Campaign countdown: deal done, but will it count?

Bruce says:

11:20am | 21/06/10

Yep !!  I read the article in the “Spectator”. Pretty much sums up rudd. I would also refer to Mark Lathams book and his comments about rudd. Lathams book is a great read. It really does make you wonder why the labor party would have picked rudd over gillard for the leaders position before the last federal election. Gillard would have won the last federal election easily.

John A Neve says:

12:00pm | 21/06/10

Old Clive,

I am surprised by your comments, do you mean that after many years of coalition rule, we still have people who “can(not), read and think”?
Surely this is a “blot on our political” conservative parties?

If there is in fact, a “blot on our political landscape”, I’d suggest it is caused by those rusted on party supporters. What do you think (if you can) Old Clive?

Old Clive says:

01:31pm | 21/06/10

Oh Dear naieve nevee.When I was in primary school we had syntax, I am not a bible basher by any means but now we have sin tax, homosexuals are gay and normal perople are homophobtc, but to answer your question, the population managed to struggle up to a decent standard of living after the reign of Hawke and Keating,then they were bombarded by paid actors playing out the role of disgruntled battlers during the last election campaign, and for the past 2 and 1/2 years we have been subjected to actors trying to play the role of government. They had 10years to learn what government was all about but like most of the electorate they don’t know how to think or read or else they would not have made so many mistakes on the policies that they made up on the run. If you go to the T.A.F.E. in Hervey Bay they may be able to teach you to think properly, but al lkast tou have nailed your flag to the mast.

Wayne Fehlhaber says:

01:41pm | 21/06/10

John Neve :  No old mate , that’s not what Old Clive meant. What he is telling us is that it took only 2.5 years to see that the Rudd devastation was a” blot on our political landscape “.
Judging by the N.S.W. by- election result and later comments from voters , most of the Australian electorate has seen fit to remove the blot.

Wayne Fehlhaber says:

08:55am | 21/06/10

persephone , the reality is that Labor’s primary vote is stagnant , and the 2pp is not a good support post for Labor after seeing the results of the Penrith by-election.
The defacto Labor/ Green vote may not save Rudd’s skin after all

watchingwithinterest says:

09:00am | 21/06/10

Perse,

The 2PPP is irrevelant and you know it.  It assumes that those that vote green will preference labor 2nd on the same basis as they did at the last election.  The fact that the green vote has more than doubled since the last election makes this highly improbable.

TELSTRA: I just see more of the same. Labor has fixed their difficulty with Telstra by doing what they always do and that is throw BILLIONS of dollars at a problem until it goes away.  What about value for money? Labor is not providing details on how this figure was arrived at and on their past efforts it is hard to draw any other conclusion than that they would have paid too much.  if they could show value for money they would be waving the details around for all to see.

Penrith irrevelant - that is so ALP wishful thinking.  If you really want to help the ALP I suggest you get your head out of the sand, be objective and start telling your local member what they need to hear instead of what they want to hear.  The first step in making things right are admitting that they are wrong

Philip Crowley says:

10:37am | 21/06/10

I have it on no authority that the goddess of the unconscious, of intuition and mystery is a Hawker Britton plant ;]

Passing Wind says:

10:41am | 21/06/10

Don’t worry so much, Perse. No doubt you will be out wearing your Green or Family First T-shirt conning the voters.

(Premier Kristina) Keneally was accosted by Greens campaigners during her visit and shown leaflets telling Greens voters to give their preferences to (Labor’s) Mr Thain. The Greens alleged the slips were handed out by ALP members who were not wearing official T-shirts - a grab for preference votes as part of a ‘’dirty tricks’’ campaign.

And no mention of Labor on the how-to-vote card, either.

Two months ago we saw the same Labor cheating in South Australia.

Nath says:

11:31am | 21/06/10

You do realise the Telstra agreement is NON BINDING, meaning Telstra can pull out anytime they want. Its a good thing to hold over the Governments head in the future.

persephone says:

05:50pm | 21/06/10

Wayne

you’d kill for the Libs to have that 2PP and you know it.

NSW is part of the polling figures, and there’s no sign that voters are blaming Rudd for State Labor’s failings.

We know - and by that I mean ‘you and me’ - that State elections and Federal elections are two different things.

I’m willing to concede anything anyone likes about NSW Labor but there’s little evidence their woes are depressing the Federal vote.

watchingwith interest

the 2PP vote is calculated the way it always has been. Didn’t see anyone complaining about this when it favoured Abbott.

Allocating preferences according to past election trends has always been shown to be more accurate in predicting election outcomes than gettiing people to allocate them themselves.

And the deal with Telstra will mean the saving of billions of dollars, as the government was quite determined to continue rolling out the NBN on their own if necessary, which would have resulted in a duplication of services (not necessarily a bad thing if you believe in competition, but costly for taxpayers).

So this deal saves money, by reducing duplication.

PC

that adds so much to the debate, doesn’t it?

Accusations like this suggest to me that people think I’‘m so good I must be a professional (hint: the timing of my posts today shows that I’ve been elsewhere all day; further hint; might have something to do with doing real work) and further, that they have no answer to my arguments.

Keep them up, they’re good for my morale.

PW

no, I won’t be.

Nath

you do realise that’s irrelevant to whether or not it’s a good initiative or not?

persephone says:

05:54pm | 21/06/10

Oh, and given the only arguments put up here are about the Telstra deal, I take it everyone agrees with me that paid parental leave, the improving economy, steady interest rates and low unemployment rates are all Labor achievements?

And no one defends poor little Alex. Shame!

Or argues against the proposition Abbott’s pulling the Liberal vote down.

All very interesting.

Aitch B says:

08:08pm | 21/06/10

No, Pers….. I’m sure many do disagree but are tired of the same old same old Persephone tilt on politics and can’t be bothered.

All very predictable and often uninteresting.

Wayne Fehlhaber says:

08:20pm | 21/06/10

persephone :  like you said , you know and i know .  The 2pp is based on the trend in the previous election which certainly won’t be the same this time round. The 2pp trend which showed up in the weekend by-election shows a fall away from Labor , translate that result to the federal election and…......... Its a reality check for Labor perse.
The Greens increased primary vote ensures that there will be a sizeable
leakage to the Libs and others.  2pp is too difficult for pollsters to work and they can only rely on the last results available to them .
The evidence of a depression of Labor’s federal vote is borne out by comments from people out and about voting on Saturday in N.S.W.
There were several news clips relating to the peoples views at the polling booths. Im sure you would have seen those presentations during the weekend.

Joan says:

08:20am | 21/06/10

Yeah, big spend and buy-off by Rudd as always,  and as always Rudd crows with little or no detail.  Why does anyone listen to this guy as he presents his half-baked proposals as a fait accompli.? Rudds costly half-baked proposals and flops wouldn’t get to base one at Masterchef. Has anyone toted up the billions Rudd has spent or promised to spend since the begining of the year?

Ben says:

01:55pm | 21/06/10

Just because (you think) the big miners are interested soley in their profits, doesn’t negatate the need for negotiation and consultation.

Evan Findlay says:

02:35pm | 21/06/10

Ben, you completely missed the crux of my argument. I never advocated the obstruction of negotiation. My point was that the international players are not interested in negotiation because other countries in which they mine are considering the same tax. The international players need this to fail. They do not want compromise, they want the whole tax to go away.

And could you please name me one mining company that is not solely interested in their bottom line!

PaulB says:

01:42pm | 21/06/10

You must have a lot of TLS shares for that to be your only basis for voting Labor.  I’d like to think you saw a bigger picture than just your portfolio.