have to put up with, I think.
It's healthy, for sure. I just don't like greenies very much. Bob Brown talks the talk, but most of it is rather myopic.
Adrian wrote:It's healthy, for sure. I just don't like greenies very much. Bob Brown talks the talk, but most of it is rather myopic.
I have to disagree with you, Adrian. I find him a refreshingly honest change after Howard's weasal words, to starters. And As for Latham: He's a good communicator, certainly far superior to Crean, but I'm still waiting for more policy details. I think he's being a little too cautious at the moment, no doubt because of all the fall out over the "anti US" allegations.
Bob Brown honest? I think not. Latham isn't going to show li'l Johny anymore of his cards until the election is called and he gets his hands on all the treasury figures. They need to check the sums all add up because the Liberals are champions at finding any mistakes.
It's getting a bit like that.
Adrian wrote:Bob Brown honest? I think not. Latham isn't going to show li'l Johny anymore of his cards until the election is called and he gets his hands on all the treasury figures. They need to check the sums all add up because the Liberals are champions at finding any mistakes.
Adrian, we disagree on Bob Brown. I admire him.
I keep hearing this stuff about Latham not wanting to show his hand too early re ALP policies .... The thing that bothers me is that he may leave his run too late. And have to do his electioneering on the run, maybe not in the best of circumstances..
And who can say when Howard will call this bloody election, anyway?
After today's news on children overboard I suspect that it'll be delayed, assuming that they had already chosen a date. Howard has up till April to choose a date from.
It's crazy that we don't have fixed election dates! It's outrageous that the incumbent government can have so much advantage!
I think Latham is doing the right thing. He's already got a pretty good position in the polls so why risk that when you don't even know when the election is going to be. Thats what Beazley did last time and we all know where that got him.....
Beazley was doing really well before the "children overboard" scare campaign. That just overwhelmed everything.
In my own opinion, Labor would have a bit more substance if they announced a few more policies soon.
I've got to go now. It's been a pleasure talking to you, Adrian. Usually I talk to myself on this thread
!
If an election was held tomorrow which way would you vote?
In private, I understand that it's my right.
Latham gets poll-leading boost
By Dennis Shanahan
August 17, 2004
MARK Latham has led Labor to a revival after two weeks of political wrangling over the US free trade agreement.
Labor now has an election-winning lead over the Coalition, 54 to 46 per cent on a two-party preferred basis, after a slump in support for the Government and John Howard.
After a parliamentary sitting during which the Government hoped to turn its trade pact with the US to political gold, the Opposition Leader's spoiling tactics have boosted the ALP and killed all speculation of an Olympics election campaign.
Yesterday, the Prime Minister, embroiled in another political bushfire about the children overboard affair, even suggested the election could be held in late November, after the US election, as polling suggests a highly volatile electorate.
Mr Howard said he did not 'think people really want to have the Olympics interrupted by too much politics'.
'I note that people keep saying you can't have the Australian election after the American election. Well, some people will think that, some people will think not,' he said on Sydney radio station 2UE.
According to the latest Newspoll survey, conducted exclusively for The Australian last weekend, the Coalition's primary vote fell from 45 per cent before the parliamentary sitting to 39 per cent, and Labor's rose two points to 42 per cent.
It is the first time since mid-June that Labor has been equal with or better than the Howard Government's primary vote, and second preferences are running heavily in Labor's favour: 54 to 46 per cent.
Mr Howard's personal support also fell with his satisfaction rating falling four points to 50 per cent, its lowest since last October, and his preferred prime minister figure also falling four points to 47 per cent, its lowest since March.
After campaigning for amendments to the FTA to protect Australian actors and provide more protection to generic drug manufacturers, Mr Latham's satisfaction rating rose from 47 to 51 per cent, his highest since June, and he rose two points to 36 per cent as preferred prime minister.
At the last election the Coalition received 43.1 per cent of the primary vote and Labor 37.8 per cent, after the distribution of preferences the Coalition finished with 51 to Labor's 49 per cent.
Continued polling volatility suggests the electorate is reacting to political issues but has not yet made up its mind on whom to vote for.
There is evidence in the Newspoll surveys that while people are disenchanted with Mr Howard and the third-term Coalition Government, they are not all necessarily switching to Mr Latham's Labor Party.
Although Coalition primary support dropped six points Labor's only rose two and the "others" category, which does not include the Democrats or Greens, rose to 11 per cent, the highest since January.
On the question of better Prime Minister Mr Howard's support fell four points but Mr Latham's only rose two, with uncommitted voters rising two points as well.
When asked who they think will win the next election far more people, 46 to 30 per cent, said the Coalition rather than Labor.
The Australian
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"Yesterday, the Prime Minister, embroiled in another political bushfire about the children overboard affair, even suggested the election could be held in late November, after the US election, as polling suggests a highly volatile electorate."
Bring on fixed election dates! This PM has been playing the media & the electorate along about possible election dates for months now. In the less than ideal circumstances in which he finds himself at the moment, his choice is obvious: hold the election at a more favourable time .... after all this (children overboard, etc.) has settled & the polls are looking better for him. What a way to run the country!
Same old excuse: He didn't know! AND the current concerns are all about sour grapes & Labor losing the 2001 election! Nothing what-so-ever about truth & integrity!
This is really very, very sad ..... We deserve so much better than this:
PM blames debate on 'sour grapes'
August 17, 2004 - 11:36AM/THE AGE
Renewed debate on the children overboard affair was more about Labor sour grapes after losing the 2001 election than getting to the truth, Prime Minister John Howard said.
Former senior bureaucrat Mike Scrafton yesterday revealed he told Mr Howard that neither photographs nor video footage supported claims that children were thrown overboard from the refugee boat, known as SIEV4, just days before the 2001 election.
A Senate inquiry found in October 2002 that no children had been thrown overboard and former defence minister Peter Reith, for whom Mr Scrafton worked, had deliberately lied about the incident during the 2001 election campaign.
But the inquiry was unable to find if Mr Howard was aware the children overboard claims were false.
Labor has called for Mr Howard to apologise to the Australian people over maintaining that children were thrown overboard in the days leading up to the 2001 election.
But Mr Howard said today Labor was still mad about losing the election, which the coalition won on the basis of border protection and other policies.
"It was the strong stand that the government had taken on border protection that was important," Mr Howard told ABC NewsRadio today.
"If children overboard had never been an issue, I don't believe the result of the campaign would have been any different.
"But in the nature of politics where you lose you've got to invent a reason why you were robbed, you've got to invent a reason why you were defeated.
"We won the election on a whole range of issues."
Mr Howard has also disputed Labor claims that he told ABC TV's Four Corners program in March 2002 he had discussed the nature of photographs of the children overboard incident with Mr Scrafton.
Labor senator John Faulkner released a transcript of Mr Howard's interview in which the prime minister said: "I had some discussion with a member of his (Peter Reith's) staff who had viewed the video. There was, in the terms that I've already explained, a reference to the debate about the photographs".
Mr Howard said he was referring to a discussion he had had with Mr Reith about the photographs.
"I did not discuss photographs with Scrafton," he said.
"I was not admitting in the Four Corners program that I discussed photographs with Scrafton.
"Mr Latham and Mr Faulkner both know that and they are deliberating misrepresenting, for their own political purposes, that conversation."
Mr Howard said he was satisfied now that children were not thrown overboard.
"I'm satisfied on the advice that came out later, particularly the view that was expressed by Air Marshal Houston ... that (the children overboard claim) was wrong," he said.
"But I do know that the belief at the time was that it had happened. We were told that and that is why I made the claim."
- AAP
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OPINION
Patrick Weller: Truth lies in murky waters
August 17, 2004/The Australian newspaper
WHAT did leaders know and when were they told? These questions lie at the heart of many investigations into government. Hearings on the Watergate, Iran-contra and Whitewater scandals during the past three decades sought to implicate American presidents; only the first found the smoking gun that forced a president from power. The question is important because it asks if our leaders tell us the truth.
Last week 43 senior officials bemoaned the decline of truth in government. Now one of the key players in the children overboard affair, former senior public servant and ministerial adviser Mike Scrafton, has added to the furore. He declared in a letter to The Australian that he did tell Prime Minister John Howard that the photos released as evidence of children overboard were really taken when the boat was sinking and that no one in defence believed that children were actually thrown overboard. He also says he raised doubts about an Office of National Assessments report, suggesting it was based on ministerial statements, not defence intelligence.
The Prime Minister denies he talked about anything except a video that, according to the minister, the retiring Peter Reith, provided evidence of refugees throwing their children overboard. He said in February 2002 that if he had received "contrary advice [that the initial story was wrong], I would have made that contrary advice public".
Four days before the 2001 election, on November 7, The Australian raised doubts about the truth of the whole affair, based on evidence from HMAS Adelaide. In response to the story, the acting chief of defence, Angus Houston, told his minister there was no evidence to support the story.
The minister instructed Scrafton to view the video and told him the Prime Minister would ring. There were then two or three calls. What do we know of these phone calls? It is on the record Scrafton told the Prime Minister that the video was inconclusive. The next day the video was released.
The question is: What else, if anything, was discussed? In evidence to one of the inquiries, Scrafton said he had "been involved in or was aware of a number of discussions between Mr Reith's office and the Prime Minister's office and the Prime Minister, which he could not discuss". He was prepared to reveal the section about the video to the inquiry; in February 2002, the Prime Minister had confirmed those details in parliament. Yet the Prime Minister's office was still worried about these calls two months later.
When Jennifer Bryant, the author of the inquiry established by the Prime Minister, appeared before the Senate inquiry, she revealed she had been contacted by the Prime Minister's office. The office wanted to confirm that Scrafton would not talk about those conversations and suggested he be contacted again to confirm it. Bryant thought it would be imprudent. Clearly there was some concern about the content of the calls, over and above what had already been released about the video. Perhaps we now know why. Furthermore, the government strategy seems to have changed after the calls. The story of children overboard had disappeared as a live story a week after the event; its resuscitation threatened the Government's credibility.
At the Press Club on the day after the calls, the Prime Minister relied heavily on the ONA report to defend his Government's position. In effect, Howard quoted the ONA, which quoted his ministers as support for a story for which there was by then no other evidence. Not until after the election did the ONA confirm in writing Scrafton's concern that the report was indeed only quoting ministers.
Howard further argued he and his ministers had been advised by the navy that these incidents had happened and that they were justified in relying on that advice. He did not claim that the story was true, just that he had been told the story by the navy and used it in good faith.
By election day, indeed, the Prime Minister was arguing he still believed the story because defence had told ministers it was true and had not provided contrary advice. No one was actively promoting the idea that refugees had thrown children overboard. But that was not the impression most people might have had. The image created in those first few days of the campaign was indelibly imprinted on the election campaign.
Thereafter the devil was in the detail of the statements; the Government was justified in its stance as it had never been given formal written advice that the events had not occurred.
Why should it accept verbal advice that no one believed the incident had happened when it was waiting for formal written confirmation that never came? Besides, no one in the minister's office trusted defence to get the details right. It was convenient to fudge, to leave a false impression.
What was being said -- we were advised it had happened; we had a right to believe that advice; no one has given us formal advice to the contrary -- was the truth but not the whole truth. The story had shifted. That is being economical with the truth in the real sense of the term: to be selective in order to provide a picture that misleads.
What the public knows depends all too often on what part of the truth our governments choose to tell.
As William Blake wrote:
A truth that's told with bad intent
Beats all the lies you can invent.
Patrick Weller, a professor of politics at Griffith University in Brisbane, is author of Don't Tell the Prime Minister (Scribe, 2002).
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