Betting odds for political candidates on the NSW North Coast - then and now

Whether you believe that where the money goes indicates voter intentions or not, it is interesting to note that betting on Day 14 of the 2010 federal election campaign on 30 July 2010 was going Labor's way on the NSW North Coast in much the same way as it was going Labor's way on Day 39 of the 2007 federal election campaign on 21 November 2007.

Even in Cowper and Lyne (which did not fall to Labor in 2007) recent betting is running along the lines of the final result in the last federal election. #

THEN:

Sportingbet at 3.23pm 21 November 2007 (from North Coast Voices archives).

PAGE
Janelle Saffin (ALP) $1.53
Chris Gulaptis (NATS) $2.35

RICHMOND
Justine Elliot (ALP) $1.80
Sue Page (NATS) $6.00

COWPER
Not found but Centrebet has Luke Hartsuyker at 1.41 and Paul Sekfy at 2.70

NOW:

Sportingbet at 9.30am 30 July 2010.

PAGE
Janelle Saffin (ALP) 1.45 [Sportsbet 1.35] [Centrebet 1.42] [BetFair 1.26]
Kevin Hogan (NATS) 2.55 [Sportsbet 2.55] [Centrebet 2.63] [Betfair 1.11]

Any Other Party not listed [Sportsbet 26.00] [Centrebet 81.00] [Betfair 2.00]

Greens not listed [Centrebet 21.00]

RICHMOND
Justine Elliott (ALP) not listed [Sportsbet 1.02]
Alan Hunter/Joan van Lieshout (NATS/LIB) not listed [Sportsbet 5.50]
Any Other Party not listed [Sportsbet 101.00]

COWPER
Luke Hartsuyker (NATS) not listed [Sportsbet 1.50] [Centrebet 1.38]
Paul Sekfy (ALP) not listed [Sportsbet 2.00] [Centrebet 2.78]
Any Other Party [Sportsbet 34.00]

Greens not listed [Centrebet 31.00]

LYNE

Any Other Party not listed [Sportsbet 1.50] [Centrebet 101.00]

Australian Labor Party not listed [Sportingbet 7.50] [Centrebet 21.00]

Coalition not listed [Sportsbet 13.00] [Centrebet 11.00]

Independent Oakeshott not listed [Centrebet 1.01]

# As not all online betting websites have all electorates posted yet it is not possible to do a direct comparison.

Classic Abbott or How to tie yourself in knots on the campaign trail

Part of a 26th July 2010 7.30 Report interview over at Aunty ABC on the subject of Australia's immigration policy:

KERRY O'BRIEN: Now let's talk about immigration, which you've put further on the map in this campaign at the weekend and where you've been accused of being tricky. Isn't it true that the peak immigration figure of 300,000 in 2008, the calendar year 2008, the first year of the Rudd Government, that you've described as unsustainable, was actually achieved under the immigration policy of the Howard Government?

TONY ABBOTT: But the government that was in charge was the Rudd-Gillard Government, and the following year, 2009, we had 277,000 people come in, and what I'm proposing is that the immigration intake has to be sustainable, that's why I've proposed a maximum of 170,000. And I'm being honest and upfront about this, Kerry. Julia Gillard tried to have a population discussion last week without being fair dinkum with us. She tried to pretend that you could discuss population without also discussing immigration. She wouldn't tell us what she wanted to do with immigration, and I challenge her to specify a figure.

KERRY O'BRIEN: Well, you said last Saturday that immigration in the last year of the Howard Government was actually 200,000, - was about, I think you said, 200,000.

TONY ABBOTT: In the last seven quarters of the Howard Government.

KERRY O'BRIEN: The last seven quarters was 200,000?

TONY ABBOTT: Well, I think it was about 210,000 in the last seven quarters of the Howard Government.

KERRY O'BRIEN: Well according to the Australian Bureau of Statistics, it was actually 244,000 for the calendar year in 2007 and rising. Correct? And the Howard Government was in office for 11 of those 12 months.

TONY ABBOTT: I'm not disputing your figures, Kerry, but circumstances have changed. Australia's cities are choking on their own traffic. We were booming in the Howard years. We have gone through a global financial crisis. There has been an economic slowdown since then. The public no longer support immigration the way they did under the Howard Government. We've got to rebuild support for the immigration program, as happened under John Howard. The Australian Government has gotta be in charge and the program has got to be in Australia's national interest and the public have gotta perceive it that way.

KERRY O'BRIEN: But isn't it also true that the immigration figures have already come down sharply from that peak of 300,000, a peak of 300,000 under Howard policies and will keep falling sharply in the next couple of years, probably below 150,000, no matter who is running the government?

TONY ABBOTT: Well, I don't know what's gonna happen under Julia Gillard's policy because she hasn't told us what her policy is. I've told you what my position is. It will come down to under 170,000 in the first term of a Coalition government.

KERRY O'BRIEN: But let's just nail this down, because even if Julia Gillard doesn't change her policy one iota, and they have already changed the policy with regard to intakes of students coming in, they've tightened up rorts that first developed under the Howard Government - and again, I'm sure you'll be honest enough to acknowledge that; they've tightened up rorts so there will be fewer students coming in, looking and assuming that they will get permanent residency. But even if she does absolutely nothing more, isn't it true that immigration will continue to come down sharply in the next two years?

TONY ABBOTT: Well there's a private sector forecast out, but there's no government forecast out, there are no government figures out and that same private sector forecast says it will be back to 250,000 in 2015 under the policies of the current government.

KERRY O'BRIEN: That's five years from now. But according to Immigration Department, net migration into Australia for the financial year just ended, is down to be between 230,000 and 250,000 from that 300,000 figure. According to the BIS Shrapnel report that you've just referred to, net migration down to 175,000 by June next year, 145,000 the following year. So it seems your new migration policy is already - is going to happen anyway, no matter who's in government?

TONY ABBOTT: Well if that's the case, why didn't Julia Gillard tell us this last week when she tried to have a conversation about population, but dishonestly pretended that population had nothing to do with immigration, even though two-thirds of our population increase is via immigration?

KERRY O'BRIEN: But are you prepared to acknowledge that these figures make clear that your policy will make no difference to the figures coming down over the next two years?

TONY ABBOTT: Well, last time I looked, Kerry, BIS Shrapnel don't set immigration policy. It's the Government that should set immigration policy. Under any government that I lead, the Government will clearly be in charge. The numbers'll be set firmly in Australia's national interest, it will be sustainable and there'll be a maximum of 170,000 in the first term of a Coalition government.

2010 Election Campaign Day 15 - And it wouldn't be fun without Ned the Bear

He's cranky. He's orange. He's a cartoon bear.

Er, Ned the Bear? Where are you mate? Come on out 'n' play! I've gotta honey sanger and a beer.......

What's going on at the Herald? This pair have already had their 15 minutes of fame

A sure sign that it's a slow news day is The Sydney Morning Herald's decision to give two codgers whose names resemble those of the Prime Minister and the Leader of the Opposition another run in today's paper.

Honestly, they add nothing new to the Herald's election coverage, so why were they given another appearance?


C'mon, Granny Herald, readers deserve better than having to sit down to a second serving of tripe.

Readers are not so desperate that they need this type of rubbish to fill any vacuums in their lives!

Are we looking at Laurie Oakes' leaker here?

While all the world and his dog is accusing Kevin Rudd (or MPs allegedly still loyal to him) of leaking details of Cabinet meetings to journalist Laurie ‘I would talk to the devil himself to get a story’ Oakes, I'm more inclined to believe that these leaks have little to do with tensions remaining from the recent leadership change but are aimed squarely at Labor's electoral chances and have the Grech-like flavour of older motives with an anti-Labor bias.

Remember this The Daily Telegraph report from June 2008 when Rudd was Australian Prime Minister?

On May 28, Oakes revealed Cabinet documents which showed four frontline economic departments had warned the Government its FuelWatch program could increase petrol prices. The next day the head of the Department of Prime Minister and Cabinet, Terry Moran, called in the AFP to find the source.

Or this from Dr Anne Tiernan at the Centre for Governance & Public Policy (Griffith University) also in 2008.

Veteran journalist Laurie Oakes admitted he received the Cabinet documents from a public servant. He said the leak 'reflected bureaucratic anger at the non-stop nature of Rudd and his failure to follow their advice'.

Ministerial deliberations are not held in a vacuum. They generate paper records which are written up by second and third parties. Given that the current leaked information does not appear to be derived from more recent Cabinet meetings, one has to wonder about the role of the public service or possibly disgruntled former or present political staffers in this affair.

Yamba cousins selected for Commonwealth Games in Delhi in October

Cousins Cameron Pilley and Donna Urquhart have been selected in the Australian squash team that will compete at the 2010 Commonwealth Games.

Pilley, aged 27, and Urquhart, aged 23, are local products who started their squash experiences at the Yamba Squash Centre.

According to Squash Info Pilley's current ranking in world men's squash is 16th whilst Urquhart's ranking in women's squash is 18th.

Other members of the 2010 Australian Commonwealth Games squash team are:

Stewart Boswell 31 ACT
Ryan Cuskelly 22 NSW
Aaron Frankcomb 25 Tas
David Palmer 34 NSW
Kasey Brown 24 NSW
Lisa Camilleri 27 Qld
Melody Francis 21 Vic
Amelia Pittock 27 Vic

To further emphasise the success of squash on the NSW north coast it should be noted that Ryan Cuskelly is from Evans Head and Kasey Brown is from Taree.

Keeping track of all those election campaign leaflets in 2010

Citizens Electoral Council leaflet understood to have been authorized

by R. Barwick on behalf of Craig Isherwood

At last! Somewhere to go to check out those 2010 federal election campaign leaflets.
You can even upload images of those examples that are beginning to litter your own letterbox.
ElectionLeaflets.org.au

Browse at your leisure and spot those breaches of the Commonwealth Electoral Act as they are posted online.

NASA turns poet

 

Rumbles without sound

Auroras rain down
Magnetic fields shake
Beware the spacequake

Vortices swirl
plasma a'twirl
Richter predicts
a magnitude six

This month NASA decided to explain spacequakes

with information, graphs and 

a little poetry. 

Go Gillie!

I'm more than a tad tired of all that nonsense about Oz Prime Minister Julia Gillard being an unmarried, childless and godless sheila, so I was glad when Crikey's Bernard Keane took a scalpel to the mainstream media:

"The growing media obsession with both Julia Gillard's physical appearance and her marital status could be dismissed as indicative of both the essential inanity of the press and its casual sexism. That's certainly enough as it is. The media subjects female politicians to a blatant double standard, requiring them to conform to standards on physical presentation and lifestyle choices that are never applied to men. Moreover, it's not as if the media perpetuates a single stereotype to which female politicians must conform. Instead, it's a constantly changing set of requirements that means there's always something to criticise and the media always wins. Look too good, you're condemned as vacuous, or reliant on your appearance. Don't look good enough, you're disparaged as unattractive. Don't have a family, you're deliberately barren. Have a family, you're a career-obsessed harridan neglecting your kids. But it's more than that. The Australian yesterday launched a series of personal attacks on the Prime Minister, with the clear aim of ridiculing her and delegitimising her as a political figure. It complements an effort by Liberal Party figures to attack Gillard over her childlessness and her de facto marital status."

Go read the rest (with links to Albrechtsen, Stewart & Legge's sly nastiness) here.

2010 Election Campaign Day 14 - it wouldn't be real without the Interpretive Dance Bandicoot

First Dog on the Moon dun these at Crikey

Political Bad Taste Awards July 2010

And the Winner is.......

Click on images to enlarge

"I vote for freedom of worship if the worship is of Jesus Christ or The Jewish God anyone else well they are worshipping a false god anyway so who cares."
"Voting should only be voluntary for Liberal and National voters the rest can not bother since with every vote they bring the nation closer to the brink of disaster and closer to the hands of a (sic)muslim country."
"I am going to win this seat. I claim it as mine and when I get in I will give my votes all of them to God who is on the side of the Liberal Right" Liberal candidate for Chifley David Barker on now deleted Facebook page news.com.au 25 July 2010

Second place.......

"Wayne Swan is to surpluses what Paris Hilton is to celibacy they remember it once existed but they'll never see it again" Sitting Liberal MP and ex-SNAG Joe Hockey The Australian 20 July 2010

Third place.......

Mr Schonfelder lashed out at Mr Abbott's "very strong religious views and views on abortion ... sex before marriage ... all very conservative and not necessary", telling the Western Port News they were "influencing people to take their own lives".
Labor candidate for Flinders Adrian Schonfelder reported in The Sun-Herald 20 July 2010

Runners up.......

"The whole range of religions have made contact with my office to say they are very concerned about the stance of the Prime Minister, basically being anti-God. They don't like the fact we have got a godless Prime Minister." Sitting Liberal MP Don Randall The West 26 July 2010 [For those who can't believe their eyes the audio of these statements is at http://j.mp/arPfVh]

"In probably a year's time, just what a holocaust this will be.''Federal Liberal candidate for Ballarat Mark Banwell using a WWII genocide term to describe Labor's school building program 21 July 2010

"I quite like the Julia Gillard accent"
Opposition Leader Tony Abbott remarking on the accent of a contestant who was dressed like a hillbilly on the television show Hey Hey It's Saturday on 21 July 2010

Historical bad taste......

"about as much use as Linda Lovelace with her mouth closed’’ Tony Abbott speaking about Prince Charles in 1982 The Age 25 July 2010

Black Ops bad taste......

Those members of Tony Abbott's personal campaign team who appear to be playing the Gillard gender & lifestyle card 'off the record' with journalists, while their leader publicly condemns this type of comment.

And this is the man that thinks everyone on welfare is a bludger?

The Liberal Party's Tony Abbott has long thought that the average Australian receiving welfare payments is either someone who can't handle money or who is a bit of a bludger on the state (which is part of the reason he is so keen to transform Centrelink cash transfers into digital food stamps and force young people away from family in search of jobs) and currently is trying to paint Federal Labor as careless with the public purse, so it was interesting to see the media disclose the Leader of the Opposition's willingness to do a bit of bludging on the public purse himself:

FEDERAL Opposition Leader Tony Abbott is being investigated by the Federal Government after admitting he used taxpayer-funded travel for a Liberal Party fundraiser where he also promoted and sold his new book.

Mr Abbott, who was due to be in Perth today, confirmed to The Sunday Times on Friday that he used both a Government car and a Government-funded flight to travel from a Liberal event in Beaufort in regional Victoria in September. [Perth Now 20 December 2009]

Department of finance documents raise the serious and politically damaging possibility that Abbott used taxpayer money to promote his 2009 book, Battlelines.
The revelation follows an investigation by The Drum in which the dates of Abbott's national book promotion tour have been matched to his travel expenses claims. The dates of his promotional tour were provided by his publisher, Melbourne University Press.

Abbott's home base is Sydney where Sarah Murdoch launched Battlelines on Tuesday, July 28. Two days later, the then-Opposition frontbencher flew to Canberra, to quote MUP, "address the National Press Club (NPC) to discuss Battlelines". There was also a book signing coinciding with the event.......

All in all the taxpayer coughed up $6,651.96 in Battlelines-related travel. [ABC The Drum 28 July 2010]

These are the reported 2009 Battlelines travel accounts submitted by Abbott as Shadow Minister - Official Business:

Tuesday, July 30 - $504.29 Flight to Canberra and return
August 3 to 4 - $930.95 Flight to Melbourne and return

August 6 to 7 - $465.47 x 2 Flight to Melbourne and return

August 11 - $861.95 Flight to Brisbane and return with Canberra overnight stopover

August 14 to 15 - Flight Perth and return $2,461.23

Commonwealth cars and drivers - $962.60

Dept of Finance and Deregulation Parliamentarians Report - Tony Abbott MP

Photograph of Abbott from Google Images

2010 Election Campaign Day 13 - the things you overhear

Overheard some of the gentle gender at a local coffee shop:

"Tony Abbott loves strong women ? Yeah, when they're wearing leather, stiletto boots and carrying a whip!"

"I don't know - perhaps he is likeable. I like watching his bald spot grow bigger and bigger each day. It's sort of like watching Pinocchio's nose."

A conversation between two older women overheard on the local bus:

"Tony Abbott is just a lair.... He's a sneaky b@stard."

"The man hates women."

Repeated to me over coffee:

"A female friend refers to Abbott as 'Volkswagon' because his ears remind her of a small car with both doors open."