Shorten Sinking Fast

[moonflyte]

Deadweight Shorten sinking fast

Malcolm Turnbull’s ascension to the prime ministership has so dramatically transformed the political landscape that senior Labor figures across the nation are bracing for a potential bloodbath at the next election.

Extensive Labor polling and focus group research undertaken by the party’s national secretariat before Christmas shows that up to a dozen Labor-held seats are at risk of falling to the Liberals as voters recoil at the prospect of a Bill Shorten prime ministership.

Yet the research has also given Labor hope that a strong anti-GST campaign will help to hold some seats. But it reveals that a tax scare campaign may not be enough to stem the Turnbull tide in predominantly middle-class seats with a strong aspirational and entrepreneurial voter cohort.

The polling undertaken by pollsters UMR in marginal seats — which included individual assessments of sitting members — has not been shared fully with MPs or with Shorten and his office. When combined with recent polling by several state branches, it makes for very bleak reading for Labor.

In NSW, the party faces the loss of Julie Owens’s seat of Parramatta and has cause to fear that Tanya Plibersek’s seat of Sydney and Matt Thistlethwaite’s seat of Kingsford-Smith are in danger. Richmond, held by Justine Elliot, is also a concern. There is no hope the party can win the marginal Liberal seat of Reid, held by Craig Laundy. But Labor is eyeing the Liberal seat of Dobell, held by Karen McNamara, and Nickolas Varvaris’s seat of Barton.

In Victoria, four seats are at risk: Chisholm and Bruce, both with retiring MPs; Isaacs, held by Mark Dreyfus; and Melbourne Ports, held by Michael Danby. The party is less concerned about ­McEwen, held by Rob Mitchell, and Bendigo, held by Lisa Chesters. Labor has not given up on winning back Sarah Henderson’s seat of Corangamite and Jason Wood’s seat of LaTrobe.

Elsewhere, the figures are not as bad. There are concerns that Labor’s Terri Butler is in a tight contest in the Queensland seat of Griffith and there is some worry about Wayne Swan in Lilley and Graham Perrett in Moreton. The Liberal-held seat of Hindmarsh in South Australia has been polled, showing Labor is competitive.

http://www.theaustralian.com.au/opinion/columnists/troy-bramston/dead-weight-shorten-sinking-fast-in...

[***super_nova***]

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@icyfroth wrote:

so how about posting substantiation that it isn't?

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???  you cannot substantiate negative......... 

[icyfroth]

same as you can't substantiate "buzz", Nova.

[esayaf]

Well what was the point of you requesting me to substantiate the lack of it earlier? Hey, what was that request about. I'm not part of the Labor caucus

[chameleon54]

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@esayaf wrote:
If Turnbull has so dramatically changed the political atmosphere.
Then why is nothing different.
Whatever the name these are the same old people running their own agenda. More interested in 15% super contributions than representing the people that voted them in.
None of them remember that they are the elected representatives of the people. They say one thing to get in then do whatever they want once they are in.
Don't forget that extraordinary statement from Tony Abbott before the election "I'd sell my ar.e to be Prime Minister" but unfortunately he sold the integrity and reputation of our country. Never forget this is our country not theirs. We the people are the country not the privileged few

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I agree 100 % with you on this esayaf. The only problem is that unfortunately you can say exactly the same thing about Labour. Just a mob of tired old , corrupt union hacks, only interested in feathering their own and thier special mates nests.

I suspect that Turnbull will bring about some policy changes over time, but at the moment its slowly slowly catchy monkey. He,s learnt the lessons from his past leadership attempt.

[esayaf]

I was referring to all the political parties and the self serving members within. Hence my statement "whatever the name"

[chameleon54]

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@esayaf wrote:
I was referring to all the political parties and the self serving members within. Hence my statement "whatever the name"

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Sorry esayaf I read it as a Turnbull / Abbot thing. It appears we have some common ground on something      

[icyfroth]

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@esayaf wrote:
Well what was the point of you requesting me to substantiate the lack of it earlier? Hey, what was that request about.

Because asking for substaniation of a buzz, or of no buzz, is a rather pointless request. Same as trying to substantiate a negative.

I'm not part of the Labor caucus

ok

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[icyfroth]

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@chameleon54 wrote:

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@esayaf wrote:
If Turnbull has so dramatically changed the political atmosphere.
Then why is nothing different.
Whatever the name these are the same old people running their own agenda. More interested in 15% super contributions than representing the people that voted them in.
None of them remember that they are the elected representatives of the people. They say one thing to get in then do whatever they want once they are in.
Don't forget that extraordinary statement from Tony Abbott before the election "I'd sell my ar.e to be Prime Minister" but unfortunately he sold the integrity and reputation of our country. Never forget this is our country not theirs. We the people are the country not the privileged few

---

I agree 100 % with you on this esayaf. The only problem is that unfortunately you can say exactly the same thing about Labour. Just a mob of tired old , corrupt union hacks, only interested in feathering their own and thier special mates nests.

I suspect that Turnbull will bring about some policy changes over time, but at the moment its slowly slowly catchy monkey. He,s learnt the lessons from his past leadership attempt.

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I don't think Talkbull will initiate any new policies before the election. Won't want to rock the boat until he's safely at the helm via an election.

[moonflyte]

Wince and a nudge: time to go, Bill Shorten

• JENNIFER ORIEl

For anyone but a sadist, the Bill Shorten show is increasingly hard to watch. In the 24-hour news cycle, politics has become something of a blood sport. But even Labor loyalists and seasoned journalists have begun to wince at his cardboard delivery, tortured metaphors, grammatical howlers and limp attempts at machismo.

Like a love affair turned sour, someone has to be brave enough to say what the nation is thinking: Bill, we want a divorce.

It is difficult to imagine how depressed the Labor faithful must be with Shorten leading them into an election year. A recent article by former adviser to British Labour, John McTernan, gives some sense of the despondency.

In The Guardian, he implored Shorten not to focus on former PM Tony Abbott. Instead, he would win by championing “future and fairness”.

McTernan is partly right. Left parties do win office by staking a claim on progress.

However, the absurdity of branding the future a left-wing cause is self-evident; tomorrow is a temporal inevitability. We all recall Labor’s last campaign “going forward into the future” in a stream of strine. Do not press repeat.

But what of fairness? The ALP strategy is analogous to McTernan’s advice. It is using fairness as a wedge issue by depicting Malcolm Turnbull as a hapless puppet behind which stands an army of hard-right masters pulling the strings.

It is the stuff of conspiracy theory, but the red left never lets reality get in the way of a good story.

The ALP’s problems run so wide and deep that they constitute fatal structural flaws.

Take the fairness principle. Once the preserve of the Left, fairness has been up-ended by the naked avarice of careerists who populate labour parties worldwide and their technocratic comrades in supranational organisations.

In Australia, one need only count the funds funnelled into Labor from corrupt unions to know it is neither a party of fairness nor the party of the people. Labor is a party for the party.

[esayaf]

Tomorrow is inevitable but with regressives at the helm progress isn't.