For The Byron Echo, March, 2005

The huge swing to Labor in Werriwa shows how pleasing Latham's absence is, and how much more his constituents want Beazley and not him. With such numbers Kim as leader last October (which he would have been had the noisome David Cox not changed his vote) would have beaten Howard easily by sixty or eighty seats; and he also perhaps by a lesser figure might have beaten him in 2001 had not Latham injured his taxi driver and so with pugnacious headlines arrested Labor's momentum in the second last weekend. Yes, I know it happened long before the election, and the weekend papers headlined it in slimy grovelling fealty to Howard, but it shouldn't have happened at all.

In the hour after Latham's elevation (see Night Thoughts in Time of War for how aghast I was at it) I felt he couldn't win, not because of what he was like but how he was judged, especially by women. They saw him as inexperience, foul-mouthed, fiscally ratbaggy, divorced, ill-tempered, potentially violent and...turbulent, I guess the word is. He seemed a bruiser that might pick a fist-fight at a barbecue. He would be well cast in an amateur production of Streetcar shouting upward 'Stella-a-a-a-a!' with his hands over his face. And one would hate to be stuck in a motionless lift with him.

And those seven negative qualities, I thought at the time (and my wife, significantly, agreed) were about five too many for political success. Later on, when he did well in Parliament, and had Howard backing down all over the place, I believed he maybe could win; but I was wrong. Because the Howard backroomers had meanwhile noticed the seven negative qualities too and they hammered them in the final foul-mouthed, turbulent, inexperienced Learner-Latham ads in the last week.

And it worked, of course it worked. Because seven is too many, and fresh new untried faces don't win votes any more and experience counts, as Beazley -- and Carr, and Rann, and Gallop, and Bracks, and Beattie -- have lately shown, and the Labor backroom was idiotic not to have guessed this, and the front bench shamefully inattentive. That a man as good and smart as Faulkner voted for Crean over Beazley and for Latham over Beazley, and thereby cost Labor 2004, is a kind of wonder of the world.

Another Question Without Notice

A question without notice to the Minister for Immigration. Where are the Bakhtiyaris? Is it true they are in Afghanistan? Is it true they are cold, in danger and in fear of their lives? Is it thought the baby may die soon and the mother, now seven months pregnant, has diabetes? Is it true the Pakistanis took one look at them, decided they were Afghan Hazaras, and shouted them a cab ride home? Can you show any evidence, in birth certificates, marriage certificates, business advertisements, licences to practise, names on electoral rolls, and language spoken by the children, that they were from Pakistan? Why then did you say they were? Do you know what is meant by 'to pervert the course of justice'? Are you guilty of it? How dare you inflict such misery and trauma on children, talented children praised by their Catholic headmaster? What do you understand are the Rights of the Child? Have you breached them? Will you accept that the ICC may now gaol you if a future Labor, or Green, Attorney-General dobs you in?

Newspoll

Last week I sent to your editor the following paragraphs, too late for publication. Though a little dated, I think they are worth repeating. Under the headline Howard winning the trust stakes, Newspoll on Tuesday showed Beazley beating Howard 69 to 58 on 'trustworthiness', 76 to 64 on likeability, 82 to 70 on caring for people, 43 to 39 on 'best to handle education', and 43 to 37 on 'best to handle health'. Why then the headline? Well, Newspoll is like that. Its principal customer Rupert wants only to hear what Rupert likes to hear. This may be why it got the 2001 election wrong by 400,000 votes and the 2004 election wrong by 300,000 votes.

These are tsunami-style figures, so different from the actual way people voted that one may ask why Newspoll gets work any more. Last month in WA, for instance, it overstated Labor's vote by a similar 3 percent, another 400,000 if projected Australia-wide.

Why is Newspoll -- lately -- so bad? Well, not ringing mobile phones is part of it. Ringing people home on Friday and Saturday nights -- and Saturday mornings -- is part of it, favouring the mad, the sick, the Seventh Day Adventists and the deeply unpopular. And I've heard its callers are now told 'if a foreign accent answers, hang up', which serves to underestimate, as a rule, the Labor vote. I've heard, too, that Newspoll's caveat, 'This data has been weighted to reflect the population distribution' is its whitewash on incompetence.

Howard winning trust stakes indeed. The only way this headline can be made to work is the poll finding under it that Howard beats Beazley 62 to 24 on 'who's best to handle the economy?' But then there comes the caveat, 'The Newspoll was conducted on the weekend before last week's interest rise.' I ask you. I want to see a similar poll by the Herald-Age Poll, a survey I trust. It showed Beazley, 52-48, on the same Tuesday. Newspoll's figures next Tuesday? Howard and Beazley 50-50 I'd say, with a headline saying Howard in winning position despite setbacks. You see if I'm right.