Table Talk: Bob Ellis on Film and Theatre

O’Shannessy is getting sillier and sillier. Today’s Newspoll bizarrely asserts that Campbell Newman is/was leader of the Labor Party and the LNP as well, that Bligh preceded him in the one, and Palaszczuk succeeded him in the other.

He also asks us to believe the Katter Party got 11.5 a year ago and now gets only 3, and the Others got 4.6 a year ago, and now get 15. A fool can see he is hiding the Katter vote — which may by now be 18 or 19 percent — and doing it dishonestly; asking, perhaps, the respondents, ‘Do you vote LNP, Labor, Green or Others?’ and omitting mention of Katter most of the time. If it is indeed as I say, then KAP preferences would put Labor on 49.

It is clear what he is doing. Terrified of the haemorrhage of Newman votes to Katter, he is shovelling votes in any direction Rupert wants, and hoping nobody notices.

He is also ringing only landlines in the hottest summer on record and coming up, yes, with a swing to the NLP of six percent. Of course he is. Who was home in Queensland in January, February, March? Infirm old people, mainly. The prosperous were on holidays, the students between lodgings, the able-bodied swimming, fishing or water-skiing, the parents of children at Waterworld. Almost no-one under fifty has landlines in Queensland and those are all he rings.

If the Katter preferences go Labor’s way, and Katter’s detestation of Newman will ensure they will, it’s possible Labor is already on 54 two party preferred and gaining, or Katter’s base vote is on 21 and in a position to win eleven seats and negotiate a coalition with either side.

The level of lying is criminal but not surprising. What else does a polling company CEO do? What else is a CEO for? Tweaking; what else? I urge the police to investigate O’Shannessy and see if he has committed fraud.

In the meantime I ask him calmly: Who is the leader of the Labor Party, Newman or Palaszczuk? He should get that right for a start.

And who are these half million new ‘Others’ if not KAP?

And which way will the three hundred thousand ‘Undecideds’ go, if not away from the detested Newman?

And, oh yes, when will he stop telling lies?