{"id":1306,"date":"2013-02-14T20:22:56","date_gmt":"2013-02-14T09:22:56","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/australiansforhonestpolitics.wordpress.com\/?p=1306"},"modified":"2019-04-13T23:24:22","modified_gmt":"2019-04-13T13:24:22","slug":"speculating-poll-dating","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/archive.nofibs.com.au\/speculating-poll-dating\/","title":{"rendered":"Speculating Poll Dating"},"content":{"rendered":"
Margo’s note<\/span>:\u00a0Sarah Capper edits the Victorian Women’s Trust feminist monthly Sheilas<\/a>. She’s an old friend who has kindly let AFHP publish her first column in 2013. Each month she interviews a bonza sheila and this time it’s Ita (registration for Sheilas is free).\u00a0I love Sarah’s writing, this time on timing the election, and hope you do too.<\/div>\n
\"227<\/a>

227 Days of MSM Farce<\/strong><\/p><\/div>\n

By Sarah Capper
\nSource: Sheilas<\/a>
\nFebruary 14, 2013<\/p>\n

If you google \u2018election date speculation\u2019 or \u2018election timing\u2019 and any of the last federal election year dates (eg. 2010, 2007), you get millions of results. So much so, that in the lead up to a federal poll (or state for that matter, where there are no fixed terms), a large media focus becomes fixated on the exact date on which we will vote.<\/p>\n

When the Prime Minister surprisingly announced September 14 as this year\u2019s federal poll date (at her National Press Club address a fortnight ago), it sucked a lot of oxygen out of a tedious debate that would normally ensue.<\/p>\n

Of course, there\u2019s always certain supposed \u2018rules\u2019 in setting election dates. The main ones to consider are that elections are not to be held to interrupt any religious (secular or sporting) festival. Yes, as a sports mad nation, the notion that we might have to vote and watch a football game on the same day for some is said to be sacrilegious.<\/p>\n

For example, it is seen to be a no brainer that an election would be called on a grand final weekend. Even a clipping from the Sydney Morning Herald from June 1946 carries this ominous passage:<\/p>\n

\u201cCANBERRA, Thursday.-Victorian members of Parliament are frowning on September 28 as the Federal general election date because a big football match is to be played in Melbourne that day \u2026 They claim that the game will attract 80,000 people and will affect polling figures.\u201d<\/p>\n

The election was held on September 28, and Chifley was returned to Government.<\/p>\n

According to the AFL, there have been nine federal elections that have fallen during the \u201cfootball season\u201d since 1946, which is presumably a bit of a broad statement given that the season lasts for nearly six months of the year and general elections are held on Saturdays.<\/p>\n

But if you listen to the current doomsdayer commentary surrounding the latest \u2018drugs in sport\u2019 scandal, we might be lucky to actually get to footy finals this year (queue doctored tabloid images of Lance Armstrong wearing an AFL jersey, or a photo of random footballs from various codes with syringes in the foreground).<\/p>\n

And presumably as a Western Bulldogs supporter the Prime Minister may not think she herself will be preoccupied with her team being in one of the finals.<\/p>\n

Of course, whenever an election date is announced there will always be someone or some group unhappy. Queue the Member for Wentworth Malcolm Turnbull, who immediately took to Twitter to bemoan the coinciding date of Yom Kippur with this year\u2019s poll date.<\/p>\n

As some people pointed out, any Saturday is potentially problematic with the orthodox Jew population, given there are strict observations to be held on their Sabbath. But presumably Turnbull wasn\u2019t the only one looking up a calendar to see if there was a religious event that could be put off-side by this year\u2019s date.<\/p>\n

The cons of the Prime Minister setting the date so far ahead of time are that traditionally, \u2018surprising\u2019 the election date when the Opposition is caught off guard or distracted by their own mini-scandal will presumably favour the incumbent. By playing this card already, Gillard has potentially lost this opportunity.<\/p>\n

The pros are that she started the year looking in charge, decisive, and setting the agenda, as well as keeping her promise (something she needs to be seen to be doing in the eyes of the wider electorate who like to misspell her name) with independents Tony Windsor and Rob Oakeshott, who included a full-three-year electoral cycle in their conditions and terms when forming a minority Government with Gillard in the aftermath of the 2010 election.<\/p>\n

Of course, the day after Gillard\u2019s recent announcement, the Member for Dobell Craig Thomson was now famously arrested on fraud charges, which sucked a lot of debate out of the election date decision.<\/p>\n

There\u2019s been separate conspiracy theories that both sides of politics knew about Thomson\u2019s imminent arrest \u2013 one being that Gillard announced the election date the day before to try and avoid any byelection demands, and the other being that the other side were somehow able to influence the timing of the arrest as the first \u2018salvo\u2019 fired in the election campaign.<\/p>\n

But Gillard had nothing obvious to gain from Thomson\u2019s arrest drowning out any other political news, and the same could be said for Abbott, who, at the time of Thomson\u2019s arrest was making his own speech to the National Press Club.<\/p>\n

Arguably the best theory is a lot simpler. That the Prime Minister wants to show up the Opposition leader for his lack of policy and costings details, by providing a good eight months for him to have no excuses but to do so.<\/p>\n

At the announcement, she made a big point of distinguishing between \u2018governing\u2019 and \u2018campaigning\u2019, arguing the media and pundits would be able to tell the difference (possibly putting a little too much faith in these groups \u2013 presumably a child care policy announcement in this year\u2019s parliamentary year that involves kissing babies may blur some lines).<\/p>\n

But despite distinguishing between campaigning and governing, a lot of media have chosen to ignore this in their subsequent analysis and instead bang on about an \u2018eight month election campaign\u2019. Oh. The. Horror. As David Donovan observed in Independent Australia<\/a>:<\/p>\n

As I watched her National Press Club address yesterday, I thought: that\u2019s an interesting move. What I didn\u2019t think was: \u201cOhmigod! An eight month election campaign!\u201d<\/em><\/p>\n

\"au_daily_telegraph.750\"<\/a><\/p>\n

Which obviously makes me utterly ineligible to work in Australia\u2019s mainstream media, because that was about the only thing the Canberra Press Gallery and the publications they work for could think about, and this shallow thought bite went into immediate rotation on the ever disappointing ABC24 and the always excitable SkyNews. It was repeated today by such luminaries in the field of political cogitation as Limited News\u2019 Sydney flagship The Daily Terror Telegraph, whose front page this morning thundered in skyscraper caps \u201c227 DAYS OF FARCE\u201d and was pretty much the line run by all of Australia\u2019s mainstream mindmeld media today.<\/em><\/p>\n

But once the media moves on from the supposed-terror of a so-called \u2018eight month campaign\u2019, Gillard\u2019s announcement should shift the focus to governing and policies \u2013 for both sides \u2013 as opposed to the usual endless questions about when the election date will be.<\/p>\n

Opposition leader Tony Abbott needs to move beyond the simplistic \u2018strong economy\u2019 and \u2018stop the boats\u2019 slogans and previous avoidance of policy details and debate. It means that unlike the last time around, during the 2010 campaign, Abbott shouldn\u2019t be able to refuse to have the Coalition\u2019s policies costed (following the campaign, Treasury did in fact go over the Coalition\u2019s figures at the insistence of Oakeshott and Windsor and discovered a $7 billion hole).<\/p>\n

Eight months is certainly plenty of time for the Opposition leader to be forced to come up with the goods. And democracy will be all the better for it.<\/p>\n

\"Sarah<\/a>

Sarah Capper<\/p><\/div>\n

Disclaimer:<\/span> Sarah Capper is a Western Bulldogs supporter who despite their poor finish last year, and despite Brian Lake\u2019s departure to Hawthorn wiping out their back-line, still hopes to be watching her team play on the federal election weekend in one of the finals.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Margo’s note:\u00a0Sarah Capper edits the Victorian Women’s Trust feminist monthly Sheilas. She’s an old friend who has kindly let AFHP publish her first column in 2013. Each month she interviews a bonza sheila and this time it’s Ita (registration for Sheilas is free).\u00a0I love Sarah’s writing, this time on timing the election, and hope you […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":21,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"jetpack_post_was_ever_published":false,"jetpack_publicize_message":"","jetpack_is_tweetstorm":false,"jetpack_publicize_feature_enabled":true,"jetpack_social_post_already_shared":false,"jetpack_social_options":{"image_generator_settings":{"template":"highway","enabled":false}}},"categories":[3434,66,43],"tags":[2592,273,335,2581,430,486],"jetpack_publicize_connections":[],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"","jetpack_shortlink":"https:\/\/wp.me\/p3t0mw-l4","jetpack_likes_enabled":false,"jetpack-related-posts":[],"jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/archive.nofibs.com.au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1306"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/archive.nofibs.com.au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/archive.nofibs.com.au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/archive.nofibs.com.au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/21"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/archive.nofibs.com.au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=1306"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/archive.nofibs.com.au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1306\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/archive.nofibs.com.au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=1306"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/archive.nofibs.com.au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=1306"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/archive.nofibs.com.au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=1306"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}