Really, I thought to myself, or was it the fact that a Newspoll result was due to be published on Monday and would be sure to show the government behind yet again. It has now been 3 years since a Newspoll has had them in the lead.
Or is the real reason the Prime Minister didn’t visit the Governor General last weekend that a flaccid budget with an election announcement, followed by more bad polling, would not have been a self-confident look?
And so it came to pass that both the IPSOS 53/47 and Newspoll 52/48 showed Labor in an election-winning position.
So, had Morrison announced the election on Sunday it would have been followed by these polls on Monday and Essential on Tuesday?
As it stands he has another week to spend $600,000 a day on advertising and travel paid for out of the public purse and of course his daily ritual of calling the Opposition Leader a liar.
The other point that escapes most people is that with school holidays bleeding into Easter a fair portion of the population will be politically asleep.
The Poll Bludger had this to say:
Ordinarily I would point out that a two-point movement from Newspoll is a rare occurrence, which close observers of the polling industry suspect is down to Newspoll smoothing its numbers with some variety of rolling average, in which the results of the previous poll are combined with those of the latest.
The bookies have Labor’s odds at $1.16 and the LNP $5.00.
Of the budget, I can only say that other than the tax cuts that favoured higher paid workers I truly cannot remember, other than hearing the words “so tonight I can announce” so many times that my memory is greatly tested as to anything that stood out like the proverbial dog’s balls.
Yes, I do remember that after the budget the government decided that Newstart recipients and some other cohorts would also receive the Energy Supplement. All sorts of reasons have been suggested as to why they were left off but my own theory is that the opposition and the cross benches were prepared to put forward amendments that would see the government once again defeated on the floor of the house.
Actually, my memory is more conversant with what the budget didn’t deliver on.
Climate and energy, for example. The government seems to have abandoned any prospect of a policy on climate change.
Freydenberg raved on about a surplus that may or may not even eventuate as though the word had suddenly been rediscovered.
And it has only come about because of a collapsed tailing’s dam at a Brazilian iron ore mine that resulted also in the collapse of the mine’s output. In turn, it filled the Australian treasury vaults with rivers of gold.
Conversely, Opposition Leader Bill Shorten made a bigger impact with his address in reply. It is a pity that hardly anyone ever watches a budget in reply speech. Had they, they would have witnessed a calm reasoned politician whose delivery has immensely improved.
He made it blatantly clear that philosophical differences now exist between the two parties in terms of both economic and social policy development for this election. Labor has chosen to build on the things that matter to communities like health and education.
He wants an old fashioned Labor Party that merges with the problems of a modern complex society. Including in economics.
His compassionate policy on cancer proves beyond doubt that a Shorten government will be one for the people.
“Cancer not only makes you sick it makes you poor.”
With the public craving authentic people Labor has to hope that eventually, the Shorten haters will come on board.
When Freydenberg delivered his budget he sounded like he was at the annual meeting of a large corporation reading its annual report.
And this is something that conservatives seem utterly incapable of grasping! We live in a society, not an economy.
The Clayton’s campaign has been running for months now. Ask yourself this: If the government won another term and the, for now, hidden infighting and disunity, were to erupt again, which it most certainly would, then a collapse of our already fragile democracy would be inevitable?
From the voters perspective, it would mean that they didn’t care if the Government was arguably Australia’s most cooked parliament in history.
According to Newspoll Labor will win 82 seats. According to the Fairfax poll, 87 seats. Assuming a uniform swing, 76 seats are needed for a majority government. Labor only needs a uniform swing of about 1% to win a majority government. The good news for Labor, however, is that re-distributions for the next election would appear to gift Labor with three extra seats.
At present the LNP has 73 seats to Labor’s 71, meaning they don’t have a buffer against losses.
A 3% swing to Labor would lead to senior ministers Peter Dutton and David Coleman losing their seats. However:
The most telling number in a recent Australian Electoral Study group is the closing of the gap between those who voted traditionally for the same party and those who considered voting for another party. That tally of rusted-on voters is down to 40 per cent from 63 per cent in 1987 and 72 per cent in 1967.
With the public utterly disgusted with the behaviour of our politicians, trust will play an important part in the election. They hunger for a civil debate around the issues and want rid of all the name-calling, the lies, half-truths and uncouth comments, the exaggeration and self-interest.
Morrison’s repetitively calling Shorten a liar is uncalled for and may have a negative response.
So Labor, honestly, they can lecture nobody about anything. Labor are about lies and higher taxes.
Initially, the most important thing in this election cycle is that this current rotten lot of LNP politicians are turfed out. Australia cannot afford another three years of instability, pointless drifting like a ship without a rudder, without leadership wrangles every few months. It has to end and it’s in the control of the voters to end it.
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An observation
Current experience would suggest that the Australian people need to take more care when electing its leaders.
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We need a government that respects the institutions and conventions of our parliament. We are in a period where the very institution of democracy itself is in such a precarious position that it could collapse under the weight of bad politicians and bad politics.
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An observation
I find it impossible to imagine that the Australian people would be so gullible as to elect for a third term a government that has performed so miserably in the first two. But they just might.
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Political history around the world is recording a moment in time where terrifying events are taking place.
We have a self-absorbed narcissist in the White House and because of Brexit, the live action collapse of the British government is possible.
Shorten, although not popular, is a thinker on policy and a leader with 6 hard years under his belt. He affords us the opportunity to make over our democracy. Instil fairness into it and intercede in all the rorting and corruption that has taken place over the past 6 years.
The Abbott, Turnbull and Morisson governments have been a mixture of blind incompetence and outright greed, where simply doing the right thing by people became a step too far but advancing the lot of the wealthy and privileged was always a lightweight to lift.
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An observation
Never in the history of this nation have the rich and the privileged been so openly brazen.
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My thought for the day
The peoples of all the nations of the world increasingly seem to be having less to say about their own destiny.
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