POLL POSITION: The Green Family Sex Party?

Poll Position brings you the thrills and spills of the federal election campaign, with daily polling updates, until the Australian people have spoken. For full news and commentary coverage, click here.


August 17, 2.30pm – The Green Family Sex Party?

While all eyes are on marginal seats in NSW and Queensland, further south a one-man political movement may be about to shake things up in the marginal Victorian seat of La Trobe.

Political chameleon David Barrow is contesting the seat, currently held by the Liberals on a 0.5 per cent margin, as a "true independent” offering a "mash-up” of policies from the Greens, Family First and the Australian Sex Party.

Barrow leapt to prominence last Monday when he was disendorsed by Family First – the party that had hurriedly signed him up as a candidate without checking his personal views on issues such as same-sex marriage, drug injecting rooms, drug decriminalisation and the teaching of religion in schools.

Since finding out what he really thought, Family First has also discovered it's too late to take their party name off the House of Reps ballot papers, which have already been printed.

So this independent will potentially draw conservative primary votes away from Liberal party contender Jason Wood under false pretences – as the Family First candidate. That shouldn't matter too much, as such voters would be likely to preference Wood second.

Nonetheless, Wood is not out of the Woods. A 5.3 per cent swing to Labor in 2007 is expected to continue this time round, with Barrow stirring the pot in unpredictable directions. And who knows – any substantial primary vote success for Barrow might see a 'Green Family Sex Party' take over where the now disintegrating Family First Party left off.


August 17, 12.10pm - The right climate for a republic

There is a clear choice in this election – between 'direct action' on climate change from the Coalition and … err … a referendum on becoming a republic from Labor.

During Labor's campaign launch yesterday, climate change was dropped from the list of policies to 'move forward'. And today, Julia Gillard has deftly dropped republicanism into the national conversation.

That ought to keep chatter away from global warming until the poll.

It's not unlike the moment in Orwell's 1984 when the nation forgets it previously hated the nation of Eurasia, and realises it has always been at war with Eastasia – Eurasia is suddenly absent from national media.

So what did Gillard say about the war with Eastasia?

Campaigning in Townsville today, she told reporters: "What I would like to see as prime minister is that we can work our way through to an agreement for the model of a republic”. However, she added that the "appropriate time” to put such a model in place was "when we see the monarch change.”

Supporters of climate change action, if they notice this shift in national attention, will be disappointed by Labor's focus-group-led abandonment of the "moral issue of our time”.

But that is to take Labor's climate change vacillation at face value. More likely is that Gillard and friends fully intend, should the retain power, to get through the Citizen's Assembly 'consensus' process and get new legislation into parliament a least a few months before the next election.

All that has changed is Labor has lost confidence in prevailing against Tony Abbott's 'big new tax' argument.

Far better to talk about republicanism – Abbott has no room to move on this issue, and recently polling shows roughly twice as many voters support cutting the monarchy loose as wish to retain it. That's much more likely to get marginal electorates over the line than a lot of hot air about climate change.


August 16, 9.45am – Labor's dirty trick has worked

Labor's got the Coalition where it wants it on the 'debate debate'. There is still no final agreement on whether Gillard and Abbott will debate the economy tonight, with Labor pushing hard for a full hour in the ring, and deriding the offer of 30 minutes – see below.

If the Coalition capitulates, expect to see Julia Gillard slip plenty of references to the NBN in the 'economy' debate – she wants the full hour so she can spend as long as possible conjuring up glittering visions of NBN-induced prosperity in a debate that should be about the coming softening in commodity prices, the consequent holes in the federal budget, and just what, exactly, Labor will fall back on when these highly likely scenarios eventuate.

If the Coalition does not capitulate, Labor will go to the polls calling Abbott a coward.

This 'debate debate' has little to do with the economy, but is now a win either way for Labor. Poll Position sees Labor's backflip on the 'three debates' originally proposed by Abbott as slimy and unprincipled – but it's smart politics that, in this case, seems to have worked.

For those who still care, this is what Labor's Karl Bitar wrote back to the Coalition a short time ago:

"The Prime Minister will be available for a one hour debate on the economy at 6:30pm tomorrow night in Brisbane, followed by the one hour town hall meeting organised by the Courier Mail at 7:30pm with both leaders on stage at the same time.

"Mr Abbott's preference for a limited economic debate of just 30 minutes shows he has very little to say about the most important issue in this campaign, which is the economic security of all Australians.

"For weeks he has been running from an economic debate … Our strong preference is to now hand over the organisation of this event to the National Press Club Committee from the Federal Press Gallery, so we can ensure coverage is maximised.”


August 16 9am – Treasury's happy with Big Australia

Whatever else you might say about The Australian, it has a strong record of using Freedom of Information law for its intended purpose – to keep the bastards honest.

Today it reveals a number of damaging facts gleaned from Treasury documents. The great shame for Australia's political leaders is that they are damaging for both sides.

Ever since the 'population debate' began (July 19, 8am - The invention of cloud campaigning), right up to its shrill climax last Thursday night (August 13, 10am – Dick Smith's population bomb), Poll Position has railed against simplistic notions that Australia is 'full'.

Now, it turns out, Treasury was warning Wayne Swan and Sustainable Population Minister Tony Burke just four months ago that we needed more people: "Over the next one to two years, the Australian economy is again expected to face capacity constraints … These constraints are expected to emerge earlier, and to be more acute, in certain regions and industries."

The paper says the Treasury report "focuses on labour shortages in the resources states of Western Australia and Queensland, and makes it clear that high immigration has been important in addressing skills shortages.”

Which is why neither side should be banging the population drum.

Labor, in particular, junked its 'big Australia' view just three months after receiving the Treasury warning that more workers were needed – though its policy at least contains some measures to redistribute population to our underpopulated regions, including incentives and support for job seekers to move to regional centres and $200 million to fund infrastructure for regional housing development. (The Coalition now seems to be following Labor some way down this path – Tony Abbott is expected to today announce a similar job seeker relocation scheme, worth between $3000 and $6000 per worker).

The Coalition, but contrast, has put a number on the reduced inflow of migrants – 170,000 – saying it will give priority to skilled workers at the expense of family migration. "You're welcome to come and help pay for our ageing population," we'll say to skilled workers, "but you'll never see your own Ma and Pa again!"


August 17, 7.30am - Debate? Yes we might

Despite confident reports in the national media, confusion still reigns over whether the nation's political leaders will face off in a 'debate' on the economy rather than simply a town-hall style interrogation by voters themselves.

Tony Abbott last night suggested a compromise deal on the debate standoff by saying on the ABC's Q&A program that he'd debate Julia Gillard on the economy if she'd agree to a second town-hall meeting.

But Coalition campaign HQ said this morning that the negotiation was ongoing – the main sticking point seems to be the duration of the debate.

Late last night, Coalition national campaign director Brian Loughnane wrote an open letter to his Labor counterpart Karl Bitar offering a deal – a 30 minute moderated debate with Chris Uhlmann on the ABC on Tuesday night, followed by a town-hall meeting in Brisbane on Wednesday night. Labor says it wants 45 minutes.

Poll Position strongly urges Labor to accept the 30 minute limit – life is short and this blogger has many DVDs he'd rather be watching.

Whether or not Labor gets its extra 15 minutes is irrelevant – both sides will trot out statistics and dubious assertions about economic cause-and-effect. If Joseph Stiglitz and Warwick McKibbin can't agree on whether it was 'the stimulus wot saved Australia', then don't expect Tony and Julia to settle it in under an hour.

The debate is all about rhetorical skill, and Abbott's advisors have obviously decided he's improved enough to take on telflon-coated Gillard and win.

The twist, however, may come on Wednesday night. Abbott's 'walk with the people' strategy at Rooty Hill – he climbed down off the stage to level with voters – can only work once. He won the point, but now it's Gillard's serve. Just what she comes up with to wrong-foot him is anyone's guess, but a second town-hall victory for Abbott is far from a foregone conclusion.


August 17, 7.15am – Which team does Abbott play for?

Tony Abbott got a good grilling on religion on last night's Q&A, but Poll Position finds one of his comments unsettling.

Abbott said he had ''never made a political decision based on a religious value” and when asked about his relationship to Islam said he's already visited mosques and broken bread with Muslims during Ramadan.

But he then added, in trademark have-it-both-ways style, that "Once people come to Australia they join the team”.

And what team would that be, Mr Abbott? Bob Hawke famously defined an Australian as "someone who chooses to live here, obeys the law and pays taxes”.

Joining the team suggests something far beyond this – rather like waving a little red book, toiling with the glorious workers on a commune or marching in lockstep for the glory of a Fatherland.

It's the diversity – the many teams – that make the Australian polity a dynamic, vigorous engine of prosperity and well-being. Balancing the needs of those teams is a constant source of renewal for our democratic institutions. So whatever 'team' Abbott envisages, this blogger won't be joining.

Read previous Poll Position posts here.