First Published on The Punch 29th June 2010

The Australian public’s reaction to last week’s execution of their Prime Minister came in two courses. The first: “Don’t break the eggs!”  The second: “Nice omelette!”

By chance, I was observing focus groups on the night Rudd was rolled and the general feeling was one of surprise, anger, even outage, “it’s our job to throw out a leader, not their’s”, a sense that something fundamentally undemocratic was occurring.

But more remarkable than this emotional reaction, was the fact that it was so fleeting, having vented people who ready to move on and embrace our first female Prime Minister.

“He must be sacked”.

“We must send a group of former factions to see him and tell him that if he doesn’t change the game plan – then he has to go.”

“This team is meant to embody the spirit of our nation and the performance we’ve put in is not only unpopular but it’s a disgrace to our whole nation,” he said.

“You can’t blame the players, they didn’t have a plan that they believed in or even understood what it was.

“PM doesn’t understand us, he doesn’t understand our fighting spirit. Read more »

7pm hungry.

I, like many other ‘Gen Y-can’t-I-do-everything-on-my-iPhone?’, first heard about the political events of last week while browsing my iphone for twitter, news feeds and facebook status updates, in front of the slower to react television on Wednesday night.

And feed we did.

As soon as the door shut on the then Prime Minister’s office, social networks were abuzz with the thought of a coup, thousands of tweeps all across Australia were glued to their 140 character evening dinner, with each and all sharing their pointed opinion on the ensuing #spill.

24hr news was being fed from all of this online action, with sky news reporters constantly taking advice and proclaiming news from their iphone instant news features, SMS and Twitter.

Pass the buttered corn. Read more »

First Published on Crikey Thursday 24th June

Essential Reports polls taken over the last 2 years show how Kevin Rudd’s approval ratings have declined since he almost unprecedented figures he achieved following his election through to early last year. Up to March last year approval hovered around the high 60% level into the low 70%.  Is net approval (i.e. approve minus disapprove) was around the mid 40% level.

Throughout 2009 and early 2010 his approval went into steady decline but still remained in positive territory. At the end of March he recorded 53% approval and 36% disapproval. However, the most dramatic shift occurred in April and May when his approval first entered negative territory with 41% approve and 47% disapprove. The decline appeared to be accelerating.

Some of the reasons for this sudden decline can be found in how the personal perceptions of Kevin Rudd changed from 2009 to May this year.  His attribute ratings showed significant falls in the percentage of people who considered him to be a capable leader (72% to 55%), good in a crisis (60%-44%) and trustworthy (51%-41%). Meanwhile his ratings for “out of touch with ordinary people” increased from 41% to 55%. It indicates a significant loss of confidence in his performance as Prime Minister.

Last week’s Essential Report showed only weak support for Kevin Rudd to lead the Labor Party to the next election – 40% thought the Labor Party would have better chance of winning the election if they changed leader and 37% thought Kevin Rudd was the best person to lead the labor Party. Even among Labor voters only 66% supported Kevin Rudd as leader and 23% though they should change. Read more »

When it comes to research, online polling has an image problem. Federal Labor minister Craig Emerson was at it again this morning, saying the Essential Report was not a representative sample.

Part of the problem with online polling, is that it is often confused with the self-selecting web-based surveys that many news sites run – these, of course, are not scientific.

But evidence is emerging that professionally sourced and managed online panels are every bit as representative and accurate as the traditional method of telephone polling.

It has been estimated that more than 50% of all market and social research in Australia is conducted on line – it is relied on by major companies (and Governments!!) to make key decisions about their products, services, marketing. If it wasn’t reliable and valid they would be putting their businesses at considerable risk. Read more »

While Canberra doesn’t look like getting above 15 degrees this week, there’s a chance the term of this government is heating up.

Whether they’re currently half baked or have they been left too long, today’s poll shows that they’re the same stale position they’ve been in for the last week.

Kevin looks like spending the day explaining to the Chinese dep pres what rat fucker means.

Today’s opinion poll will fuel speculation about a mid September poll, with sources suggesting that Kevin Rudd is aware of fact that football finals exist but doesn’t think his team can do any worse than Andrew Johns. Read more »

The last time a determined interest group took on a federal government, EMC was behind the wheel – driving the ACTU Rights at Work campaign.

This time the attack is coming from the mining industry, and if reports are to be believed, the miners are forking out in three months $100 million – about four times the three year budget for the Rights at Work campaign.

Having worked on a campaign that most agree shifted government, it’s worth asking – is the Miners campaign as effective? Are the winning the hearts and minds of the battlers? In short, are they going to change the government?

Here are few lessons we learned from Rights at Work, and my initial reactions on how the mining lobby is faring. Read more »

When the Australian Workers Union decided to inject itself into the national debate on the resource Rent Tax, they called EMC with a challenging brief.

With a 48 hour turn around we were asked to script produce and deliver a 30 second TV ad that would rebut the increasingly shrill complaints of the mining lobby.

Working with Milko Productions, EMC adapted a concept we had been working on for some time – the notion that the mining industry is defined by what it takes out of Australia. Read more »