The battle for West Sydney
March 5th, 2013 at 12:00 pm by David FarrarGreg Ansley reports at NZ Herald:
Prime Minister Julia Gillard is spending much of this week in western Sydney, trying to win back support in the vast suburbs of two million people that could destroy her Government in September. …
Chifley is one of Gillard’s key battlegrounds: it recorded an 11.6 per cent swing against Labor in 2010, and is now among a series of former blue-ribbon Labor seats under real threat of falling to the Opposition on September 14.
If polling is accurate, an exodus of voters across western Sydney could alone be sufficient to bring down the Government.
Losing West Sydney is like losing West Auckland for NZ Labour. They have nine seats at risk in Sydney, and they really can’t afford to lose any seats. They have 71 seats in Parliament and the Coalition has 72. They only remain in power through the Independents anyway.
What voters are making abundantly clear is that, at this stage at least, anything is better than Gillard: Abbott may also be heartily disliked, but a rush from Labor in the opinion polls points to a landslide for the Coalition..
The latest Morgan poll, reflecting recent findings by Newspoll and Nielsen, said the Opposition held a crushing 9 per cent lead in the two-party preferred vote that determines Australian elections.
New allegations about the depth of corruption involving former Labor ministers, rolling out daily from hearings at the state’s Independent Commission Against Corruption, continue to stain the party brand.
The level of corruption in Australian unions and Australian Labor is staggering. We have nothing like it (so far) in NZ. The Coalition have promised a judicial inquiry into union corruption if it wins the election.
News.com.au has a poll of 11 electorates in West Sydney:
If given the choice of four prime ministers, 39.2 per cent of voters would choose Mr Abbott, followed by Mr Rudd at 26 per cent, Malcolm Turnbull at 22.1 per cent, and Ms Gillard at just 13.2 per cent.
It is rare for an Opposition Leader to be ahead of an incumbent Prime Minister as Preferred PM. To be ahead in a Labour stronghold is even rarer.
If you add the two Liberals up they have 61% support and the two Labor contenders have 39%.
Related posts:
- Prime Minister Kevin Rudd
- Australian Election Results
- Poll shows Rudd would help ALP win in Queensland
- Coalition extends lead in Australia
March 5th, 2013 at 12:38 pm
In a few more months comrade Gillard will be history.
Vote:March 5th, 2013 at 12:52 pm
I do note from reading the comments, that the primary Labor election tactic, that is manufacturing a false meme of hatred for Abbott, is alive and well in a certain segment of the Australian commentariat.
What is it about the left that they do “Hate” so well ?
Vote:March 5th, 2013 at 12:58 pm
Great. When Juliar loses ,we won’t have to take their illegal immigrants.
Vote:March 5th, 2013 at 12:58 pm
Hate is ‘subjective and emotional’, and appears naturally when one is incapable of ‘objective and rational’.
Gillard is toast. Unless of course she can have people vote for her multiple times like Barry managed to.
Vote:March 5th, 2013 at 1:15 pm
And yet the political pundits all say that Abbot is heartily disliked and that the Libs should go back to Malcolm Turnbull as leader.
Perhaps the only place that Abbott is truly disliked is within Fairfax Newspapers? Not to worry, they will be defunct soon and they dislike Abbott all they like on their own time.
Vote:March 5th, 2013 at 1:19 pm
Bugger, I am sure New Zealand can catch up with Australia much quicker with Labor in charge over there so we should be hoping they win again
Vote:March 5th, 2013 at 1:26 pm
I wouldn’t worry about that too much Cunningham, they have a decade of structural deficit ahead of them already thanks to Juliar’s short time at the helm.
Vote:http://www.theaustralian.com.au/national-affairs/treasury/decade-of-deficits-puts-focus-on-spending-cuts-says-new-economic-modelling/story-fn59nsif-1226589535108
March 5th, 2013 at 1:32 pm
I’ve been tracking some of this (and commenting on it occasionally on my poorly visited blog: http://technpol.wordpress.com/2013/03/04/roads-in-western-sydney/
I agree with Mumble, the polls blogger at The Australian (and a not so closet leftie) that it’s not really about Western Sydney, they’re a symptom of the fact that Labor is losing support across Australia. In NSW in particular they have a real problem with the corruption allegations relating to the previous State Govt, so despite the new Liberal govt generally being seen as useless, at least they’re not (yet) corrupt.
The way that Julia is going about this is just wrong. She’s offering bribes, but they’re not good bribes. If you bribe someone with their own money, there’s really not much point in putting conditions on it, and if you’re in a bidding war it’s kind of important that your bid be higher than the last guy’s.
In short, I think she’s getting really bad advice on this stuff, and further, she’s not self aware or astute enough to notice that it’s bad advice. I think things are going bad for her, and her main hopes that are left (at least at the moment – a week is of course a long time in politics) are:
1. To make people dislike Abbott more than they already do. I think that’s hard, a lot of people already dislike him, the remainder will be hard to convince. People aren’t supporting him because they like him, they’re supporting him because he’s better than the alternative. (And I note that I kind of like Abbott, but I know I’m in the minority there)
2. To hope that the Libs implode through doing stupid shit. They have a history of doing that, but so far Abbott and co are running a really disciplined machine.
I think Labour are in trouble. A couple weeks back I had it as a 50/50 thing. At the moment I’d say the Libs are looking pretty safe. But they are capable of stuffing it up. I don’t think Julia is capable of taking it away from them, so it’s up to Tony to make or break. But a change of leader on either side would change the calculations.
Vote:March 5th, 2013 at 1:38 pm
I was in Sydney last week and the prospect of Gillard’s visit to West Sydney was getting a lot of coverage. Most interviewed on the tv and in the papers didn’t want a bar of it. There was also criticism of her slumming it in a Novotel in Rooty Hill, rather than commuting from the Prime Minister’s Official Residence. I think she has well and truly cooked Labor’s goose in Western Sydney and the only way they have any hope of recovery is to change back to Kevin Rudd. Of course that will make more problems in caucus. Interesting times…
Vote:March 5th, 2013 at 2:15 pm
F E Smith (2,356) Says:
March 5th, 2013 at 1:15 pm
And yet the political pundits all say that Abbot is heartily disliked and that the Libs should go back to Malcolm Turnbull as leader.
Perhaps the only place that Abbott is truly disliked is within Fairfax Newspapers?
And, of course, in my cab – by 100% of the Ocker businessmen I have talked with recently (at least a dozen).
The feeling appears to be the Coalition will win despite Abbott but they would win convincingly with Turnbull.
Vote:March 5th, 2013 at 4:12 pm
All out after comrade Juliar: http://www.spectator.co.uk/australia/australia-features/8851081/a-slow-motion-car-crash/
Above all else, Gillard is an oxymoron. This is a woman who once championed an ‘independent’ foreign policy (left-wing code for snubbing Washington) only to now march in lockstep with Uncle Sam in a way that would make Harold Holt proud. A woman who implemented a carbon tax after promising she would do no such thing. A childless, unmarried feminist who is to the right of Dick Cheney on gay marriage.
Vote:March 5th, 2013 at 4:47 pm
If John Howard was standing he would win hands down. Also he is not believed to be a wearer of “budgie-smugglers.”
Vote:March 5th, 2013 at 10:10 pm
Nothing shameful about participating in sport – more politicians should. If you participate in surf lifesaving, you wear budgie smugglers. That’s the way of it.
Vote:March 6th, 2013 at 1:50 pm
PaulL is right, Mara.
If you snigger at the “budgie smugglers” innuendo, you’ve fallen for the media bullshit. Surf lifesavers wear speedos as part of their uniform.
Abbott is also a volunteer firefighter.
The only charity work Gillard seems to have done is dodgy off-the-books legal stuff for her union mates when she was at Slater & Gordon.
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