Newspoll Reveals Rudd Led Spectacular Comeback In Just Six Days, Murdoch Media Doesn't Notice

Newspoll, you're so damn finicky.

So according to Newspoll, in just six days prime minister Kevin Rudd has gone from being at "record lows" to Labor support being at its "highest level" since the election campaign began.
 
But nobody at The Australian seemed to notice The Rudd Surge, least of all Newspoll wrangler Dennis Shanahan.

Unlike just six days ago, when Rudd was at "record lows" :

Mr Rudd today shrugged off the devastating Newspoll and said he had been written off many times before during his political career.

“I'm a fighter and there are many things worth fighting for in this election campaign,” he told the Seven Network.

I actually admire Shanahan's work explaining to us how the Murdoch co-owned Newspoll is actually nearly always telling us Labor is doomed. Doomed!

Anyone willing to write thousands of words a week on that fucking berzerk poll, year after year after year, deserves some respect. Probably.

Shanahan on Newspoll is like some bizarre public experiment by Rupert Murdoch, for the confusement and amusement of the masses. Well, of course, there's not so many masses at The Australian anymore, but that's another story. For later.

One you won''t read much about in The Australian.

Like The KRudd Comeback story that was right there, if only they'd wanted to find it..

Maybe next week.

Daily Telegraph Couldn't Fit Any More Rudd Attack Stories On Front Page

A new record for Rupert Murdoch's Daly Telegraph in its fair and balanced coverage of the 2013 Federal Election.

Four anti-Rudd stories in prime top-of-the-page position on the DT front page online.

The strategy is a simple one. Say almost nothing about opposition leader Tony Abbott, just hammer prime minister Kevin Rudd day after day, with everything and anything, regardless of the facts.

It is true, according to some but not all polls, that Kevin Rudd's popularity is falling in Western Sydney, not quite as fast as the Daily Telgraph''s circulation, but getting there.
 

More to come...

The Unique 'Reality' Of Newspoll - Australian Federal Election - Day 18

The Australian gets the headline it wanted.

 
Is Newspoll now conducting its survey within the offices of The Australian?

There is Margin of Error, there is poll disparity, and then there is the unique reality of Newspoll. The Ghost Who Votes with the latest numbers:

 

Malcolm Turnbull Denies Inhaling - Rudd Fails Sniff Test - Federal Election 2013 - Day 13

Macolm Turnbull campaigns in Sydney (source) :

Prime Minister Kevin Rudd meets a local in the Territory (source) : 

 More on Kevin Rudd's visit to the Territory from The NT News.

The Wrong Kind Of Master Debate - Federal Election 2013

By Darryl Mason

Prime minister Kevin Rudd faced off against Opposition Leader Tony Abbott in the first debate of the Federal Election 2013 campaign.

Australia could barely disguise a stifled yawn.


Very little fresh policy detail, outside of PM Rudd's promise to deliver legislation to recognise marriage equality legislation into Parliament within 100 days of being re-elected, and 'the worm' scrolling across the bottom of the screen either said Rudd Is Shit, if you were watching Channel 7, or Rudd Rocks if you were watching Channel 9. The polarisation between audiences for two TV commercial channels seettmed absurd.

Channel 7's online debate vote gave Abbott an extraordinary 18 point win.

But hold on, Channel 9 debate voters gave Rudd an 18 point win.

Ugh.

How boring was the debate? The only glint of Story! resulted from Rudd checking his notes, in apparent violation of debate rules, though the moderator failed to pull him up on this. Incredibly, Rudd Reads From Notes During Debate is now an international headline.

Here's the most important thing. Word clouds, lovely words clouds via Ben Harris-Roxas. Red is Abbott, Blue is Rudd.

THE FIRST DEBATE - FULL TRANSCRIPT

AUSTRALIA'S TWITTER RESPONSE IN DETAIL

DEBATE OPENING STATEMENTS 

Am I Prime Minister Yet? Federal Election 2013 Day 5

 Not yet, Tony. Not yet.

UPDATE: Already labelled as 'The Photo Of The Election Campaign', photographer Alex Ellinghausen captures Tony Abbott as he would like to be seen by the Australian public, on his bike with his crotch pouring light. Probably.

Photo by Alex Ellinhausen for Fairfax.


Source

Campaign Gets Ruddy Bloody - After months of unemployment and general beardiness, The Chaser team pick up some top shaving tips from prime minister Kevin Rudd as they begin work on their election specials.

Daily Telegraph Depicts PM Rudd As Nazi - Day 4 Of Federal Election Campaign

Rupert Murdoch's The Daily Telegraph couldn't wait even a week into the election campaign before they depicted Prime Minister Kevin Rudd as a Nazi, online and in print.

And front page of the newspaper, of course.

Does aanyone under 40 even know what TV show the Daily Telegraph's editor Paul Whittaker is referencing there?

You have to feel sorry for the good journalists still left at the Daily Telegraph who have nothing to do with the front page. How is this in any way a good thing for a newspaper industry on its knees? What more reason do you need to give for people to give up on the morning paper habit than garbage like this?

Source

Ruddney Rude Vs NWA

,

Didn't cover much of it here due to extended break from blogging, but this piece from The Guardian, published in August, sums up the Australian Coup to the 2010 Federal Election period perfectly :

Here was a Labor government which had breasted the world financial crisis better than almost any other developed state. Here was an administration facing up to the realities of Australia's environmental situation, the constraints represented by the country's limited water supplies and agricultural land, and its vulnerability to fire, flood, drought and other hazards made worse by global warming. Here was a leadership with plans to impose more realistic taxes on the extractive industries that control the nation's most important assets. Here was a government, in other words, ready to discard the myth of "Big Australia", of a nation that could be pumped up to super-size by immigration and the breakneck exploitation of its mineral resources, and settle for a more modest vision of the future. And this reining-in carried with it the possibility of attending more effectively to the social inequality that had been increasing in Australia in recent years.

In all this it had the broad backing of most of the electorate. So how did this translate into a performance at the polls so dismal that the Australian Labor party is either headed for opposition, or, if it stays in power, will have only a tiny majority provided by a handful of independent MPs and one Green? The answer is a cautionary tale involving the power of Australia's mining and energy industries, the loss of nerve in the face of that power by two Labor leaders in succession, and the determination of the leader of the opposition Liberal National party.

The Rest Is Here

As you may already be aware, The Chaser returns to the ABC tonight for the first of five new episodes covering the Federal Election 2010, a year on from the end of their War On Everything series.

Yes We Canberra! will likely be the most, or only, entertaining thing about the next four weeks of campaigning, leading to the day Tony Abbott is declared the new prime minister of Australia.

In preparation for a Liberal Party-led new government, Chas takes on the next Australian deputy prime minister, Julie Bishop, in a deathstare cagematch :



After the June coup, The Chaser had to dump a ton of sketches and gags they'd been working on, centred around prime minister Kevin Rudd on the campaign trail. Here's one of the Rudd gags that didn't get the chop :

It's funny, because it's true :



Effective political advertising :

The Australian, July 14 :

Americans who are attending the annual conference (with Kevin Rudd) are curious.

They wonder how it happened that an Australian leader who appeared so popular and so comfortable on the world stage only 12 months ago could be tossed out so quickly -- even before he had faced an election.

Yes, what an absolute mystery it is.

The Australian, June 26 :




.

Pretty cutting amateur satire :



I've never linked to, or really watched, those Hitler Downfall parody vids. But this one about Kevin Rudd is very well done, covers the history, and was done extremely fast, online within a day of the Australian Coup.


.

The Australian Coup : Does Kevin Rudd Know Something We Don't?



In the Twitter reality, Kevin Rudd is still prime minister of Australia, and was not deposed in a coup on that began one week ago, on the morning of June 23.

This is the @KevinRuddPM twitter page on June 30 :



Shortly after the coup, the 'Verified Account' tick disappeared from the @KevinRuddPM page.

Last night the 'Verified Account' tick reappeared.

@KevinRuddPM is still posting updates to his 930,000 or so followers on Twitter about moving his family from Canberra back home to Queensland :


For nearly a week, Australians have been posting messages to @KevinRuddPM on Twitter pouring out their shock and disgust at what happened to the prime minister they believed they elected, and had the right to vote out at the next election if they weren't happen with his performance.

The messages are a portrait of a country, outside of Canberra and the mainstream media, where support for Kevin Rudd as prime minister remained in the majority, and his literally overnight disappearance as their leader remains mostly a mystery. How can they his happen in Australia? they ask, over and over. Aren't we a democracy? Don't we get to choose our prime minister?
What have they done to you? What have they have done to this country?

A recent sampling :




As far as most of the media here are concerned, however, this official approval of the coup from Rupert Murdoch is all that needs to be said :


But millions of Australians don't agree. Labor politicians are acknowledging "the anger out there" over the coup, but they've done little to address it.

If Julia Gillard doesn't round up Labor voters lost thanks to bitterness, anger and bewilderment over the coup, they're going to be in real trouble.

Last night, Julia Gillard attended a function in Brisbane. She must have been thanking whoever you thank when you don't believe in God that the protesters weren't holding up 'Bring Back Kev' signs :





.
.

Trouble Brewing :

The circumstances of Rudd’s removal are a graphic exposure of the thoroughly worm-eaten character of both the Labor Party and the entire system of so-called parliamentary democracy in Australia. The Labor Party long ago ceased to be a mass political party in any meaningful sense of the word, but the depth and breadth of the gulf between it and the lives and concerns of the mass of ordinary people have never been so clearly demonstrated.

The leadership challenge was not decided by a move from the caucus but by a tiny handful of unknown factional bosses and union bureaucrats responding directly to the demands of powerful corporate and financial elites for a revamping of the government.

Not only did backbench MPs have no idea of the events on Wednesday evening, Cabinet members were in the dark as well. As one minister told the ABC: “I am sitting in my office watching all this unfold on TV. I have no part in this and no idea what’s going on. This is madness.”

Much has been made of the collapse in opinion poll support for Labor as the underlying reason for Rudd’s demise. But the opinion polls reflect more the impact of the media on popular consciousness than any genuine social or political movement. When key sections of the media and the corporate interests they represent backed Rudd, his opinion poll ratings reached record highs. Once he lost their confidence and their support was withdrawn, his opinion poll rating, and that of the Labor Party, fell accordingly.

The ousting of Rudd—the only time a Labor prime minister has been removed during his first term—was not carried out as a result of a movement of the working class, but by key sections of the financial and corporate elites.

ABC Managing Director Mark Scott knows a coup when he sees one :






.

Wreckage

From this :



And this :



To this :



And this :



Homer Simpson :

"When will people learn? Democracy doesn't work."


.

Haunting :

Peter Hartcher :

Kevin Rudd’s polling numbers were no worse than John Howard’s had been at the same point in the electoral cycle on several occasions before he went on to win.

Howard managed to rally his party, campaign and win. Rudd has not been given the same opportunity.

Rudd’s poll support fell brutally in April and May, but had stabilised. Two polls this week, a Newspoll and an Essential Media survey, put Labor ahead by 52 per cent to 48 on the election-deciding two-party share of the vote.

As the former national secretary of the Labor Party, Bob McMullan, told a caucus meeting on Tuesday, no government sitting on these polls numbers this close to an election had lost.

And no opposition leader as unpopular as Tony Abbott at this point in the cycle had gone on to win.

.

Call It What It Is, A Coup

By Darryl Mason

Did it really only take the mere rumour that prime minister Kevin Rudd was considering a super-profits tax, like he was planning for Australia's richest miners, to be imposed on all of Australia's most profitable corporations, for the coup to commence?

It began, as most major news stories do these days, with a Twitter update. ABC News on Twitter announced before the 7pm news that prime minister Kevin Rudd was fighting a coup :


This news was retweeted (republished) minutes later by ABC managing director Mark Scott to around 30,000 followers, including every journalist, business leader, investor, news junkie in Australia who realises Twitter is where news breaks first now :


ABC political reporter Chris Uhlmann pumped the news out to thousands more on Twitter :


It was no longer conservative media and Liberal Party-allied media fantasy. Their dream of a Julia Gillard prime ministership had come true, many months early, and the Rudd government was tearing itself apart.

Minutes later, ABC News Online published this story :



The original brief ABC News Online story, posted shortly after 7pm Wednesday (now swallowed up and changed through updates) :

Prime Minister Kevin Rudd's leadership is under siege tonight from some of the Labor Party's most influential factional warlords.

The ABC has learned that powerful party figures have been secretly canvassing numbers for a move to dump the Prime Minister and replace him with his deputy, Julia Gillard.

It appears she has rebuffed the advances, but it is a measure of the disquiet which has been building in the party since Mr Rudd's approval ratings began their precipitous slide in April.

Ministers and party members have been lining up all week to voice their support for Mr Rudd but behind the scenes, party leaders have been contemplating a leadership change.

Although Mr Rudd looks likely to survive the challenge, news of the attempted coup will undoubtedly weaken him.

It is understood that the only thing holding the Prime Minister up is that his deputy refuses to join in a bid to bring him down.

The essential word "coup" appears to be missing from later stories, all other news sites and nearly all late night TV and radio reports.

A few hours after ABC News Online broke the story, prime minister Kevin Rudd faced a press conference to announce a leadership vote Thursday morning at 9am. He seemed mildly stunned, but firm, and railed against the right factions of the Australian Labor Party, all but shouting that he wouldn't let the Labor right wing take over the government; the same right factions who had almost effortlessly plunged the Australian government into utter chaos, with days of stock market uncertainty to follow.

Frontbenchers of the Rudd government were seen sitting in their Parliament House offices, watching news of the coup unfolding around them on the TV, mouthing words that simplify out as "What The Fuck?"

By 11pm, Julia Gillard was a bigger discussion subject on Twitter than even the World Cup, which is fucking remarkable :



Kevin Rudd's name briefly climbed into the Twitter Trending Topics list, but not for long.

Newspaper front pages aren't online yet, to round up for this, however bizarre, truly historic event in Australian politics and Australian democracy. But the pre-midnight graphics of Australian online news sites clearly spelled out the (perhaps only brief) federal government disaster unfolding. None with more fever than the Murdoch media, who have been all but hysterically demanding Julia Gillard replace Kevin Rudd as prime minister for months.

Adelaide Now :



News.com. au :



The Australian Financial Review :



ABC News :


The Australian :



In fact The Australian was so excited they invented a new word to mark this historic occasion :



The Sydney Morning Herald :



NineMSN :



The Age :



The Herald Sun :



The Daily Telegraph :



How dare Kevin Rudd be "defiant"? Who does he think he is? The democratically elected prime minister of Australia?

The face of our new prime minister, Julia Gillard, as she exited Parliament House last night, after what some media reported as a solid two hours of yelling and raging "discussion" in the prime minister's office :


(screengrab from graphic on The Australian)

If Julia Gillard wins the Labor Party vote to replace Kevin Rudd, she has to call an election. Immediately. As all new leaders of any state or federal government should and must, but rarely, do when they rise to peak power through internal wranglings and not by the vote of the public.

Democracy demands it.

Remember?

.

The Australian, quality lead editorial journalism, June 23 (excerpts) :

Kevin Rudd looks safe as leader, but at what price?

Judging by his performance in question time yesterday, the Prime Minister thinks he can win the next election. So, it seems, does the caucus, including the person who has the most to gain by Kevin Rudd's exit from the top job. Julia Gillard is astute, capable and popular - and she is sticking by her boss.

The alternative scenario advanced by many of Ms Gillard's supporters sees her replacing Mr Rudd a few months after a narrow Labor victory. She would indeed make a good prime minister. But like Peter Costello before her, the deputy might find that when it comes to power, timing is everything.

The Rest Is Here