The mining tax is an excuse. The reality is that the big swing in the polls is to the Greens, and the occasional lift of the Coalition in 2-party preferred vote is within margin of error, and not that unusual before serious campaigning starts. If the anti-tax ads were having an impact, it was slight. The latest Morgan poll, probably the last before Rudd was dumped, showed Labor's numbers improving: http://www.roymorgan.com/news/polls/2010/4517/ -- and this one does prefs properly, asking in the survey, not taking last election's prefs flows.

None of this is a losing prospect for Labor: the biggest likely change is a few more Greens senators and the possibility of one or two Greens making it to the lower house.

Have to wonder why anyone would think anything but poorly of all party polotics. The reference to Rudd spin seems strange as it was his inability to sell anything that killed him. Howard and Costello sold the GST to us (only just) and in the end it happened and no one gave a stuff. The mining tax would be little different, if you think that it would really stop them mining in this country then you still believe in the easter bunny. their greed would get the better of them.
There seems to be an inability to see what happened in the GFC. We spent lot's to save our back sides and the inevitable happened when there is that much money going around, the greed of man did its job and the ripoff's began. Don't think that the mining sector saved it, many of my friends in WA lost there wonderful workplace agreements and contracts with the mines. Good old work choices, the job loses started before the whole GFC thing hit the headlines. Our luck was we were so badly short of labour and the chinese didn't fall flat on there faces that we managed to survive.
Look to Europe and smell the roses as the expat's flood back home. Europe is stuffed as is the US because of uncontrolled greed. Private sector greed. If you want to know what we loose by killing off the mining tax and some kind of carbon tax, you loose future infrastructure, the environment, future funding of superannuation and long term sustainable employment. As so many industries burnout under the burden of their own greed we will have nothing. All the remote mining towns will become empty shells with no future. Think of a place like Port Headland, current house prices are 800-1 000 000. What will it be when the mines have finished raping the country.

Rudd ended up as much a victim of media spin as somebody who thought he was using it for his own purposes.

The avalanche of what was more anti-Rudd than anti-Labor sentiment was a lot like that blatantly partisan campaign of the Sydney Morning Herald against the State government.

When there is little news, carry out a poll and that becomes the news.

The fact that Newspoll is actually owned by Murdoch may surprise some people.

According to Morgan Research, Newspoll sometimes fudge their figures and selectively withhold certain results.

I wonder why.

Morgan said, “That pollsters and those that publish the polls have a responsibility to report the facts and the truth”. He went on to say that, “Polls and their publishers should not seek to set the agenda by selectively releasing polling data”, and that, “Polls and their publishers are powerful but with that power comes responsibility”.

I thought the media was supposed to report the news, not create it.

It's easy to see who really decides who should run the country, just as Transnational Mining Companies can "decide how much tax they pay and the manner in which they pay it."

Some people even believe we live in a free and open democracy where everybody has an equal say.

Dance monkeys, dance.

In considering my vote for this Federal election I feel like the man facing the judge and being asked " Would you prefer to be shot, hanged or executed by lethal injection?"

There are four very scary possibilities the upcoming election:

1)
The Greens will pick up a lot of disenchanted Labor voters and become a stronger force in the senate and, possibly, even put a couple of members into the lower house. When are people going to wake up that the greens are not environmentalists, they are rabid wwwaayyy - out - left - wing socialists who will regulate everything to death. The only reason they support Labor is that they hate them a little less than they hate the Libs.

2)
Labor will win and continue to wreck the economy with their hamfisted tax and spend policies.

3)
The Libs will win and we will have a Prime Minister who is a religious nutter controlled by the Pope. Government from Canberra is bad enough but, please, not from Rome.

4)
We will end up like the Brits with a hung parliament which will pretty well ensure that nothing useful gets done for three years.

All up, I think my chances of retiring on my super just went South for at least another term of Government.