18 October 2012

Democracy Canberra Style

| johnboy
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canberra times cover

Why bother with even having our one lousy vote every four years when the Canberra Times can just tell us how it’s going to be?

At least Noel Towell managed to look at the camera. That’s something.

Oh what the hell let’s laugh at the little Korean man without realising he’s trying to mock the delusions of power.

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pepmeup said :

It is likley Labor will hold power with the help of the greens but I still think the libs are a chance of 3 in brindy and Molonglo, Making final numbers

libs 8
alp 7
greens 2

and I still think an upset could be on the cards in Gindy with Chic pulling off a massive upset.

but i guess we will all know soon enough

Still pretty happy with that prediction but time will tell

WillowJim said :

So a day out from the election the CT admits that yes, it has been barracking for the ALP the whole time.

Have you never read a newspaper? Because every newspaper in this country editorialises on the eve of an election. I imagine some people here would have lambasted the newspaper as gutless if it hadn’t published an election editorial.

I was unsurprised by the editorial, though I don’t get why it ignored the Greens. They did win a large enough chunk of the vote to affect how this city is run.

It’s also a little odd that RA takes the stance that it would never publish the results of a poll, lest by doing so it might affect its readers’ decisions.

Yes newspapers editorialise before an election, they’re also meant to present the news, its right there in the name.

If you’ve read the CT during this election campaign, you would be a dunce if you didn’t realise their election ‘news’ seemed to be supporting the ALPs reelection.

So a day out from the election the CT admits that yes, it has been barracking for the ALP the whole time.

Have you never read a newspaper? Because every newspaper in this country editorialises on the eve of an election. I imagine some people here would have lambasted the newspaper as gutless if it hadn’t published an election editorial.

I was unsurprised by the editorial, though I don’t get why it ignored the Greens. They did win a large enough chunk of the vote to affect how this city is run.

It’s also a little odd that RA takes the stance that it would never publish the results of a poll, lest by doing so it might affect its readers’ decisions.

PantsMan said :

From the Canberra Times today:

We support the re-election of her government.

Link: http://www.canberratimes.com.au/opinion/editorial/tarnished-labor-still-more-reliable-20121018-27u6b.html

So a day out from the election the CT admits that yes, it has been barracking for the ALP the whole time.

And it makes our candidates look religious with headlines like this: Pollies hit town on mass for election eve

Tetranitrate4:05 pm 19 Oct 12

c_c said :

I’ve yet to here her say one thing about Canberra itself, it’s all about her. She has an ego that makes me long for the days of Kate Carnell by comparison.

I get the feeling from your posts that you were probably still in Primary school when Carnell resigned as Chief Minister.

DrKoresh said :

PantsMan said :

I really don’t think a phone poll is particularly accurate in Canberra. Soooooo many households do not have a fixed line phone, and the transient population might mix things up a bit.

Also, the 8-10 per cent lead is the danger zone for protest votes. People believe that there is enough of a margin to put the boot in.

It’s nice to know that The Crimes has done the thinking for me though. Can they just hurry up and go bankrupt.

I doubt transients and people without fixed phones are generally the type of people to vote Liberal though, just saying.

Agreed but I think the larger issue is the statistical significance of the result rather than any possible sampling bias. I haven’t seen it for this time around, but the poll the CT did last time had a normal looking confidence interval, with a significance of 70% (!!!!!!).

Having said that, surely after this loss it is time for a broom to be swept through the party?

Agreed. Elizabeth Lee is exactly the kind of candidate that they need more of – in fact they should make her leader.

You’re joking surely. Elizabeth Lee is exactly the type of person who should never get into the Assembly.

This is her reason for running: ”I’d been involved in legal politics for a while… it wasn’t a single issue for me, but I’ve always enjoyed doing this sort of work.”

You don’t run for politics because you want to benefit, you don’t run because it’s another box to tick on your ego trip. You run because you see things you want to improve and people you want to help and feel you can do something about it.

I’ve yet to here her say one thing about Canberra itself, it’s all about her. She has an ego that makes me long for the days of Kate Carnell by comparison.

The libs will lose. No doubt about this given the Greens backing. Nine seats is one beyond what they could hope for in their wildest dreams.

That’s not entirely true. Ginninderra and Brindabella have both delivered 3 seats to the conservative side of politics in the past, and 3 seats ought not to be a challenge for the Liberals in Molonglo, so 9 is well within the bounds of possibility if the political winds (and the candidates) are right.

Having said that, surely after this loss it is time for a broom to be swept through the party?

Agreed. Elizabeth Lee is exactly the kind of candidate that they need more of – in fact they should make her leader.

PantsMan said :

I really don’t think a phone poll is particularly accurate in Canberra. Soooooo many households do not have a fixed line phone, and the transient population might mix things up a bit.

Also, the 8-10 per cent lead is the danger zone for protest votes. People believe that there is enough of a margin to put the boot in.

It’s nice to know that The Crimes has done the thinking for me though. Can they just hurry up and go bankrupt.

I doubt transients and people without fixed phones are generally the type of people to vote Liberal though, just saying.

From the Canberra Times today:

We support the re-election of her government.

Link: http://www.canberratimes.com.au/opinion/editorial/tarnished-labor-still-more-reliable-20121018-27u6b.html

Tetranitrate12:36 pm 19 Oct 12

jimbocool said :

@tetranitrate, actually the Libs did much better in 2004 than 2008. In 2004 they polled 34.8% and won 7 seats. In 2008 they polled 31.6% and won only 6 seats.

Re-read what I wrote.
I’m putting forward the opinion that the worst the libs will do is something near the 2004 result, ala 2/2/3 seats. I’m very well aware that they did better in 2004 than 2008.

colourful sydney racing identity12:10 pm 19 Oct 12

PantsMan said :

Battlecat said :

I have a theory that Australians vote like they bet, with who they think will win, rather than who they want to win. Nobody wants to have voted for the loser. Therefore polls become self fulfilling.

Yep, and that’s why the CT’s behaviour is so shocking.

1998 election had a very pro Carnell Canberra times. The editorial on Election Day pretty much stated ‘we would not normally tell our readers how to vote, but, we would be letting down the community if we did not tell our readers to vote liberal’

c_c said :

Matt_Watts said :

c_c said :

On the new tonight, Zed looked beaten. You could just see he knows he’s finished. I’m even going to make a prediction that he may not even keep his seat.

I’ll make a prediction that he’ll not win in Molonglo again because he isn’t running there, and that he will win the seat he is contesting in Brindabella.

You well know what I meant. He won’t keep his seat in the chamber, regardless of what electorate that seat is attached to.

How much do you want to bet on it?

colourful sydney racing identity said :

I would back a bookie over a poll any day, iasbet are paying $1.15 on the next chief minister being from the ALP, they also are paying $1.80 for ALP to win seven seats – stay away from the cm market but get down on the 7 seats for Labor, great value and probably worth breaking into the kids piggy banks for

Giddy up.
I think I’ll take some of the 6 seats at $2.5.

Battlecat said :

I have a theory that Australians vote like they bet, with who they think will win, rather than who they want to win. Nobody wants to have voted for the loser. Therefore polls become self fulfilling.

Yep, and that’s why the CT’s behaviour is so shocking.

@tetranitrate, actually the Libs did much better in 2004 than 2008. In 2004 they polled 34.8% and won 7 seats. In 2008 they polled 31.6% and won only 6 seats.

Worth going over to pollbludger as Caf suggests for some anlaysis of the polling data that is far superior to what the CT can manage. On their analysis it they claim it is possible for the ALP to win 10 seats on that polling. To do that they would need to win 4 in Molonglo, which they came very close to doing in 2004 (only an unfortunatel split in primary votes between Barr and Hettinger allowed Seselja to sneak in through the middle). Since the Green primary vote is down in Ginninderra and Brindabella, third seats for the ALP are in play in both those electorates.

I have a theory that Australians vote like they bet, with who they think will win, rather than who they want to win. Nobody wants to have voted for the loser. Therefore polls become self fulfilling.

Tetranitrate10:17 am 19 Oct 12

c_c said :

Matt_Watts said :

c_c said :

On the new tonight, Zed looked beaten. You could just see he knows he’s finished. I’m even going to make a prediction that he may not even keep his seat.

I’ll make a prediction that he’ll not win in Molonglo again because he isn’t running there, and that he will win the seat he is contesting in Brindabella.

You well know what I meant. He won’t keep his seat in the chamber, regardless of what electorate that seat is attached to.

I severely doubt it. There’s absolutely no reason why the Liberals would do any worse this time than last time, in all likelihood the worst they could do seat wise would be to repeat the 2004 result.
In 2008 they’d just come out of a period of constant infighting with a sitting (formerly) liberal MLA running as an independent.
For Zed not to be re-elected the libs would either need to elect less than 2 in Brindabella (utter fantasy) or he’d need to be pushed out by another candidate, which could only be Val Jeffery. I really don’t buy it given last time he pulled 1.5 quotas (in molonglo).

Simon Corbel has way more to worry about than he does, as does Amanda Bresnan and Caroline Le Couteur.

steveu said :

…On a side note, I don’t recall seeing a government in power that as been in power for so long have such trouble just stating its achievements over the last decade – this wouldn’t be hard would it? There seems to be a lot of promises coming out, and not a lot of achievements in their campaign.

Hahaha! Yes, most of the Labor policies are odd for a party that has been in power so long. You’d expect they’d just be tidying up a bit and focussing on efficiency by now. But instead there are a lot of large ‘reforms’! You have to wonder what they have been doing. It’s a bit concerning! 🙂
On the plus side for them, I actually quite like Katy and think she works and tries v. hard. No probs with her really.

As for the Libs, I think they have come up with quite a few good ideas in this campaign – and ones that address many of my pet peeves in Canberra. For example,
*) a review of the justice system/courts (I hate how it is running ATM, but not sure if the review would lead to positive changes..)
*) Gp-led clinics instead of nurse-led (While the nurse one(s) are good, I honestly don’t think you will achieve reductions to presentations at ED with that model. My opinion…)
*) Green bins (I feel bad as it would probably stuff up trash pak operators, but on the other hand, almost every other council seems to have them?)
However, their policy announcements have been fairly minimal (and not all costed or fully explained. e.g how are you going to add 6 more beds to a ward that is physically already full? Remove nurse tea rooms? Squeeze more beds into rooms?), and some of the others are just the reverse of their opposition (e.g. reverse the plastic bag rules!). Which leads me to my other problem: they have run quite a negative campaign which I am against (e.g triple your rates etc). If they had their time again, i’d like to think they’d have attacked this election differently.
I have to say, I haven’t looked too closely at the Greens, but might do that today.

And finally, overall, while we are not ‘just a council’ (as we do have hospitals, schools, law/gaols etc to manage too), I still think we should be focusing more on getting services and planning right for the community, rather than the pie-in-the-sky ‘ideals’ they seem to spend half their time debating in the LA. At the end of the day, a lot of that stuff is for Federal Govt (or not for Govt at all!), and most should be prioritized lower while they get basic services competent and efficient. *Then* they can spend their time navel gazing about ‘ideals’…! Basically, I’d like to see whoever wins instigate *all* their election promises first, then move on to the fluff (most of which they put up knowing that it won’t get up – they just want to have their 10 mins of fame). 🙂
Anyway, I still haven’t decided who to vote for……! Hahahaha!

steveu said :

Well hats off to Johnboy for showing that a media source can be at least a bit unbiased. This site has been a great source to see what all the parties are about, instead of the CT just pushing Team Katy’s political agenda.

.

Totally agree.

Well hats off to Johnboy for showing that a media source can be at least a bit unbiased. This site has been a great source to see what all the parties are about, instead of the CT just pushing Team Katy’s political agenda.

CT has proven once again their standards are poor beyond belief.

On a side note, I don’t recall seeing a government in power that as been in power for so long have such trouble just stating its achievements over the last decade – this wouldn’t be hard would it? There seems to be a lot of promises coming out, and not a lot of achievements in their campaign.

colourful sydney racing identity6:10 am 19 Oct 12

I would back a bookie over a poll any day, iasbet are paying $1.15 on the next chief minister being from the ALP, they also are paying $1.80 for ALP to win seven seats – stay away from the cm market but get down on the 7 seats for Labor, great value and probably worth breaking into the kids piggy banks for

c_c said :

Matt_Watts said :

c_c said :

On the new tonight, Zed looked beaten. You could just see he knows he’s finished. I’m even going to make a prediction that he may not even keep his seat.

I’ll make a prediction that he’ll not win in Molonglo again because he isn’t running there, and that he will win the seat he is contesting in Brindabella.

You well know what I meant. He won’t keep his seat in the chamber, regardless of what electorate that seat is attached to.

Sure, but I just made my prediction. He’ll win a seat in Brindabella.

Matt_Watts said :

c_c said :

On the new tonight, Zed looked beaten. You could just see he knows he’s finished. I’m even going to make a prediction that he may not even keep his seat.

I’ll make a prediction that he’ll not win in Molonglo again because he isn’t running there, and that he will win the seat he is contesting in Brindabella.

You well know what I meant. He won’t keep his seat in the chamber, regardless of what electorate that seat is attached to.

The ABC’s Antony Green has a bit to say about the Canberra Times’ poll:

http://blogs.abc.net.au/antonygreen/2012/10/canberra-times-poll-has-act-labor-on-track-for-victory.html

Malcolm Mackerras predicts a 7-7-3 (Lab/Lib/Grn) split (in the Canberra Times).

drfelonious said :

I wish I could bet against this poll because I think there is no way the Greens will get 4 seats.

I reckon Libs (+/- an independent) 8 ALP 6 or 7 Green 2 or 3

Go to http://www.sportsbet.com.au/betting/politics/act-state-election and waste your money!

housebound said :

SnapperJack said :

I can’t believe it! There is a big swing away from The Greens across Australia exemplified by the NSW and Qld elections and the NSW local government election yet this poll is saying that support for The Greens here has doubled since the 2008 election.

This proves without a doubt that the ACT is out of touch with the real world and that voters here really are stupid.

I suspect it might prove the results of having a local paper that will not publish negative commentary on the Greens. There was even this sycophantic op ed a few weeks ago.

I think we’ve seen maybe one partly negative article in the entire election campaign. The Greens get to make all sorts of election promises, with no critical analysis. RA has been the only outlet that has not brainlessly accepted everything the Greens say. We’re hard pressed to find more than a handful of articles about Liberal policies without invited (negative) comment from Labor and Greens.

If the Libs got the same dream run as the Greens, who knows what the results could be.

Well, if the Libs were worth more than a pinch of sh!t, and didn’t have morons like Masquara as their mouthpieces, perhaps they would have made a better showing. As it stands, they have simply been out-classed by their opponents.

I wish I could bet against this poll because I think there is no way the Greens will get 4 seats.

I reckon Libs (+/- an independent) 8 ALP 6 or 7 Green 2 or 3

c_c said :

On the new tonight, Zed looked beaten. You could just see he knows he’s finished. I’m even going to make a prediction that he may not even keep his seat.

I’ll make a prediction that he’ll not win in Molonglo again because he isn’t running there, and that he will win the seat he is contesting in Brindabella.

On the new tonight, Zed looked beaten. You could just see he knows he’s finished. I’m even going to make a prediction that he may not even keep his seat.

housebound said :

SnapperJack said :

I can’t believe it! There is a big swing away from The Greens across Australia exemplified by the NSW and Qld elections and the NSW local government election yet this poll is saying that support for The Greens here has doubled since the 2008 election.

This proves without a doubt that the ACT is out of touch with the real world and that voters here really are stupid.

I suspect it might prove the results of having a local paper that will not publish negative commentary on the Greens. There was even this sycophantic op ed a few weeks ago.

I think we’ve seen maybe one partly negative article in the entire election campaign. The Greens get to make all sorts of election promises, with no critical analysis. RA has been the only outlet that has not brainlessly accepted everything the Greens say. We’re hard pressed to find more than a handful of articles about Liberal policies without invited (negative) comment from Labor and Greens.

If the Libs got the same dream run as the Greens, who knows what the results could be.

I’ve seen a pretty mediocre effort at scrutiny of all 3 parties from the media; mainly just an attempt at keeping up with all the announcements, which I think is a pretty bad way to do things.

I don’t think those dream run comments are really fair. The libs got negative coverage, which they brought on themselves by refusing scrutiny. Labor and the greens went through the verification process with the treasury to have everything they promised scrutinised and costed. Libs avoided that. That’s why there was this pretty funny cartoon in the CT today: http://www.canberratimes.com.au/photogallery/opinion/cartoons/david-pope-20120214-1t3j0.html

All the policies and costings that treasury did are publicised here: http://www.treasury.act.gov.au/Electioncostings/Index.shtml

In terms of election policy detail, I found the libs the most vague and inaccessible – eventually found them here on their website: http://www.canberraliberals.org.au/ABOUT-US/ABOUT-US/Our-Policies.asp
Some of them I can’t work out at all, especially where they’re just reannouncing money that is already committed. Like, $4B for health? Surely that’s just what’s budgeted for already?

The labor ones were a bit better, on the katygallagher site, still a bit hard to see them all: http://www.katygallagher.net/?cat=24

I thought the greens’ were most accessible, alphabetised on the front page of the website, and found a lot of detail: http://act.greens.org.au/

So according the CT it’s this;

ALP 9
Green 5
Lib 4

No, it says Alp 7, Lib 6, green 4.

johnboy said :

19 minutes of a life to be wasted there, fortunately on 4 views so far!

About 10 seconds was as much as i could take of that head!

johnboy said :

19 minutes of a life to be wasted there, fortunately on 4 views so far!

Painfull to watch and still 4 views. Maybe not counting views too well?

Poor Alistair Coe and Zed, the poster boy and name respectively of the “least popular Liberal pollies” in Australia: http://www.news.com.au/national/the-zed-team-meet-our-least-popular-liberal-pollies/story-fndo4eg9-1226498598835

SnapperJack said :

I can’t believe it! There is a big swing away from The Greens across Australia exemplified by the NSW and Qld elections and the NSW local government election yet this poll is saying that support for The Greens here has doubled since the 2008 election.

This proves without a doubt that the ACT is out of touch with the real world and that voters here really are stupid.

I’m also surprised by this. John Moulis has been relentlessly campaigning against the Greens on Youtube. Despite numerous attempts to silence him through censorship, his videos are causing quite a sensation.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=y7b4oTVbVh0

19 minutes of a life to be wasted there, fortunately on 4 views so far!

Its easy to see where their loyalties lie, just look at todays web version:

http://www.canberratimes.com.au/

Weatherman said :

5 Labor state/territory governments have been voted out of governance.

I can blame Sky News for that one. I thought it was only 4. Victoria, New South Wales, Queensland and Northern Territory only that lost Labor governance. The following article claims that it could be the sixth loss in four years.

http://www.skynews.com.au/politics/article.aspx?id=807159

SnapperJack said :

I can’t believe it! There is a big swing away from The Greens across Australia exemplified by the NSW and Qld elections and the NSW local government election yet this poll is saying that support for The Greens here has doubled since the 2008 election.

This proves without a doubt that the ACT is out of touch with the real world and that voters here really are stupid.

lol I thought it was the other way around 🙂

SnapperJack said :

I can’t believe it! There is a big swing away from The Greens across Australia exemplified by the NSW and Qld elections and the NSW local government election yet this poll is saying that support for The Greens here has doubled since the 2008 election.

This proves without a doubt that the ACT is out of touch with the real world and that voters here really are stupid.

I suspect it might prove the results of having a local paper that will not publish negative commentary on the Greens. There was even this sycophantic op ed a few weeks ago.

I think we’ve seen maybe one partly negative article in the entire election campaign. The Greens get to make all sorts of election promises, with no critical analysis. RA has been the only outlet that has not brainlessly accepted everything the Greens say. We’re hard pressed to find more than a handful of articles about Liberal policies without invited (negative) comment from Labor and Greens.

If the Libs got the same dream run as the Greens, who knows what the results could be.

SnapperJack said :

I can’t believe it! There is a big swing away from The Greens across Australia exemplified by the NSW and Qld elections and the NSW local government election yet this poll is saying that support for The Greens here has doubled since the 2008 election.

At the most recent NSW State election in 2011, Greens support actually rose (from 8.95% primary vote share at the 2007 election to 10.28% in 2011).

The Greens’ primary vote share did drop at the QLD State election, from 8.37% at the prior election to 7.53%, but I’d hardly call that a “big swing”.

Think I will vote for Motorists then Bullet Train, by the way what is with the riot act web site, it is the only site that freezes up (not responding) both at home and work nearly every time I go on

The one other major trend in this election is that in the last 4 years, 5 Labor state/territory governments have been voted out of governance.

SnapperJack said :

I can’t believe it! There is a big swing away from The Greens across Australia exemplified by the NSW and Qld elections and the NSW local government election yet this poll is saying that support for The Greens here has doubled since the 2008 election.

This proves without a doubt that the ACT is out of touch with the real world and that voters here really are stupid.

The numbers they’re putting on the greens are one of a few reasons to think the poll has some pretty big issues.

We’ll see on Saturday.

But if you don’t like the people here please don’t let us delay your departure.

I can’t believe it! There is a big swing away from The Greens across Australia exemplified by the NSW and Qld elections and the NSW local government election yet this poll is saying that support for The Greens here has doubled since the 2008 election.

This proves without a doubt that the ACT is out of touch with the real world and that voters here really are stupid.

Interestingly, there seemed to be a lack of preferred Chief Minister polls in the lead up to the election by the Canberra Times. The lack of scrutiny towards our politicians ensures that they will take us for granted. In long term governments across Australia, irrespective of party, it is a common trend to see politicians taking the electorates for granted during long-term governments. Less administration of government funded projects occur because they expect to be voted in again. If the culture of having long-term governments can be overcome, it gives an incentive for productive governance. It keeps the parties, and politicians in check.

For those who’d like to know a bit about the cultural meaning behind Gangnam Style, have a read of this article: http://www.theatlantic.com/international/archive/2012/08/gangnam-style-dissected-the-subversive-message-within-south-koreas-music-video-sensation/261462/#

Glen Takkenberg
Pirate Party ACT for Ginninderra

smiling politely3:23 pm 18 Oct 12

astrojax said :

i’d be keen to see more poling – some candidates need to know what that feels like…

Geez Astro, I know you’re anyone’s after a few too many whiskies but I take it you’re speaking rhetorically and not from experience?

On topic, however – shame they couldn’t get a larger sample and that they couldn’t have done at least a couple of decent polls during the campaign proper. But, you know, death of the old newspaper financial model and all that I expect.

My gut instinct has always been that it would be another Labor/Greens minority government. Having said that, moving Zed into Brindabella was a smart option by the Liberals this time around as it should help with the overall swing towards them (regardless of the CT polling, I reckon there’ll be a swing away).

Also, one for Destroy-The-Jointers and others to note – just four out of twenty candidates in Brindabella are women with 23 women candidates out of a total of 74 overall for this election. 31% is surprisingly low, I’d suggest.

Whoa – there’s some major errors in the analysis of the polling in the CT. In the “Seat-by-seat” section the pollster talks about the effect on Labor votes in Brindabella of the retirement of “Former Chief Minister John Stanhope”. Stanhope was in Ginninderra.

The pollster also talks of Greens ”swamping the other minor party voters, so that even if all the ”non-Green” minor party supporters pushed their secondary support to the Liberals, it would not be enough to secure them a third seat.” This isn’t how Hare-Clark preferences work – if all the non-green minor parties gave their preferences to the Libs, it would give them a boost in the early rounds of the count (as minor parties are eliminated first) and it might well allow their candidate to stay ahead of the Greens just long enough in the counts to not get eliminated.

That said, despite some quibbles with some of the interpretation by Patterson, I think the result of 7/6/4 ALP/LIB/GRN is a likely outcome. The seventh seat in Molonglo is deucedly hard to predict, but if the Greens really get 20% of the vote on Saturday, as the poll predicts, they’ll keep their two seats easily. If, however, they get their usual 13-14% then anything can happen to that last seat.

I had wondered about what was going on in this clip, because the singer is so obviously not ‘pop-star’ in his physical presence. Thanks for the link.

And that yellow suit remains an object of desire, despite the political critique it embodies. Or dresses up.

Given the fair proportion of people who haven’t made up their mind, not sure if the CT has done Labor any favours. Australians don’t like to be ‘told’ and it is irritating that the CT now consider themselves the gnostics on this subject.
PS Thanks for the clip JB, it’s all been getting so intense hasn’t it – a bit of lightening up was just what the doc ordered 🙂

The status quo would be the worst possible outcome for the ACT, I do hope the other 350,000 odd people are more sensible than the 1000 odd the crimes polled. It would be sad to reward the government that hasn’t done a whole lot with the same or more power.

The popularity polls are really useless bits of information because you only vote for leaders in the seat they are sitting. The leaders of each party always receive a large percentage of votes, but that normally is at the expense of other candidates in the party. If anything the MLAs running in the same seat as their leader are at a higher risk of losing their seat because of the lopsided vote. Both Barr and Corbell didn’t poll very well at the last election, now that Gallagher and Barr are leader and deputy in the same seat, the “popularity” of the two could leave Corbell in trouble.. The joys of having a stupid electoral system…

I really don’t think a phone poll is particularly accurate in Canberra. Soooooo many households do not have a fixed line phone, and the transient population might mix things up a bit.

Also, the 8-10 per cent lead is the danger zone for protest votes. People believe that there is enough of a margin to put the boot in.

It’s nice to know that The Crimes has done the thinking for me though. Can they just hurry up and go bankrupt.

colourful sydney racing identity said :

johnboy said :

colourful sydney racing identity said :

So they should not publish the results of a poll?

Hey it’s their paper, they can do what the like.

In terms of useful analysis the poll would have been IMHO more helpful a month ago and not two days before we do the real thing anyway.

But it’s not about news, it’s about selling advertising.

fair point, I would have like to see more polling in the lead up to the election.

i’d be keen to see more poling – some candidates need to know what that feels like…

colourful sydney racing identity12:11 pm 18 Oct 12

johnboy said :

colourful sydney racing identity said :

So they should not publish the results of a poll?

Hey it’s their paper, they can do what the like.

In terms of useful analysis the poll would have been IMHO more helpful a month ago and not two days before we do the real thing anyway.

But it’s not about news, it’s about selling advertising.

fair point, I would have like to see more polling in the lead up to the election.

colourful sydney racing identity said :

So they should not publish the results of a poll?

Hey it’s their paper, they can do what the like.

In terms of useful analysis the poll would have been IMHO more helpful a month ago and not two days before we do the real thing anyway.

But it’s not about news, it’s about selling advertising.

I saw this when I arrived at work this morning. I’ve felt that the Canberra times has been a piece of crap for quite a while now, but this really takes the cake. How are the results of their own poll front page news? How is it even news at all?

I see garbage like this, and I don’t despair at the thought of the print media going under.

colourful sydney racing identity11:40 am 18 Oct 12

So they should not publish the results of a poll?

It is likley Labor will hold power with the help of the greens but I still think the libs are a chance of 3 in brindy and Molonglo, Making final numbers

libs 8
alp 7
greens 2

and I still think an upset could be on the cards in Gindy with Chic pulling off a massive upset.

but i guess we will all know soon enough

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