The NEXT coming Oz election thread!

.. More!:

If you take polls seriously, this will cheer you up:

ALP would have won April election: poll
April 16, 2005 - 6:04PM/the AGE

Support for the ALP was strong enough at the start of this month for the party to win a federal election, the latest Morgan poll has shown.

The poll says that, in early April, primary support for the ALP rose four percentage points to 43 per cent - more than five percentage points above its result at the October election.

Coalition support fell 3.5 percentage points to 40.5 per cent, almost six percentage points below its election result.

If minor parties preferences were allocated as they were at the 2004 election, the two-party preferred vote would be ALP 53 per cent, and the Liberal and National parties 47 per cent, meaning Labor would have won an early April election.

Support for the Greens was eight per cent (unchanged), Democrats 1.5 per cent (unchanged), Family First 2 per cent (unchanged), One Nation 1.5 per cent (up 0.5 percentage points) and other parties and independent candidates 3.5 per cent (down 1 percentage point).

The poll was conducted after the Reserve Bank put a hold on interest rates and before Prime Minister John Howard announced changes to Medicare

And I reckon it would be stronger after the latest round of new lies.

Yes, probably.

I thought of quitting: Abbott
April 17, 2005 - 10:07AM/the AGE

Health Minister Tony Abbott says the thought of resigning over a broken election promise on Medicare had crossed his mind, but he had not seriously considered ending his political career.

Asked if he had considered resigning after calls from media commentators and Labor for him to do so, Mr Abbott told the Nine Network today: "Not seriously."

Questioned again on whether he had considered it, Mr Abbott said: "Obviously the thought goes through your head."

http://www.theage.com.au/news/National/I-thought-of-quitting-Abbott/2005/04/17/1113676636172.html

Yeah, yeah, sure it did!

But I bet you he'd like to stop all this! It's as if the journalists & cartoonists have only just discovered that the government has lied! And HE'S the one copping the flack! :



Can't be too wonderful for his leadership aspirations, hey?

Michelle Grattan on the behind the scenes wheeling & dealing regarding the Medicare safety net & the aftermath for Abbott, Costello & others:

A three-way backflip, with no safety net
Federal politics
By Michelle Grattan
April 17, 2005/Sunday AGE



Often prime ministers prefer not to deliver bad news, leaving it to their ministers. But it was John Howard, not Health Minister Tony Abbott, who went on Sky News on Thursday to announce the Government was cutting back its Medicare safety net, so breaking a key election promise....

....It is strange that, for a few hundred million dollars over several years, the PM was so willing to have the Government go back on its word. The changes will bring the estimated cost back to $1.16 billion over the four years to 2008-09.

To put it at its most cynical, by the time the scheme would have reached its earlier estimated figure of $1.65 billion, Howard would be long out of the prime ministership....

http://www.theage.com.au/news/Michelle-Grattan/Michelle-Grattan/2005/04/16/1113509966482.html

My bad. I was thinking of the Australian. Oops.

Yeah, but I still wonder just who is ultimately pulling the strings? ... Like at the last election, when the editorial advice (for what that's worth!) was to vote Liberal, when most of the journalists at the AGE where heavily into the "truth in government" thing? I'm wondering who was responsible for pushing that? And why? I guess we can only speculate?

I wouldn't want to be a journalist who upset any proprietor in Australia. Well, not if I had kids and a mortgage anyway. Not that many to choose from. Upset a Murdoch or upset a Fairfax, all the same, neither would employ you.

Yes, I'm sure it's not just Murdoch. John Pilger has written & spoken a lot about the lack of journalistic independence.

<pssst, goodfielder, is that an Eagles jumper? I was wondering & the words were to small to read.>

msolga when it comes to football I am pathetically parochial. It's my SANFL team.

Aaaaaaaaaaaaaah, I see!
I tend to be vary fair minded about these things, in contrast to you







[size=7]Go mighty maggies![/size]





Just kidding! But I used to be a diabolical one-eyed maggie supporter many, many moons ago!

- I couldn't take to the Crows and the other mob, forget it

Fair enough!
I feel rather the same, now that those men in suits have ruined a perfectly good working class game!





(OK, msolga, enough of this frivolous sport stuff!)

Well the players get a better deal now but I've followed that team for 40 years and I'm not jumping ship for a flashier version :wink:

Yes, certainly they get a better deal, money-wise .... but have they become a wee bit, dare I say, creepy, in the process? All that adulation, all those $$$$$, all those "team-building" trips to Bali , all those identical blonde girlfriends ...... :wink:
Nah, I liked the good ol' VFL much, much more! Now, that was about genuine Melbourne inter-neighbourhood warfare, real grudges to be resolved ...!

(And pardon me for asking you if that was an EAGLES jumper! How could I get SA & WA mixed up? Shows how much attention I'm paying to the AFL these days!)

40 years did you say? Now that's loyalty!

Yes it's sterile now. I mean where's the blood in the streets outside the footy ground??? Luckily my team is highly tribal still

Yes they've been in the SANFL since 1964. I only knew about them in 1965 (long story). They used to be hopeless easybeats but it built a sort of perverese pride in their followers. Now they have done well but the groundwork was laid for them (at this stage I am biting my lip and won't mention the AFL club with the state colours....) and they have tradition, recent, but tradition. Hence my signature line - a famous funny incident when the team was getting the whatsit booted out of them and one of the players was being booed by his own supporters but the coach in the break in trying to motivate the team, said the immortal words, "Brendan Maguire is playing quite well".

Maybe Labor should pick up on it " Kym Beazley is playing quite well "

Sounds like a great little team to support! I suppose you've been involved in more life-saving fund raisers than you could wave a stick at? Eternally broke, those teams. Ah, but the sheer exhilaration of surviving for another year!



Kim Beazley is playing quite well.
Yes, that fits! Perfectly.

Our prime minister is visiting in Asia right now ... The Chinese & Japanese governments will be hearing from him!: