Election 2004 | Day 29 | Roundup

Athena Starwoman New Polling Consultant
Okay, I seriously don't know what the deal is with polls. Roy Morgan did one the other day that put both majors 50/50, now News Ltd are putting Labor ahead. This follows polls from like 3 days ago that said the Liberals had their biggest majority since 1975 or something.

So if poll results fluctuate this massively over such a short period of time, what the hell is the point? Why not call the psychic hotlines in New Idea and ask them instead? Or decide it over a daily game of two-up? I have a magic eight-ball, we could use that!

Greens Stuff
For possibly the first time in history, there is a pro-Greens editorial piece in a newspaper. Amanda Lohrey of The Age asks Are Brown's Greens Really Feral?

Bob was in Brisbane today, launching the Greens' state campaign.

Bob also announced that the Greens had preferenced Pauline Hanson above Family First, because she's the least insane of the two. Unlike those silly Democrats. They're really up shit creek without a paddle right now.

Abbott Smells
Someone ran out of toilet paper today, so they decided to use the front of Tony Abbott's campaign office instead.

"You wonder why people would want to express themselves this way when there are perfectly acceptable ways of expressing themselves at the ballot box."

- Tony Abbott

I dunno, 11 days is a long time to hold a turd in.

Boom tish.

Australian Council Of Trade Unions
They've been slagging Howard's spending spree recently (so have Labor). Firstly over Howards plans to spend $289m making Australian Technical Colleges (why not just fund TAFE more?).

"He's too desperate, too dishonest to admit that a skills crisis has been created on his watch, so his answer is 24 technical schools, 7,000 students and performance contracts for principals. It's a joke."

- Sharan Burrow, ACTU President

And then on childcare plans, Shazza had this to say:

"Millionaire parents who can afford a full-time nanny that qualifies for in-home child-care benefits and carries out domestic chores including cleaning and ironing and shopping, stand to gain more than $200 a week in tax relief under the coalition's childcare rebate proposal At the same time, the majority of families with children in family day care or a child care centre will get as little as $6 a week extra."

Labor also announced childcare plans today, $1.6b worth of them. The main part of it is that families will score about one day's worth of free childcare a week. And he said "ease the squeeze" again. Gah.

No other big announcements from them. They're waiting for the formal campaign launch on Wednesday for all the cool stuff.

Voting Kicks Off
The first votes in Australia were cast today in Wallace Rockhole in the NT- and they went to Labor. The AEC has 379 remote polling stations, so people in the middle of nowhere can do their votes. The catch is they have to do it over a week earlier than everyone else, because of the distance factor.

And overseas voting also kicked off in London.

"I think the Howard cringe factor comes into effect over here," said Scott Plimpton, campaign manager for the ALP UK branch.

"Once Australians get out of the country and they see how we're viewed from afar they see the Howard government is an embarrassment internationally.

"Before I came overseas I was quite insular as to Australia's place in the world. The only things you tend to see of Howard in the press over here is him kow-towing to Bush, strutting around with the Queen."

Taken from World View On Overseas Votes.

Costello

"I'm not going to retire from politics."

Damn.

Interest Rates

"He spent $6 billion in one hour. He's the six billion dollar man, a bionic vote-buying machine."

- Mark Latham

While I still think this whole interest rates thing is a load of shit, it's good to see Labor using the Liberal's bullshit against them, saying Howard's spending will push up interest rates. And Ross Gittins says Labor Isn't A Big Economic Risk.

Questions
Is it just me, or has there been a slight shift away from bias towards the Liberal party in News Ltd-owned stuff in this past week?

And whats with Ando not making a goose of himself recently? I've made this pretty Ando Zone graphic and everything, and now I can't find anything to use it on. "Salinity isn't as bad as we thought!" doesn't cut it. Maybe someone's pulled him into line?

Finally: A funny piece on the whole pre-emptive strike fiasco. And also an article debullshitting Howard's campaign speech.