The results from yesterday’s Nielsen Poll gives Labor a 52-48 lead over the Coalition and an approval rating for the Opposition leader, Bill Shorten a modest 21%. I say ‘modest’, yet it is the strongest debut of any opposition leader since Kevin Rudd in 2006-07.
The poll should not bring much joy for the Government as voters have also voiced rejection for the Government’s policies with, in particular, their handling of asylum seekers and their Direct Action plan proving overwhelmingly unpopular.
But here’s the big one: Tony Abbott’s personal approval rating was a staggering 1%. Yes, 1%. Tony Abbott is Mr One Per Cent! (Hopefully the tag of Mr One Percent can stick, much as it did with John Howard who carried the tag of Mr Fourteen Per Cent following a disastrous approval rating while Leader of the Opposition some years ago).
In all seriousness though, this is an absolutely disastrous result for the Prime Minister. While the Government has only taken a hit, he has taken a bashing. He is clearly unpopular beyond imagination and has earned not an ounce of credibility since taking office. Mark Kenny, in the above article offers a few suggestions as to why:
- The government is struggling to maintain public confidence in its tough stop-the-boats policy while refusing to reveal the most basic details on the grounds of operational security, and the breakdown of co-operation with Indonesia.
- The government is struggling to explain to voters why it campaigned against spending – declaring the answer to debt is never more debt – but is now seeking an unprecedented $200 billion hike in the national credit card limit.
Can you think of any more? For example, do you think his tough stance on Indonesia has blown up in his face?
Tony Abbott has clearly taken the blame for the Government’s failings, and so he should. The buck stops with him, to borrow an old term.
But fear not, within days a Newspoll will be released showing he has an approval rating of 90% and the Government leading the Opposition 55-45. 😉
Café Whispers 
You’re probably right about the Newspoll results Michael, and no doubt the Murdoch media are scrambling to repair the damage. Personally, I’ll be very surprised if Abbott is still leader in eighteen months. The results of this poll are disastrous.
I’m not a big believer in polls but on a bright and sunny Melbourne morning, this one brought a grin to my face – I just can’t stop smiling!
Like the Fairfax article you have deliberately misrepresented some of the poll results.
Yes, Abbott’s “net” approval is 1% whereas Shorten’s is net 21%.
Abbott’s positive approval rating is higher than Shorten’s but he has a higher number of “haters” from the left who disapprove.
Both yours and Fairfax’s presentation of the figures is misleading and does not quote context, but hey, that’s what we’ve come to expect.
Michael, no doubt this special edition will be over taken by Abbott’s wonder boys & girls??.
No doubt, John, you’re always happy and accepting of what the Newspolls or the Murdoch media has to say.
It doesn’t help either when you have people such as Morrison defying logic and saying that Abbott’s stuff up with the Indonesians meant that “the government’s Operation Sovereign Borders was proceeding ”unaffected” by the withdrawal of (their) co-operation”.
However, there are also other issues and ones which effect people personally..the threats of mass sackings, taking $300m off low paid child care workers, deletion of grants to charities, and now..
Plus forcing the elderly to sell their homes (both pensioners and superannuants), yet presumably all the while still fulfilling the promise to give $75,000 handouts to millionaire mummies, and making au pairs and live in nannies a tax deduction. Hey, an idea might be that all those elderly who will be forced to sell their homes could all earn a quid as au pairs. 👿
http://www.smh.com.au/federal-politics/political-news/grattan-institute-plan-delays-access-to-superannuation-and-aged-pension-until-70-20131124-2y3w6.html#ixzz2lbfo9KI2
Yet these blood suckers can get their super MUCH earlier.
Nice car, Alan. Desperately want the latest GT, which I have drooled over at the dealership.
Yes, I know, I’m off topic. But we are talking about Fords.
Not hard to figure out who the 1% are hey! They are also the top 1% in wealth!
JohnB’s reading of the figures was correct. It’s a net approval not total approval but it would be very easy to miss that point.
If you want a little more evidence of this Abbott’s net approval is up by 5% to 1% since the last poll and I suspect even our numerically illiterate PM could work out that you can’t have a -4% approval rating but you can have a -4% net approval rating.
“haters from the Left”?!?! Sheesh JohnB, you Liberal Party troll, why don’t you change the record, ’cause this one is getting seriously *boring*!!
do you think his tough stance on Indonesia has blown up in his face?
If only there had been somebody, anybody, who could have warned him 😯
It’s not so much as it ‘blew up in his face’, it’s more a matter of, he laid that many mines, one was bound to go off sooner or later, and, when you are standing in the middle of a minefield, especially one you yourself laid, the repercussions can be extreme.
Yes, the non-budget emergency didn’t exists, and the ‘tow back the boats would not happen. Just as it was warned before the election.
We still have the ‘electricity bill’ to turn around and bight him where it deserves when people wake up to the fact that the ‘Carbon Tax’ wasn’t the drag it was made out to be, and the growing realisation that, even with a friendly and compliant media, twotone just cannot explain either himself or his government. The voters don’t like secrecy. Labor were always accused of it, the libs are practicing it.
Also, they libs are currently backing away from their electioneering pledged ‘unity ticket’ on school funding.
I wonder if this will be screamed loudly by the media as ‘he lied!!’, or just more grist for the mill?
http://www.skynews.com.au/national/article.aspx?id=927723
Do we want Pynes brain farts as the way our kids are taught?
This just shows how absolutely, hopelessly bad Rudd was.
Keating or Hawke on their absolute worst day, blindfolded with their hands tied behind their back, underwater with a mouthful of marbles would have destroyed Abbott and left him a blubbering wreck.
Labor has to forget about how atrociously awful Abbott is and look for someone in their line up who can deliver a message with sincerity and carry the electorate with them.
Hopefully Abbott stays where he is so we can witness the true horror of the far right wing extremist religious fanatics.
We need to be finding the faults in MT if Labor is to have any chance in 3 years time, the rest of the front bench are unable to reach even Abbotts mind numbingly low standards.
IF you couldn’t anticipate what was ahead with the Indonesian situation, you shouldn’t even do the shopping.
Abbott hasn’t a diplomatic nerve in his body. This doesn’t make him a straight shooting realist. It makes him a dumb as dogshit insensitive ignoramus. How can anyone who voted for him claim to be much else or perhaps it was a question of not taking the time and going along with “I read somehere, that he was a good bloke”. In diplomacy you must be someone whose word can be trusted.( need I say more?) and a real person. When Gillard went overseas I never felt any concerns that her actions would make is look like FOOLS. Compared to this GANG of galoots , She was a class act, but that is an “Odious” comparison. Pumping someones arm like a faulty water pump, does not a relationship make. Just another “phoney” photo opportunity, by a spinning “top” pollie.
Cutting the PS saves about 1.4 billion a year. Deficit is around 30 billion. (I think that is what Labor left, but has gone up since)
Cutting is not going to solve this countries problems.
Some one on ABC 24.
Poll: What change would you like to see to the carbon tax climate change policy?
Scrap the carbon tax to replace with Direct Action
4%
Scrap the carbon tax to replace with nothing
10%
Scrap the carbon tax to replace with emissions trading scheme
56%
Keep the carbon tax
30%
http://www.theage.com.au/federal-politics/political-opinion/postelection-poll-sends-message-to-tony-abbott-to-earn-voters-trust-20131124-2y41m.html#po
http://www.abc.net.au/news/2013-11-25/grattan-institute-proposes-tax-reforms-to-address/5114086
Yes, strange indeed that Mr. Abbott did not think it was worthwhile to tell us. Once again, the only one in step, is Tony.
Read more: http://www.smh.com.au/national/tony-abbott-quietly-shifts-un-position-to-support-israeli-settlements-upsetting-palestinians-20131124-2y434.html#ixzz2lcq0LMOQ
http://www.smh.com.au/photogallery/federal-politics/cartoons/alan-moir-20090907-fdxk.html?selectedImage=1
One percent! That high.
Well Roswell, it appears that we should follow the advice of three percent of the world’s scientist.
Ninety seven percent saying something could be fact, is not enough for some.
They ARE a hopeless bunch. Why can’t they see it?, and they keep trotting out Downer. Reith and Howard to comment on how good they are. Downer should be kept away from a microphone or he will start a war. He was never any good and what has he done in Cypress? Liberal (wrong title) THINKERS (oxymoron) should be alarmed at the latest poll shift in such a short time.
Honeymoon? How can that work when the more you find out about him the worse the decision looks? That wouldn’t help your libido..Those who aided the cover-up may find some increased resentment for their complicity . Perhaps “Time wounds all Heels”. One can hope.
Just read Fed up’s link to the UN in the SMH.
Whilst I detest Abbott and all his ratbag front bench isn’t it about time that the effectiveness of the UN is given a thorough examination as to it’s relevance these days?
Over 130 resolutions passed [ after a quick check on Google ] regarding the Israeli occupation of Palestine and up to 4 million refugees, after nearly 70 years absolutely no progress.
Labor had Hawke who was a genuine Israeli lover so they need to make up their mind where they stand on the longest and most brutal occupation in modern times.
Seems like this issue is an example of Labor not having a clear consistent message for its supporters.
Fuck Newspoll. It is a guide to voting intentions, not a how to vote guide as Murdoch’s hacks would have us believe
Will we see “Rabbott” trot his daughters out again?
Another Abbott day and another broken Abbott promise, this time delivered through Pyne.
Abbott and Pyne stood side by side in a press conference only a few days before the election and said they were on a unity ticket with the Labor government over Gonski, but would only fund it for four years not six.
Now Gonski is apparently gone in that Pyne flagged it would be dismantled, yet hasn’t said what will take it’s place and how he would fund NSW and Victoria who have signed up funding for six years, and aren’t they pissed off at Pyne at the moment.
Again we see them being all secretive, hinting at huge funding changes without releasing a details of what those changes will be and again they expect the public to just wear the secrecy without a murmur.
This woeful government that because of its idiocy and arrogance is rapidly disappearing down the sewer drain of its own making.
“Keating or Hawke on their absolute worst day, blindfolded with their hands tied behind their back, underwater with a mouthful of marbles would have destroyed Abbott and left him a blubbering wreck.”
I like your style Bill! Abbott is hopeless, and I think Gillard had him pegged but she was so out-manoeuvred by the constant attacks of the press, the shock jocks and white-anters on her own side that she didn’t really have a chance. I still think that the election would have gone better if Labor had stuck by her. By the time Rudd came back in he was so obsessed with himself that he didn’t have a hope of ‘getting’ Abbott.
If this is the best effort the Fairfax press can come up with and Michael Taylor in particular, then the demise of the group is deserved. Truly misrepresenting the facts.
Oh that’s rich Peter Jordan. I guess you had no problem whatsoever with all the facts that were misrepresented by Abbott and the right wing media, especially Ltd.News, over the last few years?
Are we seeing yet another hypocrite here?
Back Stabber Bill , will not need to do anymore than sit back and shut up for the next few years , this fool of a PM we have will destroy his own chances of re election day by day .. All the Opposition needs to do IS OPPOSE .. We never voted to destroy all the great work and promises made to schools and the elderly that Labor already has in the pipeline .. Indonesia and the Assylum seekers will bring this idiot to heel
What’s really noticeable is how quiet all the raving Abbott supporters are.
Stop the boats, Stop the great big new tax, Fix the debt.
So how’s that going? Diplomatic standoff with Indonesia, senate has stopped the carbon tax repeal, Lifting the debt ceiling to twice what he said Labor should have had.
So he’s lied, just as he accused Gillard of lying.
I am ready to tell the first person that mentions Abbott what a vociferous liar he is.
Australians are divided over Abbott’s performance so far. Some think it’s been a disaster the rest think it’s shit.
Good work.
Jordo and ” Truly misrepresenting the facts.” ….crikey mate, ewe, (sheeple ewe, baa), made me spill me coffee…… your funny as F*ck…. no really 😆 😛
Jordo, this link may be of service to ya,.. ya stemy 😉
http://stemaustralia.org.au/career-explorer/projectionist
one Percent umm that must be Mum and Dad plus Peta Kids and Missus have dumped him too
Another bad poll for the Abbott government and Abbott.
A record decline in the shortest time for a new government.
Keep saying this is the worst government ever led by the worst PM ever and they keep proving it.
And Abbott keeps proving he’s a coward by having his letter personally delivered to SBY, though not by himself but by a crony. Story I read is that Abbott is going to make huge concessions to Indonesia. So much for being tough with them and giving ’em what for.
Since Abbott has so abjectly caved in I expect his supporters here, one in particular, to now reject Abbott and can him as he has totally let them down.
Abbott is a DUD! I bet the Liberals are itching to replace him. Even if they did that it wouldn’t help. The rest of them are duds too. Hockey, Bishop (both), Conmann, Pyne, Dutton, what a bunch of cloistered turkeys.
Lawrencewinder and when will we see Abbott trot out his daughters again. I should imagine soon..they only put in an appearance when the polls say that he’s unpopular with women, so this time around it looks like it will have to be a major effort – back on his bike for major photo ops, drinking beer at the local..because this time around it seems that he’s unpopular with mostly everyone.
”Abbott’s razor gang is out to cut jobs, cut services and hand it all over to their big business mates,”
Although I know that it’s no secret here nor on other blogs which have chosen to scrutinise Abbott and his support-system in the msm, there is clearly a huge backlash against Abbott’s/the media’s lies and deceptions. The public have woken up to the fact that they’ve been dudded. Tony and cronies had absolutely no intention of fulfilling a majority of their election promises and this included “getting Australia back to work”.
http://www.smh.com.au/national/public-service/audit-just-a-rubber-stamp-for-job-cuts-20131125-2y6cd.html#ixzz2lgzlzgT4
Carol,
Maybe next election people will be more skeptical of the Liberal propaganda that emanates from the MSM/ABC. Once bitten, twice shy, I hope.
With the Bad Polls Watch Chameleon man Change his Personna once again its par for the Course He really is a Sad Joke What a Mess In less than the honeymoon period, A saaad man Getting Sadder A Baaad Government getting Baaadder, Its really like a Bad dream I notice a lot of his followers telling us how strong Tony is resisting Indonesia , its the Tail wagging the dog 22 million telling 240 million who’s the Boss. He couldn’t negotiate with three Independents we have Buckleys chance of Mr silly striking a Favourable deal with the Indonesians I am watching to see what he gives away, ,They know they are dealing with a Clown
” He couldn’t negotiate with three Independents we have Buckleys chance of Mr silly striking a Favourable deal with the Indonesians”
Very well put Greg.
tiny tony, the invisible man. ( when he’s needed).. No less than many expected.
I wonder if Pyne will be told on Friday, that the registrations have been made. Deliver or see us in court.
Pyne is not about money, He is about the model. He wants to return to the Howard socio/econmic, or whatever it was called.
Told by ALL, that it is flawed and inequitable does not bother Pyne.
Yes, he is not talking about looking at how and the amount of money to be divvied up. He wants to go back to the past.
Better Schools, funds the child, regardless of the school they attend. What could be fairer or simpler than that.
Wonder how many, understood how the Howard model worked. One thong for sure, it was the independent schools that came out in front.
Federal government should not be funding private schools. Especially when that is done over the state system.
They should be doing, as Gonski recommended, funding the individual child, regardless of the school attended.
This is what Pyne and Abbott do not want.
I read that an Indonesian official said that Abbott;s letter show what hos intentions are. A little tongue in cheek I suspect,. That is all we have heard from Abbott in this sorry sage, is what he intends, not what needs to be done. What do they say about good intentions. Something about paving a path to heaven!!!!
or maybe this one:-
http://www.brainyquote.com/quotes/keywords/good_intentions.html#Pm28DO1oHeiEscBf.99
I suspect, someone is playing with Abbott’s head. President takes himself off to Bali. Seems Abbott is not the most important thing on his mind. Come to think of it, why would it be.,
So Pyne was lying when he answered that he found out about the missing money, after the election. It appears that it was well known before the election.
State and Federal Treasurers meet tomorrow. Wonder what that will bring.,
Reith is unbelievable on the Drum.
I think that the governments not going to pull this con off. The pre election weasel words are going to work.
Media riled up.
So according to Reith, Pyne is a minister. He is entitled to do as he wishes. Words to that effect.
Does not have to listen to experts.
As Keating said, god help us.
One wonders if Australia will be ‘closed for business’ once abbott sells us out with his TPPA.
http://cairnsnews.wordpress.com/2013/11/16/abbott-to-sign-secret-agreement-to-allow-internet-surveillance/
Sign this before your sold!!!
http://e-activist.com/ea-campaign/broadcast.response.do?ea.url.id=180964&ea.campaigner.email=zCn4%2FVws8nmLYrd5XRICsI7U9A70Fugd&ea_broadcast_target_id=0
All very amusing except abbott’s incompetence will cost AUSTRALIA big time in money , reputation and security.. Perhaps Murdoch will foot the bill Abbott was his recommendation. Product not suitable for purpose intended.
clarittee, I suspect that Abbott is that incompetent, that he will not be around for long.
What scares me, who comes after. Who pulls those strings.
I bet Abbott is fuming, watching how the President is treating his letter. Giving him the message, he can also pull stunts.
ABC news,
I have a gut feeling, Abbott is not going to like the reply.
i truely believe parents be screaming their lungs out from their roof tops ,and march in the streets,to show the abbott government they are not going to take this lying down ,
It shouldnt matter who you voted for ,this is your children’s education ,and they are taking it from them,after they dismantle GONSKI what will be next,NDIS,
Is this what you all voted for?THEY ARE TREATING YOU ALL AS FOOLS,
Mister1%, covers a lot of areas with Abbott;
Common sense = 1%
Oratory skills = 1%
Communication skills = 1%
Honesty = 1%
Integrity = 1%
Morals = 1%
Original thought = 1%
to name but a few 😯
And slightly, although not completely, off topic; “Team Australia… WTF? 😀
Cheers 😀
Oh my, another day another major promise broken.
Hockey to meet with the States to talk about GST reform.
Does anyone else remember the then opposition quite categorically saying the GST was not in their agenda and would not be altered.
And the false charge of worker low productivity is being raised in what I believe will be the first step to bringing in WorkChoices. Nothing is now more certain with this government than they will reintroduce WorkChoices in some form and are currently setting the framework to do so.
On a media track, but I will post it here. Channel 7 and 9 said this morning that the government’s Gonski backflip is their first broken promise.
Excuse me, what reality have they been reporting in, the Gonski broken promise is just one in a string of them that continues to this day.
SBY apparently going to get Abbott to sign an agreement.
Teacher giving the grade one pupil his homework.
Maybe Hockey night bring up the problem of collecting GST from tradesmen for services and others that can be paid in cash. Collect the GST that now disappears into the black economy.
Just a thought.
Maybe he will put in place, a inquiry, to see how the GST has performed.
Well they have inquiries into everything else.
By the way, I eat fresh meat, fruit and vegetables. In fact that is all I eat.
According to Judith Sloane, only the wealthy do.
I eat this way, as I have spent my life dealing with weight problems. Processed foods are deadly for anyone like me. With the obesity figures we now have, that is important.
Encouraging people, especially children back to unprocessed and fresh food could be seen as preventive health.
Bill, head masters leave the ones that misbehave, cool their heels outside their door. When they are ready, they call them in, get a confession, then give them a choice. They can stand outside that door tomorrow, or they can sign a good behaviour contract. Abbott has been asked to do this.
Yes, SBY has acknowledged the good intentions. Now he is demanding they be put into operation. Word not good enough.
I do not feel that SBY is angry with Australia, only Abbott.
Abbott who has been misrepresenting what he has been saying, in fact ignoring messages coming from Indonesia.
Yes, the naughty little boy, has been pulled into line.
The question is, has the child learnt his lesson. Suspect not.
“In a surprise move, Mr Yudhoyono also said his foreign minister would summon the ambassadors of Singapore and South Korea over reports their governments had helped Australia with spying.”
http://www.abc.net.au/news/2013-11-26/indonesian-president-responds-to-tony-abbott27s-letter/5118518?WT.mc_id=newsmail
Mister on percent, is not only being told how he is to deal with Indonesia, I suspect, he is told how to treat the whole of Asia.
Just as today, I believe Hockey will be told how to deal with the states.
Would love to be a fly on the wall of that treasurers meeting with Hockey.
It is Abbott’s cruel demolition of all things Labor, that is leading to their massive black hole in the budget.
Most of the cuts, will not save much., Many will prove costly. Will not even lower the numbers employed by any real amount.
Demolition, without something better to put in place, is pure waste.
Abbott won’t learn any lessons. He lacks essential humility and intellectual honesty. He is fuelled by ruthless ambition and/or a sense of supreme destiny. He likes to hold all the cards so he can be BOSS. He is showing he lacks what is necessary to make the important calls. To separate the wheat from the chaff. HE must do this, Not call upon the support of the MSM to make it look good or hide the mistakes . FACE REALITY You are standing in it.
Abbott and Pyne, along with Hockey and Morrison, seem to believe they are the only ones in step.
Day 71 of this government. Hockey heading for first meeting with the states, who are all out for his blood.
Not a bad effort for any new internment, especially one of adults.
We have SBY treating Abbott as naughtily little boy. I am sure it is no accident, that we are getting that perception.
The GST that tradies trowser doesn’t really disappear into the black economy FU unless they bury it in jam tins.
It’s probably the only thing keeping the economy’s head above water at the moment.
It’s a counter-austerity “Up-Yours-Hockey” measure being applied at the workface.
If it was forcibly collected it would only serve a political purpose, to reduce the deficit in an accounting sense.
Remember, taxes don’t fund anything. They get electronically shredded. The government imposes them to control demand.
Yes, what does Pyne know, what all others do not.
http://www.abc.net.au/news/2013-11-27/parents-like-naplan-school-tests-more-than-teachers/5118236
ABC 24. State and territory treasurers talking to media. It appears not Hockey.
Meeting concluded. How long was it?
Listening to Abbott. Why does he just leave well enough alone. He is only digging that hole deeper with his ongoing bullshit.
Robb has already moved from government position.
I think that Abbott should take a leaf out of Robb’s book.
Treasurers now speaking ABC 24
Now it is the media that is to blame.
Read more: http://www.smh.com.au/federal-politics/political-news/christopher-pyne-blames-journalists-for-governments-apparent-gonski-backflip-20131127-2y91g.html#ixzz2lnhp8Djy
Read more: http://www.smh.com.au/federal-politics/political-news/tony-abbott-refuses-to-commit-to-spy-code-of-ethics-flags-security-round-table-20131127-2y8u4.html#ixzz2lnlRjPwY
Pyne was the one who wouldn’t have been “across’ the gonski matters. He was the one denigrating it till the last moment calling it a Conski etc and pressuring the Liebral states to hold the line against it.. He was required to change his call to get more votes at the last minute. His demeanour at the time was totally dismissive, so how would he have appraised it properly?
Thomson was able to beat the concocted charge of misleading the parliament but this “Character” lies to all and sundry and it’s of no import?
The fact of the matter is they were prepared to lie about anything and everything in order to gain power. Their agenda reinvents a mindset that we hoped we were leaving behind in the 50’s and before. It is part of a patriarchal project about control of the masses in order to sustain their agenda of entitlement for the few. It is unbalanced and therefore lies become truths, and manipulation of the masses becomes their means of ensuring their entitlement. This mindset regards the electorate as fodder for is programme of control, and one can only hope that more people become conscious very quickly before we become the backwater of the world.
This should interest you then Coralie.
A bad day for informed debate in Australia
Just how diplomatically fucked is this government.
Today we had Robb talking on operational spying matters, something no side does, and in contradiction to what Abbott had stated earlier, then he come out and changed his story just as Pyne tried to change history on something he only stated hours earlier,
Now we have Bishop the younger yet again fucking up foreign diplomacy big time.
How many times is this for Bishop? Made all the more galling because when in opposition she often accused the Labor government of screwing up relationships with Indonesia, but especially China, and the media allowed her to get away with the lies and distortions.
Now as this government blunders from one foreign affairs disaster to another it is conspicuous how differently the media are treating real government stuff ups from the made up stuff under the previous government.
Now East Timor. Spying conducted by the Howard government on gas negotiations benefited Australia in an insider trading like manner. East Timor is seeking the boundaries be redrawn in light of this revelation meaning Australia will loose a massive revenue.
Lurching from disaster to disaster and handling them all appallingly.
No wonder the visitors have gone into shameful hiding, nothing anyone can say or do can defend this woeful government and its leader.
It’s got to be pretty bad for the face-saving Chinese to be “furious”. Well done, Juliar Bishop, another dud in this dud Murdoch ‘government’
But for all the talk of Rudd’s fall being precipitated by low polling, one would think that he stood at 15% approval ratings. It was not. In fact, in the last Newspoll, Labor led the Coalition 52-48 on 2PP and only narrowly trailed the Liberals on first preference votes. However, Australian politics and ALP internal politics are particular are treacherous and an affair dominated by much back-stabbing. The ALP itself is factionalized, but unlike other factionalized parties on the left, the factions of the ALP – the right and the left – are fossilized in the structure of the party. Rudd, himself a member of the dominant right, won the leadership in 2006 from Beazley after an alliance with the left’s top contender, Julia Gillard. The fossilized nature of ALP factions means that powerbrokers, the infamous shadowy back-room people, hold considerable power within the party though they are not often seen in positions of power in the federal government itself. Rudd, although a member of the right, never enjoyed good relations with the powerbrokers of the ALP and they tolerated him between 2006 and 2010 because he brought the party success and support. Once the electorate stopped supporting him, his lack of genuine support within the caucus became sorely felt. Rudd’s authoritarian nature while governing, and his habit of centralizing decisions and leaving cabinet ministers in the dark about decisions further hurt his image. The ABC quoted an ALP powerbroker: “This crypto-fascist made no effort to build a base in the party. Now that his only faction, Newspoll, has deserted him he is gone.” The right abandoned him en masse, and it seems that the cards were reversed in the run-up to the caucus meeting when it appeared that only the left remained behind him while the right was united against him. Furthermore, the crucial states of Victoria and New South Wales abandoned Rudd, a Queenslander, in favour of Gillard, a Victorian.