It’s been almost two years now that Tony Abbott et al have been demanding an election. We’ve also had devoted lovers of the right comment here at Café Whispers that it has been the people of Australia, not Tony Abbott who have been calling for an election. From what you will read below I can narrow that down even further. Simply, only the right-wing brigade have been calling for an election from the moment the dust settled on the last one.
I’ve revisited a post by Ben Tolputt from September 2010 called Australia Approves which had a candid look at the first opinion poll after Julia Gillard was elected Prime Minister. I realise that the right-wingers will sledge hammer their way in here pointing at the poll results of the last 12 months but it will only serve to deflect the truth: that they’ve been talking crap since September 2010.
Here’s Ben’s post:
Well, the bones have been cast, a few phones called, and the mathematical models consulted. In other words, NewsPoll has done their first poll since the decision resulting in our minority government has been done . . . and Australia approves.
A majority of voters (48% to 36%) agree with the independents’ choice of party to form minority government. And, with that said, an election held today would still result in a hung parliament with the two party preferred dead even.
I await the Shanahan spin on the matter (haven’t read his take on it yet – was saving it for a laugh over my lunchbreak). I personally expect that, contrary to their other editorial reporting, he will split the primary vote of the so-called “Labor/Greens Coalition”. This means he gets to report a devastating loss of primary support for Labor and conveniently forget to add the increase in Greens support (up 2.2% to reach 14%). Personally, I would love to see a breakdown between the Liberals and the Nationals in that particular Coalition, but that would break narrative too much. Left-wing Coalitions are bad and fraught with instability whilst right-wing Coalitions are stable and good for the nation. After all, if they weren’t Shanahan would tell us about it!
The “others” (our best view of the independents’ results) are up over 5% to a total of 11%. Meaning that, contrary to the editorials, the indies don’t seem to be punished for their choice either.
On the downside, nearly three in five (59%) believe that the government will collapse before a full-term is served, with on three in ten believing it will serve it’s full three years.
My hopes are that we will see these trends continuing. That is, we’ll see a continued growth in the Greens and “others” vote, whilst a continued decline in the Labor and Liberal polls keeps them from trying to break the government early. It would also mean a hung parliament next time around . . . with the subsequent need to and capability of politicians to represent their electorates rather than the party machine.
You know, back to the representational democracy we’re supposed to be.
The WINNER of the 2010 election (Photo credit: Wikipedia)
Café Whispers 