I wanted to start a thread for sephologists and observers of state politics where state issues could be looked at. Yesterday was certainly a prime example of “24 hours is a long time in politics” coming true in NSW - just ask Morris Iemma.
However I am thinking primarily of today’s WA state election - which is being spoken of as a ‘cliff-hanger’ with the possibility of a change of government by midnight tonight. Here’s a quick round-up from some of today’s papers :
Labor in danger in the west
Article from: AAP September 06, 2008 03:02am
The West Australian government is in danger of becoming the first Labor administration to fall in more than a decade in today’s state election, according to the latest Newspoll.
The poll, published in The Weekend Australian, reveals a collapse in the government’s primary vote and a significant anti-Labor swing in key marginal seats.
The Newspoll shows Premier Alan Carpenter’s tactic of turning uranium mining into a political issue has failed to engage voters, and that a growing number of West Australians are becoming increasingly unhappy with the way he is doing his job.
The poll indicates Labor could lose at least nine seats - and office - if a four per cent swing detected in a number of marginal Labor seats becomes uniform across the state......... .
Peter van Onselen ( associate professor of politics and government at Edith Cowan University ) has written an intriguing opinion piece in the Weekend Australian :
The political bastardry of the NSW Labor Right knows no bounds. Rather than wait until after the West Australian election to knock off Premier Morris Iemma, it did it the day before polling day.
Granted chaos in the Labor ranks in Sydney is a long way from Perth, but it is hardly helpful for Alan Carpenter, who was already struggling to win enough support to retain power. A poor final week of campaigning has capped off a poor second term in government, and a surging Liberal Party has made this election too close to call. The betting markets continue to strongly favour a Labor victory, but Newspoll has the contest on a knife’s edge..........
Hey Alan ( or Kathryn ) - any more thoughts from over in the west ?
Labor hanging on by a thread: analyst
6th September 2008, 19:15 WST
The Government was hanging on by a thread, with eight of the nine seats needed to change government already gone, according to electoral analyst Anthony Green.
Mr Green’s predictions show that Labor has lost eight seats. The Liberal Party needed nine to win government with the support of the Nationals.
The early count from today’s State election showed the Labor Party was in a real fight for survival with the Liberal Party leading in many Labor seats and the Nationals polling strongly in regional areas.
Both the Liberals and Nationals were polling well in the Labor held seat of the North West in the early count.
At 7.45pm, the result was still too close to call but there had been a definite swing against the Labor Party.
A short time ago, Labor appeared to have lost Kingsley, Darling Range and possibly Ocean Reef.
The possibility of some unexpected results was emerging for both parties, but Labor already appeared to be in trouble in several of the vital northern Perth seats, along with some in the city’s south.
The Liberals had also taken early leads in the bellwether regional seats of Bunbury and Albany.
But in Kalgoorlie, former Labor minister John Bowler, sacked from the party for his dealings with lobbyist Brian Burke, was enjoying a strong early lead.
The Liberals had hoped to hold the seat after former leader Matt Birney retired at this election.
There is speculation Mr Bowler, who ran as an independent, could be welcomed back to the ALP if he wins the seat.
ABC commentator Antony Green said the statewide swing to the Liberals appeared to be running at between four and five per cent.
In seats already being called, the ABC computer had the major parties level on 12 seats each.
One of Mr Carpenter’s hand-picked candidates, former TV journalist Reece Whitby, appeared likely to win the north-east suburban seat of Morley.
Mr Whitby had challenged a sitting member and former minister John D’Orazio, who was forced out of the Labor party for alleged misconduct.
Attorney-General Jim McGinty said that overall, the counting was “all over the place” and that most results were too close too call.
He said the count so far appeared to confirm poll predictions of a 50-50 two-party-preferred result.
One of Premier Alan Carpenter’s hand-picked candidates, former TV journalist Reece Whitby, appeared likely to win the north-east suburban seat of Morley.
Mr Whitby had challenged sitting member and former minister John D’Orazio, who was forced out of the Labor party for alleged misconduct.
Attorney-General Jim McGinty said that overall, the counting was “all over the place” and most results were too close to call.
He said the count so far appeared to confirm poll predictions of a 50-50 two-party-preferred result.
It won’t hurt the Federal Labor Govt to have the Libsw in the states. This coming from a left leaner!
Iemma was pretty aweful, so I won’t miss him. Rees said he was gonna be spin free and after a talk with Quentin Dempster that was chocka block full of cliche and spin I was pretty over him too. Mind you, O’Farrel isn’t a charmer either so aint we in a tizz?
THE West Australian Liberals were tonight poised to form government after winning eight of the nine seats they required and appearing likely to take another two.
Huge swings of more than six per cent against the government in many seats exceeded poll predictions of a four per cent swing to the opposition.
Perth-based Foreign Minister Stephen Smith said 10 Labor seats appeared to be lost and that the Liberals would almost certainly be forming a new government.
“If you had to put your money on it you would have to bet on the Liberals,’’ Mr Smith said.
“My deep regret is that it is likely there will be a change of government.’’
Federal Deputy Opposition Leader Julie Bishop agreed, saying the ghost of lobbyist and former premier Brian Burke had come back to haunt the Labor party.
“I think even though he imposed it again later, (Premier) Alan Carpenter’s mistake was to lift the ban on his ministers dealing with Mr Burke,’’ Ms Bishop said.
Retiring former Liberal leader Matt Birney said the Labor party was paying for calling a snap election.
“I think there was a mood out there in the electorate that said `we’re going to pay you back for calling an early election’,’’ Mr Birney said.
Amid a gloomy group of supporters at the Hilton Park Bowling Club in southern Perth, Attorney-General Jim McGinty said the odds were running in the Liberals’ favour.
“The swing has been a lot stronger than what the polling indicated and we’ve got sitting members who are hanging on, making a real fight of it against the swing,’’ Mr McGinty said.
“But I think what you’re getting is a swing that is a lot stronger than what we anticipated.’’....
If the libs get in here in WA it will go against the general mood of the place (well, Perth CBD anyway) in the first week (well, first third, actually, with just a three week campaign!) of the campaign being that Labor would hold on, albeit with a slightly diminished majority. The libs ran a lot of ads on tv and radio along the lines of “what’s carpenter (curr Lab prem) got to hide by calling such a snap election”, and, I must admit, I and by the looks of it a slim majority of the populace are also wondering what Carpenter had to hide. We’ve got a lazarus style lib leader after the last few have been, among other things, “on the nose"*, so it’s an interesting time in politics over here. I’ve met him in the flesh and wasn’t terribly impressed - very glib, no substance, clearly pleased to have his old job back and palpably power hungry. Mind you, what politican isn’t nowdays I suppose?
The other lib campaign line was a car bumper sticker on a black background with a little rubber ducky on the left hand side, and in big red text “Rudd a dud dud” on it. Appealed to my sense of himour, but not to the political sensibilities of this bleeding heart little leftie.
*[wa joke - read the west from a few months ago or google buswell and chair if you missed it]
As for Mr Dungey, Kevin, he will no doubt still be out celebrating if there is in fact a lib victory to be had, as last weekend I happened to be in his locale of Kalgoorlie for work and was dragged out in the morning to hand out lib how to vote cards by said Mr Dungey. They’re just lucky the labor stand in the main square where we were didn’t have any stickers or lapel badges, or I would’ve done it wearing one of them! I don’t think he would have seen the funny side though, what with standing for election on the upper house lib ticket for the country areas and all.
(BTW, the greens guy standing in Kal was a very personable young man, who was extremely knowledgable about all things green, particularly uranium mining which is a real hot potato in mining communities over here. I spoke to him for half an hour or so, and he dealt with a lot of hecklers very graciously yet with an amazing array of factual refutations. Nearly made me consider switching greens from no 2 to no 1. Vale the democtrats!)
Well,the liberal candidate in Kalgoorlie came second in the primary vote - we have lost the seat to the independent candidate (and sitting member for the abolished neighbouring seat) John Bowler. But the ALP came fourth, winning less than 20% of the vote - the worst result ever in a town they owned for 100 years.
The Nats (which in WA are not in coalition, but running as a party who will deal with either side if they put money into the bush) have done surprisingly well - they won 4 seats - the same number as in the old house even though a stack of rural seats have been abolished (well - relocated to Perth anyhow) due to the implementation of One Vote One Value.
I expect the impressive Nat result in WA will bolster those who aspire to break the Coalition federally.
I would never have predicted the slide in the ALP vote statewide: since I always vote Liberal, I pretty much dislike all Labor governments, and therefore didn’t appreciate how unpopular this one had become.
Providing the Nats support a Liberal Govt (as I’m sure their supporters expect them to), it does seem that Premier Carpenter may be voted out. I don’t think he will be greatly missed, though I am partisan.
Now I hear NSW has a different premier too, though they have some other system for replacing them there, which doesn’t involve popular vote. Can anyone explain it to me?
That is sad Luke, though Antony Green’s election analysis is predicting that they may win their first ever upper house seat in WA. The CDP is not associated with any particular personality in this State, and I thought ran a rather fresh and innovative campaign.
Owen, I agree that O’Farrell hasn’t been overly impressive. II rather wish he would step aside and let Mike Baird take the reigns. I think Baird is very electable…
Now I hear NSW has a different premier too, though they have some other system for replacing them there, which doesn’t involve popular vote. Can anyone explain it to me?
Here in NSW it’s the Labor party who tear each other apart. Factions, factions, factions. Left - Right -Centre Unity ticket etc. ( And while Christianity teaches us to forgive even if we can’t forget, the ALP here never forgets - and seems to never forgive either. ) And our new Premier Nathan Rees, who is from the Left, now says he will be a ‘non-aligned’ premier - whatever and however that works out in the realities of Macquarie St. NSW now has the Premier and Deputy Premier coming out of the Left branch of the ALP. The purge of those on the right is significant.
Basically, it’s the unions who rule the roost here. Yesterday’s SMH had a brilliant article ( expose ) arising from the last Labor Conference in May - where the membership voted 7 to 1 NOT to go ahead with the privitisation of electricity - but Morris Iemma and Treasurer Michael Costa immediately said “blow you guys - we’re doing it anyway, so there.”
For some unknown reason, I cannot find the Alan Ramsey article ( ‘political reality sticks to the party script’ ) anywhere on the smh.com.au site. Maybe the unionists at the SMH have deleted it - because it is dynamite reading and a very revealing background article about the machinations behind NSW Labor as to what and why the events of last week occurred. There you will conclude that it is the unions who run the state of NSW.
Alan, if you can’t locate the article either, just PM me a postal address and I’ll post you a copy.
For some unknown reason, I cannot find the Alan Ramsey article ( ‘political reality sticks to the party script’ ) anywhere on the smh.com.au site. Maybe the unionists at the SMH have deleted it - because it is dynamite reading and a very revealing background article about the machinations behind NSW Labor as to what and why the events of last week occurred. There you will conclude that it is the unions who run the state of NSW.
Alan, if you can’t locate the article either, just PM me a postal address and I’ll post you a copy.
Cheers, Kevin
Hi Kevin
My guess is that Alan Ramsay’s SMH articles are posted on the net four weeks after print publication.
My post on Disbanding the States has links to various authorities ‘stating’ (pardon pun) that it would save between $9 to $30 billion dollars in red tape, boosted confidence, etc.
If California were governed at the same ratio as Australia, it would be 11 States instead of one.
Anyone know off the top of their heads what $10 billion is in terms of health or education? Is it an extra department of health for instance, or an extra 50% of health? I can’t be bothered googling it… in fact I shouldn’t be posting here… I should be....
Dave, leave our States alone. And stop trying to compare Australia to California. The USA has plenty of small states - like Wyoming or Alaska. By their standards, we are badly undergoverned!
I’ve said it before.... but it’s worth repeating.
The world’s four most enduring federations (USA, Canada, Australia, Switzerland) are arguably the most successful nations in the world today and over the last century - economically, politically and socially.
Because Australians are never told just how successful their political system is compared with others, they are easy prey for the constant claims in the media that “three levels of government” are “too much” for a nation our size, and that there would be huge benefits in abolishing one or two of them.
By benefits, most Australians - I do not doubt - have in mind either lower taxation, or better government services. Well, better government services are almost impossible to measure; but the level of taxation is quite easy to gauge.
And the reality is very different indeed from the theory.
The top 9 countries in the world for share of taxation as a percentage of GDP are all unitary states.
And the world’s - costly - inefficient - too-many-politicians / too-few-people federations? They are well down the list.
Canada is at No. 12 in the rankings,
Switzerland is 13
Australia is 15,
The USA is at 17.
Even the comparison with New Zealand is instructive. New Zealand is - constitutiionally - a leftist’s dream - only one house of parliament which can do pretty much whatever it likes; no constitutional limits or regional legislatures to check or balance its power; no armed forces to speak of - yet in spite of all this (but in reality - because its government is so unrestricted) NZ’s tax take is a higher percentage of GDP than even Australia’s.
The problem in NSW has been the oversize spending which requires more and more taxation and selling off of assets that have not been maintained over the years (as they should have been)
Premier Iemma and his cronies refused to trim the fat off the Public Service. That is where most of the money is spent - on wages to beaucrats.
To get rid of the excessive executive part of the Public Service ( and not the front line troops, which need more growth) was the answer. But that would mean ( like the show “Yes Minister") getting rid of people, who would never recommend that action to themselves. Those Labor ‘mates’ in the executive would say “sack the workers, or anyone except us”.
People who voted in the last election were told this was needed to be done. The Libs said that they would do it. They were ignored.
So, we get the Government that we deserve, it seems.
Now the foolishness of electing Iemma and Labor for another 4 years is proven. Now the new Premier says he will cut back the fat of the Public Service. Finally. But are they to be believed? Does the leopard change its spots?
Now the foolishness of electing Iemma and Labor for another 4 years is proven. Now the new Premier says he will cut back the fat of the Public Service. Finally. But are they to be believed? Does the leopard change its spots?
This leopard is actually just one big FAT CAT. And aren’t the public service and ministries already full of ‘fat cats’ ?
the new Premier, Nathan Rees, supposedly Labor’s saviour at one of the party’s lowest points in in NSW history, was not even allowed to pick his own team.
Mr Rees is a mere loyal and dogged foot soldier, and must take what he is given. The new Premier admitted with disarming candour at his news conference yesterday that the selection process was a kind of shuttle diplomacy: he kept receiving lists of names from Labor’s head office, and he kept sending them back until one arrived that he thought he could live with. The ministry that is to rescue NSW from its present slough of despond is thus a product of backroom deals and factional paybacks. It is certainly not drawn up with a view to maximising the talent available to the Government.
I am not filled with much enthusiasm at the moment for our state’s well-being - what with union machinations and pandering - and demanding - ALP factions seeking to rule - not for the good of the state - but rather ‘for the good of the party’ and ‘to get the party re-elected’. Hardly an attitude of ‘serving for the good of the public’ is it ?
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