Graham Young
Re last nights performance, I felt like I was watching south-park, only it was not at all funny.

At the last election I think I was not the only liberal who was so uneasy about Abbott's Liberalism, that I did not put pencil to ballot paper. I asked about informals because I intuit that this time around, labor centrists who are very uneasy about Mr Rudds sanity may be a factor, no?

They could be, I just don't have any data that would support that position, so my speculation is just as good as anyone else's. An interesting experiment would be to look at the informal votes in the last NSW and Queensland elections to see whether they are higher or lower than previous elections, and whether they vary depending on the original security of the Labor or LNP incumbents.

The situation in both states in terms of public despair about Labor is probably similar to what it is federally, so if you could find that a. there was an increase in the informal vote over the average of the previous few elections and b. the informal vote was higher in electorates that have a proportionately larger Labor vote, then I think you have a working hypothesis with some data behind it.

The sooner voters realise that Rudd is a dud, the better.
It was he who got us into this unholy mess in the first place.
Watched him waffling on about what he is going to do on TV this morning, plenty of mouth and just nothing to back it up with.
I do wonder if he retain even his own seat at the election and the longer he leaves it into announcing a date for the election the more he will lose.

I find it passing strange that the timing of the election hasn't received more comment, or factored more into the gurus assessment of Labor's chances.
by September, a lot of low income earners are going to get a nice tax return present, compliments of Julia.
Perhaps not so strange; The Powers That Be have a long history of ignoring, or taking for granted the silent majority.
The "average" wage may be up around $70k, but the median is still closer to $40k; 18k of which is now tax free.
That's 50% of the voting public, who probably don't bother with polls, don't write letters to the editor much less their local MP and would be happier if they didn't even have to vote, much less enter into long arguments about bloody politicians.
They may not show up in the polls, but they still have to show up on polling day.

I suspect that the torrent of words from Mr Rudd over these past few days has been building up for three years, that on that back-bench, he's been rehearsing and honing speeches on every topic under the sun, in preparation for this moment.

On the other hand, if he does get stuck into the NSW Labor 'Party', he has the chance to boost the electoral chances of a dozen sitting members. Certainly, at least three.

So Labor can pick up maybe 66 to the Coalition's 78, and maybe save a Senate seat in NSW. Just so long as the honeymoon lasts and Rudd doesn't make any mistakes.

For all that, that first episode of Wednesday Night Fever had him down pat. Beautiful. And that sheila does Julia better than Julia does. Brilliant.

Joe

If Rudd's only achievement is to clean up NSW Labor he will have been worth while. I'd like to be able to bottle his inexplicable appeal, I could make a fortune selling it to political hopefuls. I'd also like to have a week without polls sometime before the election.