Abbott doubles his coverage

A very interesting week in politics, perhaps showing the electorate pushing back against the theory that Australian politics is ever more presidential? No-one is now in any doubt that Kristina Keneally’s personal popularity isn’t going to make much difference in NSW and it seems, for the moment at least in some polls, that people are starting to separate their ever increasing dislike of the PM from being willing to vote for the party he leads.

Tony Abbott received almost twice his volume of coverage from the last few weeks, while still well behind Kevin Rudd, and obviously some media did actually notice the huge welfare changes introduced by Jenny Macklin, into the top ten but still with less than 7% of the coverage of the PM.

Apart from the obvious in O’Farrell and Ayres, Stephen Conroy the other main mover owing to probably the best news the government has had all year, agreeing to a deal with Telstra on the NBN rollout.

Meanwhile, when faced with the dilemma of whether to give Steve Fielding any oxygen after his delightful contribution to the paid parental leave debate, the media mostly chose not to. My only question is, why aren’t the media focusing on the completely undemocratic nature of the Senate above the line voting system that allowed Steve Fielding to happen? Blaming the Labor Party is too easy, it’s our fault for allowing all the parties to get away with this appalling system of backroom deals that 99.5% of voters know nothing about.

The disapproval got ever so slightly duller again this week in terms of volume, is it just a sport-induced lull, or are people too depressed by the whole shooting match to maintain the rage? (apologies — listening to too much talkback leads to chronic mixed metaphoritis)

The Minister for David Jones would no doubt be applauding the Board for its swift action, but we still think that particular jacket may be staying in the closet for a few weeks.