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Showing posts from November, 2009

Hockey favourite but still backable

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The bookmakers on Friday had Joe Hockey paying $1.50 for a $1 to be leader of the Liberal Party when the next federal election is held. At midday today he was $1.35 at Centrebet, which would be stealing money if you believed the almost unanimous predictions by the press gallery pundits that Malcolm Turnbull will be ousted at tomorrow’s party meeting. Clearly some people still have their doubts about what will happen and I am in that category. I cannot believe that an ambitious man such as Joe Hockey would offer himself up for sacrifice to appease people whose views he does not agree with. Still, sensible people have done silly things in the past. Just look at Turnbull. He was stupid enough to challenge Brendan Nelson for the job in the first place. While the bookmakers are offering prices about other candidates as well, if there is a party room ballot tomorrow there will only be three contenders. Taking out the profit margin provides the following Crikey  Liberal Leader Election Ind

Tomorrow's other big meeting

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 The board of the Reserve Bank will meet tomorrow to decide if there should be any further change in official interest rates and opinions are almost evenly divided between no change and a quarter of one per cent rise.

The ABC gets serious

First day today for the ABC’s new written word political correspondent. Annabel Crabb leaves behind the Sydney Morning Herald  to provide her commentary on the ABC News website where I am sure she will continue to be amusing while having more scope to show that she is a first-rate political analyst as well as a humourist.

Tiger Woods a clear world winner

Readers of internet news sites around the world have no doubt about what is the biggest news story of the day. Forget about Iran and nuclear weapons, US health-care proposals, more troops for Afghanistan and the new financial crisis caused by Dubai — Tiger Woods and his relationship with his wife is a clear winner. On radio, television, newspapers and the internet, this is surely the most covered minor traffic accident in history. And the people are lapping it up. This what I found in the last hour as I surveyed those “Most Popular” reports on internet news sites: BBC News — a Tiger Woods story the most read ABC News Australia — most read New Zealand Heral d — most read The Times , London — second most read after leading yesterday The Guardian , London — most viewed USA Today  — most read Globe and Mail , Canada — most viewed Washington Post  — most read New York Times  — most searched Melbourne  Age , Australia — most read Sydney Morning Herald , Australia — most read Ti

And what interests the people?

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Readers of internet news sites around the world have no doubt about what is the biggest news story of the day. Forget about Iran and nuclear weapons, US health care proposals, more troops for Afghanistan and the new financial crisis caused by Dubai - Tiger Woods and his relationship with his wife is a clear winner. On radio, television, newspapers and the internet, this is surely the most covered minor traffic accident in history. And the people are lapping it up. This what I found in the last hour as I surveyed those "Most Popular" reports on internet news sites: BBC News - a Tiger Woods story the most read ABC News Australia - most read New Zealand Herald - most read The Times, London - second most read after leading yesterday The Guardian, London - most viewed USA Today - most read Globe and Mail, Canada - most viewed Washington Post - most read New York Times - most searched Melbourne Age, Australia - most read Sydney Morning Herald, Australia - most read

What the pollsters say - Labor in a landslide

Monday 30 November 2009 - Three national opinion polls in the last three days and all of them are again showing Labor would win an election in a landslide. Newspoll - Labor 57% Coalition 43% Nielsen - Labor 56% Coalition 44% Morgan - Labor 58.5% Coalition 43.5% And as for our own little poll, there might only have been 26 respondents but the median prediction of where Newspoll would put the parties was 58%.

Media wrap - The overwhelming media prediction is that Turnbull has had it

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POLITICS AND ECONOMICS Leadership Go Joe: voters back Hockey – After a weekend of extreme pressure to challenge for the leadership of the Liberal Party, Joe Hockey last night succumbed and is expected to challenge Malcolm Turnbull tomorrow as a poll shows he is more liked than the Opposition Leader. Two-thirds of voters also want Australia to have an emissions trading scheme. The latest Herald/Nielsen poll finds Mr Hockey is preferred by 36 per cent of voters as the Liberal leader. Mr Turnbull has the backing of 32 per cent and Tony Abbott has 20 per cent – Sydney Morning Herald Joe Hockey set to take on Malcolm Turnbull – Joe Hockey is expected to announce today he will contest tomorrow's Liberal leadership ballot under a deal allowing the Liberals to crush Kevin Rudd's hope of a pre-Copenhagen deal on climate change. Expectations that Mr Hockey would agree to challenge came as a Newspoll conducted for The Australian on the weekend revealed a stunning eight-percent

Media wrap - The morning's polls support the punters in making Joe Hockey favourite

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POLITICS AND ECONOMICS Leadership Malcolm Turnbull stance cops a poll axing – Malcolm Turnbull's hopes of fighting off a Liberal rebellion over climate change to hold on to the Opposition leadership have been shattered by a poll showing a whopping 60 per cent of Australians are against Kevin Rudd rushing the Emissions Trading Scheme through parliament – Sydney Sunday Telegraph Joe Hockey goes to former PM John Howard for advice – Reluctant Liberal leadership hope Joe Hockey yesterday sought out John Howard at his Sydney home for advice on whether to run for leader of the party to end the crisis destroying the Opposition – Brisbane Sunday Mail Liberal Party will do Malcolm in – Malcolm Turnbull faces a humiliating outcome on Tuesday morning with an overwhelming number of his colleagues preparing to vote for a spill of his leadership. Turnbull's crusade in the media at the expense of the Liberal Party's reputation in the past two days is shifting even more votes

What will Newspoll show?

Before the last Newspoll I asked the readers of Crikey for their prediction of what it would show as the position of Labor and the Coalition and the answer was spot on. After a week of turmoil in the Liberal Party I am intrigued to see what the collective wisdom thinks is happening this time. There thus is our own little poll on the left of this story.

Morgan has Labor extending its Federal lead

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I know most of the political pundits are hanging out to see how Newspoll in The Australian judges the reaction to the recent extraordinary business in the Liberal Party but last night's Morgan Poll already tells the story. That disunity is political death for a political party is shown by the Morgan finding that Labor's two party vote is up a couple of percent. And that survey of 961 electors was conducted on the weekend of November 21/22 before the first attempt at a leadership spill let alone the second. I will be surprised if the next lot of poll results do not show Labor advancing even further.

Media wrap - The Liberal leadership contest

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POLITICS AND ECONOMICS Leadership Liberals facing election rout   – The Coalition faces an electoral wipeout at next year's federal election if the rebels led by Tony Abbott and Nick Minchin succeed in blocking the government's climate change legislation –   The Australian Tony Abbott favourite to wrest leadership   - Abbott was last night the frontrunner to oust Malcolm Turnbull from the Liberal leadership next week and steer his troubled party away from his support for Kevin Rudd's climate change policies –   The Australian Malcolm Turnbull unmoved as support dives   – The instant Malcolm Turnbull accepted the resignations of Tony Abbott and Nick Minchin on Thursday afternoon, his Liberal Party support base began to collapse. According to angry colleagues, the Opposition Leader's blunt rejection of a proposal for compromise by Mr Abbott was probably the beginning of the end for the former banker, or at the very least the beginning of the biggest fight of