Economy
Politics, State and Federal: Stick with Minority, says Nick. The Rudd salvation
• Mercury:
TASMANIAN Greens leader Nick McKim has staked his party’s political future on convincing the state’s voters that the “stable and co-operative” minority government model of the past three years deserves another term.
At the Greens state conference in Hobart yesterday, Mr McKim warned against a return to what he described as the divisive, conflict-riven days of majority rule, saying his party would be open to negotiate with any party after the next state election.
“We’ll be campaigning for another minority government and balance of power for the Greens because we think that is in Tasmania’s best interests,” he said.
Mr McKim said he wanted Tasmania to continue its economic transformation.
“We’re not here, like the Democrats were, to keep the bastards honest. We’re here to replace the bastards,” he said.
Seemingly undeterred by the near-halving of the Greens vote in Tasmania at the federal election a fortnight ago, Mr McKim said his party’s record of achievement in policy areas including forestry-industry restructure, reform to the energy sector, disability care and reducing the prison population would be recognised by the electorate next March.
Mr McKim said voters liked to build in checks and balances to avoid Parliament becoming a rubber stamp for the whims of a single major party.
…
The Greens leader rejected suggestions that current unflattering polling figures necessarily spelled doom next March, saying his party was similarly situated at the same stage of the electorate cycle before the last election.
He said the next election would be a clear choice between the status quo and a return to the conflict of the past over logging and resource extraction.
Read the full story, Mercury here
• AFR
The return of Kevin Rudd to the Labor leadership in June may have saved up to 15 seats at the September 7 federal election, according to polling reported by The Sydney Morning Herald on Sunday. ( Here )
The polling was conducted in the months before the June 26 Labor leadership coup that had Mr Rudd return as Prime Minister following a three-year campaign against Julia Gillard to regain the office.
According the Sydney Morning Herald report, the internal Labor party polling by UMR suggested that the Gillard government faced swings against it of up to 18 per cent, which would have left it with 40 seats in the House of Representatives, compared to the 55 seats it’s not expected to hold.
Such a result would have been worse than the Whitlam defeat in 1975 and could have claimed Gillard supporters such as former Treasurer Wayne Swan, Warren Snowdon and Gary Gray.
• The Guardian: Clive Palmer wins Fairfax, but labels electoral commission a disgrace
• ABC: Labor attacks Government’s move to end announcements of asylum seeker boat arrivals