Coalition further behind. There is no joy at all for the Coalition in the latest opinion polls. The average of the two party vote from the three regular national pollsters has Labor further in front than at the last election.The leadership change in the Liberal Party has not made a scrap of difference. Malcolm Turnbull’s personal rating might be higher than Brendan Nelson’s but the Coalition vote has declined rather than increased. And Kevin Rudd continues to maintain a huge advantage as the preferred Prime Minister.
The Australian asserts the Prime Minister has lied. In an editorial yesterday The Australian said:
“The contentious part of Franklin’s story revealed that during the 30-minute conversation, Mr Rudd was stunned to hear Mr Bush say: “What’s the G20?” We stand by the story with confidence.”
On Thursday before leaving Canberra Prime Minister Kevin Rudd said:
“Can I just say that if the White House says and I have said and the US Ambassador has said, that the reported remarks in this article were not made.”
There is only one conclusion that can be drawn from this. The Australian is alleging that the Australian Prime Minister is not telling the truth.
The Sydney Tele went on a crusade and its sales kept falling. The Sydney Daily Telegraph went quite overboard with its campaign to get rid of the NSW Labor Government and its sales just kept on falling. David Penberthy, the youthful editor who decided that being a political campaigner was the right course for the tabloid, has now been replaced. Presumably his replacement, newspaper veteran Garry Liddell, will put more emphasis on stories that his readers actually want to read and put an end to the political beat ups. This morning’s news sense certainly looks quite different from Penberthy’s efforts last week.
Today’s Tele:
Last Thursday’s Tele
I would have to say that neither headline would compel me to buy that rag.
And yours JimK and yours.
I hope the new editor of the Telegraph has the spine to ensure the Akerman pursuit of his fabrication, the Heiner soap opera reaches its final episode. Again yesterday, I see Akerman drip feeds those who choose to believe this Han Christian Anderson type tale he brings back to life from time to time to cover for the absurd accusations and threats he has made against the democratically elected Prime Minister of this country. He now drags the Present GG into this nonsense, yet no other journalist in the country wants a bar of the stupidity. Its time the cranky old fool was pensioned off, he is a joke.
I guess Rudd means the “What’s the G-20?” remark was not made to Bush but that does not mean he did not relay that that was the remark he made to the Australian. Mitchell also has indicated that he did not breach confidence.
If Rudd gets away with this then that says as much about about Australian political reporting as about Rudd’s slippery character.