Crispin Hull

Voters in the critical seat of Namadgi have shown strong pro-Labor opinions in a series of questions put in a Canberra Times-Datacol opinion poll which was finalised yesterday.

They tended to favour Labor positions on Telstra, the Public Service, their preferred prime minister and the republic … though arguably the last is non-partisan.

They were also asked about their voting intention in the March 2 election and results of that question will be published tomorrow.

Details of the questions and the sample are in the panel.
Continue reading “1996_02_february_nampoll”

The Labor Party’s marginal-seats strategy is now spread very thin, and puts the party in the worst position it has been since it won office in 1983.

The strategy over the past four elections has been for the party to concentrate its efforts on marginal seats (those requiring less than 4 or 5 per cent to change hands) and to do very much less work in safe seats.

The result has been that a lot of safe seats have turned marginal because swings against Labor were not uniform because of the strategy. True, there are lots of factors in an election campaign and the result it yeilds. But there is a pattern that has got worse for Labor as time goes on.
Continue reading “1996_02_february_marginal”

Stopping the sale of alcohol at 3am is not going to help at great deal. Underage and excessive drinking will not suddenly disappear just because bars stop serving at 3am. More likely, there will be a 3am swill. People knowing that the tap is about to be turned off will have several “”last drinks” at the clock edges to 3am. Rather than helping excessive drinking, it may add to it.

Further, people are likely to buy takeaway liquor and move off-site causing just as much trouble or more than if they were allowed to keep drinking in licensed premises where there is at least some control.

When the 3am limit does not work, there will be inevitable calls for a 2am or a 1am closing. The underlying problems will remain unaddressed.
Continue reading “1996_02_february_leader29feb”

The criticism that the Cabinet of the new Queensland Premier, Rob Borbidge, contained only two women is worth making, especially as the choice of one … Liberal leader Joan Sheldon … had been made for him because it is automatic under Coalition rules. It is also more pertinent because the Cabinet is unrepresentative in other ways, with 11 members from the land and none from the key provincial cities of Townsville, Cairns and Rockhampton.

Strict balance is impossible and a Premier must pick the best available talent on the team. But is the nub. While the National Party as a whole denies women a better chance to get winnable seats, the available talent after an election will have fewer women. More has to be done to get more women into Parliament. That may require changes of behaviour at the branch level. Other political parties in Australia are not much better.
Continue reading “1996_02_february_leader27feb”

Not a great deal should be read into the huge swing away from the Liberal Party and to the Labor party in the Tasmanian state election at the weekend. The first question to be asked is what was the swing from? In the election of February 1, 1992, the Liberal Party did extraordinarily well and Labor did extraordinarily badly. In that election the Liberals got a huge 54 per cent. As a result they got 19 seats in Parliament and could govern as a majority government. Labor, on the other hand, got only 29 per cent and could only manage 11 seats. Five seats went to the Greens who won 13 per cent.zzz

All that has happened this election is that the support or the three major groups has been restored to the levels common from the mid-1980s to 1993.zzz

This election the Liberals lost 12 per cent of its vote, down to 42 per cent; Labor gained about 14 per cent to 43 per cent and the Greens lost 2 per cent. The result is that the Liberals have lost their majority. The most likely result is Liberals 15; Labor 15; Greens 4 and doubtful one. The doubtful seat will not change the fundamentals. No party has a majority in Tasmania.zzz
Continue reading “1996_02_february_leader26feb”

The Opposition has promised to give some tax relief on interest earned on savings. The details are unclear, but Opposition Leader John Howard said it would involve a tax break of about 25 per cent and would be means-tested. He was immediately attacked by the Government which said it would cost at least $1 billion a year.

Tax was neutralised early in the campaign by both major parties. The Coalition said there would be no new taxes and Labor said the total tax take would stay the same. After that tax has only featured as an issue briefly, when Prime Minister Paul Keating asserted the Government would be able to find an extra $800 million by chasing the very rich for tax they had avoided through complex trusts. This was met with justified scepticism. And without a concurrent announcement of retrospective remedial action the avoiders were warned and could move their money.

In short, both parties have only sniffed at the edges of what should have been a fundamental issue. The tax system needs significant change. The relief on interest is but a small step in the right direction. To date, saving money in the bank has been a mug’s game. After allowing for the tax on interest and inflation, you go backwards.
Continue reading “1996_02_february_leader23feb”

And the winner of the Republican primary in New Hampshire is . . . Bill Clinton. Well, at least tentatively. In fact, is was won by Pat Buchanan the populist columnist and favourite of the Christian Right. Mr Buchanan has delivered a blow to the chances of the previous front-runner, Senate majority leader Bob Dole.

New Hampshire does not deliver many votes at the convention later in the year to select the Republican candidate, but because it is the first state popular-vote primary it carries some great advantages in money, momentum and psychological advantage.

All this is good news to Bill Clinton because while Mr Buchanan’s extremism and creationism may make him popular among the far right and in some pockets of the Republic Party, it will not endear him to the population at large.
Continue reading “1996_02_february_leader22feb”

THE RULING by the High Court yesterday on the Western Australian electoral system and the Langer case show the role of implied rights in the Constitution to be more restricted than first thought.

The court ruled that implied rights did not mean that electorates for the Western Australian Parliament must have roughly equal numbers; they could be vastly different, as they are.

There was no implied right of one vote, one value. In the Langer case it ruled that provisions of the Electoral Act making it an offence to encourage people to vote in a prima-facie informal way were valid.
Continue reading “1996_02_february_leader21feb”

The announcement by Prime Minister Paul Keating earlier in the campaign that $800 million from tax dodgers could be recouped for the public purse appears to have been a self-denying prophesy. Once announced, the tax dodgers apparently have immediately begun to remove their money, rearrange their affairs, and started the task of creating new tax dodges.

Mr Keating’s announcement caused considerable ire among people in the Tax Office who had done a large amount of work towards trapping the dodgers only to see it wasted by his premature and public announcement. Some tax officials likened it to announcing this month that you had found a warehouse of stolen goods and that you would raid it in a month’s time. Not very bright from a tax-enforcer’s view, but if you need to pretend you have $800 million in the kitty very necessary.
Continue reading “1996_02_february_leader17feb”

The sentence of two-and-a-half months’ jail imposed upon political activist Albert Langer shows the law and the Electoral Commission are asses. The sentence will give Mr Langer some satisfaction in showing the law is an ass.

Mr Langer was jailed for defying a February Victorian Supreme Court injunction barring him from distributing pamphlets urging voters not to allocate preferences to the major parties. The jail term was imposed after Mr Langer told the judge: “”The only way you can constrain me is to lock me up.” The judge fell for it and made Mr Langer a martyr and the commission a fool.

Justice Barry Beach, who ordered the injunction after a complaint from the commission, said Langer’s defiance was a blatant contempt of court. Immediately after the injunction was issued, held a news conference and handed out more leaflets.
Continue reading “1996_02_february_leader16feb”