Richard Farmer’s political bite-sized meaty chunks

A very modest move to the left. The always interesting Australian National University study of Trends in Australian Political Opinion suggests that there was a very modest movement of political opinion to the left before the last election while the winning Labor Party was moving ever so slightly to the right. The result — combined with the very high popularity of Kevin Rudd — was the decisive victory of last November.

Do people really care? A Current Affair will provide an interesting test this evening of just how interested people are in truth telling by politicians and the travails of Belinda Neal. The Nine Network has been heavily promoting an interview with a member of Ms Neal’s staff in which she tells why she felt compelled to resign. The suggestion is that people will draw the conclusion that the Labor MP and her husband, the NSW Education Minister John Della Bosca, have been telling lies about what happened at the Iguana night spot two weeks and a few days ago. My guess is that there will not be much of an improvement in the ratings for ACA because there is a general disinterest in the matter which has journalists on the Sydney papers doing their best to find a new angle every morning to keep the story alive.

Another day, another Liberal Party way. Trouble at mill. This time the Liberal Party’s Darwin mill. The pre-selection process for the next Territory election has apparently exposed the same kind of factional differences which have become so prevalent in other parts of the country.

The Crikey indicators. They have taken the odds about a Labor win in the next West Australian state election off the board for the moment as people try to figure out, I suppose, whether the Liberal Party Opposition has any hope of winning at all after the continued upheavals within the Parliamentary Party room. Which means there is currently no probability given for WA in the list of Crikey Election Indicators based on the assessment of the markets about who will win forthcoming elections. In our previous assessment WA Labor was shown as a 73.7% chance of being re-elected but that figure should be much larger now.

Richard Farmer’s “Pick of this Morning’s Political Coverage”, “The most read stories on Australian websites” and analysis on “Politics and economics on the international newspaper sites” are now available first thing every weekday morning on Crikey’s website.

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