Stilgherrian » antony green

Politics & Technology Forum videos & tweets

Stilgherrian — Sun, 29 Jun 2008 22:36:45 +0000

Until I get time to write my essay about last week’s Politics & Technology Forum in Canberra, you can relive it on your own.

Thanks to Microsoft’s Nick Hodge, you can view videos of Matt Bai’s keynote address, Panel 1 on Blogging, social networks, political movements and the media with Annabel Crabb, Peter Black and Mark Textor, and Panel 2 on Politics 2.0: information technology and the future of political campaigning with Joe Hockey, Senator Andrew Bartlett, Senator Kate Lundy and Antony Green.

You can also trawl back through the Twitter stream using Summize.com. There’s a lot of material, though, so unless you’re a complete political junkie and want to read through it while listening to the discussions you may want to wait for my essay.

[Disclosure: I was in Canberra as a guest of Microsoft.]

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In Canberra!

Stilgherrian — Tue, 24 Jun 2008 11:03:29 +0000

As previously warned, I’m in Canberra for tomorrow’s Politics & Technology Forum as a guest of that little husband-and-wife firm called Microsoft.

I’ve repeated the programme below, but right now my head is spinning with ideas. PubCamp Sydney was bad enough, what with conversations coming left, right and centre. And I watched the Twitter stream from Melbourne’s event yesterday — and I’m still processing the thoughts.

But this…!

My Twitter stream will use the hashtag #poltech and you’ll be able to track everything at Summize.com.

Meanwhile, tonight I’ll be reading, thinking and pondering over a quiet drink courtesy of that minibar over there [points]. If I have any amazing insights I’ll let you know.

I may even so an impromptu Stilgherrian Live Alpha later this evening. Watch Twitter for the announcement.

Politics & Technology Forum Programme

Keynote: Matt Bai, political writer for the New York Times magazine.

Panel 1: “Blogging, social networks, political movements and the media”, with Brett Solomon from GetUp!; Annabel Crabb from the Sydney Morning Herald; Peter Black from QUT; spin doctor Mark Textor of Crosby Textor, who ran the Howard government’s failed re-election campaign; and the editor of Crikey Jonathan Green.

Panel 2: “Politics 2.0: information technology and the future of political campaigning”, with Joe Hockey, the Liberal member for North Sydney; Senator Andrew Bartlett of the Australian Democrats; Labor Senator Kate Lundy (ACT); and election analyst extraordinaire Antony Green.

[P.S. Is Matt Bai the person to whom someone first said "kthxbai"?]

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Here’s episode 4!

Stilgherrian — Thu, 29 May 2008 14:29:31 +0000

Well the new computer certainly helped!

Replacing the obsolescent PowerBook G4 with shiny new MacBook Pro meant there was enough processing power to run everything for Stilgherrian Live Alpha episode 4: audio without breakup, a separate monitoring mix, drop-in videos, vision mixing… and even a two-camera shoot!

Content? Yeah there was content…

I talked about Mobile Content World, the gayness of Eurovision, Miranda Devine, the Politics & Technology Forum and the nature of broadcasting. And there was a fantastic song at the end.

The live audience reached 34 people at its peak, I think. It adds an interesting dynamic, though I’m still suffering from information overload trying to keep track of the chat and doing my own vision switching.

I’ll post some further thoughts some time in the next few days.

Episode 5 will be live on the Internet on Thursday 5 June at 9.30pm Sydney time.

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Oh dear, I’m going to Canberra…

Stilgherrian — Mon, 26 May 2008 23:09:15 +0000

… for Australia’s inaugural Politics & Technology Forum on 25 June. It’s being sponsored by Microsoft, and I’m going as their guest. Apparently I continue to fool them.

The keynote is by Matt Bai, political writer for the New York Times magazine, followed by two panel discussions.

Panel 1 is on “Blogging, social networks, political movements and the media”, with Brett Solomon from GetUp!; Annabel Crabb from the Sydney Morning Herald; Peter Black from QUT; spin doctor Mark Textor of Crosby Textor, who ran the Howard government’s failed re-election campaign; and the editor of Crikey Jonathan Green. It’ll be nice to finally meet my editor!

Panel 2 is “Politics 2.0: information technology and the future of political campaigning”, with Joe Hockey, the Liberal member for North Sydney; Senator Andrew Bartlett of the Australian Democrats; Labor Senator Kate Lundy (ACT); and election analyst extraordinaire Antony Green. Very scary indeed.

At this stage it looks like I’ll be heading to Canberra on 24 June and staying overnight. If this is of interest, please register as a stalker in the usual way.

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For fuck’s sake, can we vote yet?

Stilgherrian — Mon, 05 Nov 2007 22:28:48 +0000

In the first week of the campaign, I thought it was just me. Maybe I’d seen a few federal elections and knew the pattern. But no, now I’m sure. This really is the most boring election in the history of western civilisation. Which is why I’ve written far less about it than I thought I would. It’s depressing.

I blame John Howard.

Not because John Howard is a sneaky, lying rodent who’s denigrated the fine reputation this nation used to have, who’s perverted the political process, who’s moved us backwards in vital areas like infrastructure and democratic transparency and human rights and whose time has well and truly passed — though they’re all excellent reasons to vote the cunt out of office.

No, I blame John Howard because the signs of voter dissatisfaction were sitting right in front of him — his own cabinet told him it was time to go! — and yet he had to sink his grasping little claws into those tasteful Kirribilli carpets one more time, try one last trick, then another, then another and another and another and another — pissing away a million of our dollars a day flogging a dead horse and, like a cat that doesn’t want to go outside on a cold wet night, screaming “Nooooooooooo! I don’t wanna goooooooooooooooooo!”

And then, when even his own little media cheer squad could ignore the obvious no longer, what does Howard do?

With public talk of “the team”, he gets everyone else to talk up the Howard-Costello duo while in his own electorate he edits his running-mate out of the script. It’s every man for himself and, as per bloody usual, Howard puts his own needs — hanging onto Bennelong — well ahead of the party.

Oh, enough!

The policy battle lines were drawn months ago. The voters made up their minds months ago. There’s only so many times Peter Brent can say this new poll is consistent with all the others. There’s only so many times Dennis Shanahan can pretend that some tiny sub-noise wiggle in Newspoll means there’s still a chance for the Coalition.

Antony Green said it’s the most consistent set of pre-election polls he’s ever seen — back in August.

Today Possums Pollytics punches the last 14 polls into Antony’s election calculator — and gets a clear win for Labor every time.

OK, maybe someone, somewhere in the Australian political scene will pull a rabbit out of a hat and make something change in this election campaign. Something more significant than Peter Garrett being a cockhead.

There. I feel better now. I’m going to watch a race where we don’t know the result.

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Today’s election prediction

Stilgherrian — Thu, 01 Nov 2007 23:34:00 +0000

Gotta love the Internet. If you take the analysis of today’s Newspoll figures and plug them into Antony Green’s election calculator you get this astounding result.

An ALP win, with 102 seats in the House versus just 46 for the Coalition. Antony’s sliders didn’t even allow for a swing of more than 10% but the details are correct if you click through.

As Antony said on The 7.30 Report last night, “The biggest swing Labor have achieved and won Government was the Hawke-led Labor Party in ‘83 a bit over 3 per cent. At the moment we’re talking about swings of double of almost triple that kind of swing.”

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Antony Green’s Election Guide online

Stilgherrian — Fri, 21 Sep 2007 05:23:58 +0000

Überanalyst Antony Green’s guide to the 2007 federal election is now online. That is all. At ease.

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A Night of Politics: grubby, grubby…

Stilgherrian — Thu, 30 Aug 2007 22:54:11 +0000

The entire evening was filled with politics yesterday ~~and the chafing this morning is quite painful~~ and I learned a lot.

Christian Kerr, the national affairs editor for Crikey, was promoting his book “in conversation with” Antony Green, the thinking woman’s crumpet — a combination too good to miss! We went for dinner afterwards.

I didn’t realise I’ve actually met Christian before, until he saw me. “I know you,” he said. “You were the first person to play me I Like It Both Ways with Shaun Micaleff at 5UV.” I have no recollection of this event, Your Honour. However Christian recalled sufficient details for me to be convinced the event probably did happen. Somewhere. He knew certain obscure hand gestures. Stop asking questions.

In a preview of the federal election and subsequent conversation I learned:

Christian thinks that the election won’t be fought over industrial relations, as many pundits are saying, but over the economy. It’ll be about the Howard government’s “sound economic management” (as they describe it) versus the It’s Time factor.
Unless something changes, it will be a Labor victory. For all the talk of “the polls are all over the place,” Antony Green says this is the most consistent series of polls he’s ever seen.
There is a Big Yabby in Alexander Downer’s electorate, at Goolwa, which is symbolic somehow.
Malcolm Turnbull could still win the federal seat of Wentworth thanks to his Fabulousness Factor.
No-one seems to understand why John Howard won’t support gay-related issues. And I’ve just finished reading his biography — nothing there gives a clue either.
Mattresses.
Iguanadons.

Now where’s that moisturiser…?

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Christian Kerr in conversation with Anthony Green

Stilgherrian — Mon, 27 Aug 2007 10:51:07 +0000

I’ve already reviewed The Crikey Guide to the 2007 Federal Election, so I’ll keep this brief. Editor Christian Kerr is in Sydney at Gleebooks this Thursday night, conversing with über-analyst Antony Green. There will be maps. There will be a long white pointer stick!

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“I don’t do predictions,” but…

Stilgherrian — Wed, 15 Aug 2007 11:06:53 +0000

Election über-analyst Antony Green (pictured) has joined his eponymous Antony Green Appreciation Society on Facebook. Asked to give an election prediction, he said:

No. If I wanted to do predictions, I would have studied astrology. Not that you have to study anything to do astrology. It’s hardly a science.

It certainly looks like it will be an interesting election. There’s only been one opinion poll this year that suggested anything less than a 6% swing. If a swing like that occurred, you’d have to have the logical skills of a Christopher Pearson to construct a scenario where the government prevented Labor gaining 16 seats. I suppose we have another few weeks breathlessly hanging on to see if there is a poll turnaround.

Maybe more than a few weeks, if the election gets strung out until December. I reckon by then we’ll all be well over it.

P.S. Watch out, Antony! There’s an echidna behind you.

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Review: The Crikey Guide to the 2007 Federal Election

Stilgherrian — Sat, 28 Jul 2007 05:36:32 +0000

Crikey attempts a difficult task — a book about politics for people who don’t know much about politics. But despite a few minor flaws they pull it off well enough to more than justify the $19.95 price tag.

The Crikey Guide to the 2007 Federal Election is a great way to bring yourself up to speed in this vital election year — but not because of the profiles of key marginal electorates.

The profiles cover the same ground as the ABC Elections website and every print media outlet will give us free of charge once the election date is announced. The maps are so small as to be unreadable — they’d have worked better in a B5 or A4 magazine format rather than a standard paperback. I suppose profiling the marginals is compulsory, but it could have been handled better.

The essays are what makes this book truly valuable.

Editor Christian Kerr has managed to suppress the right-wing bias he exhibits daily in Crikey and provides an even-handed overview of the task facing the major parties, their strengths and vulnerabilities. His profiles of 2-dozen-odd power players are a great spotter’s guide to the people behind the scenes. Charles Richardson provides an excellent overview of Australia’s electoral system and the parties — some of the best in-a-nutshell explanations I’ve seen.

But four essays stood out for me as pure gold.

Veteran political journalist Mungo MacCallum’s 14-page history of the Canberra Press Gallery is a must-read.

18 years breeding ducks on the north coast of NSW has not softened Mungo’s tongue. Describing old-school political reporting as “dull as an afternoon with Phillip Ruddock,” his essay is nevertheless a lament for the good old days, when journalists and backbenchers were crammed together in Old Parliament House.

Like the politicians, [the new journalists] are in it for life — terrified of missing a story, but unwilling to take any real risks to obtain one.

Peter Brent of Mumble writes about opinion polls — performing the most valuable service of explaining how to interpret them, given their inherent margin for error.

Reporting political opinion polls must rank as one of the more trivial pursuits for the reporter. If news items were given the emphasis they deserve, political polls would not sit on the front page next to the latest Baghdad bombings, but much further back; say around page eight. They would stand alone in a table with little or no explanation. As an election approached, they would move towards the front, with some words of interpretation.

But opinion polls cost a bomb to produce, so onto page one they must go. Then everyone must pretend that’s where they belong, adding several hundred words of interpretation — turning them over, looking for meaning, interpreting them as good or bad for someone or other, pretending you can identify why the numbers move over a fortnight.

Julian Fitzgerald provides equally insightful profiles of the lobbying industry and of the government’s own factories of spin doctors.

The flaws — apart from those bloody unreadable maps — were that for a newcomer to politics there’s still too much taken for granted. The “WA Inc” episode and the Dollar Sweets industrial case are mentioned but not explained — I’m not too sure about them myself! And if your glossary needs to explain what a “conflict of interest” is, then your reader won’t know that an “informal” vote means an invalid one.

Still, these are minor criticisms. The essays alone make the book worth buying, and this is certainly a handy guide to what’s about to unfold in Canberra and across the nation.

Andrew Denton’s foreword is a reminder that we should be seeing a lot more of this man’s writing:

At first, the signs that a campaign is upon us will be subtle. Overnight, someone will place food in Julia Gillard’s kitchen. Or Bob Katter will purchase an extra-big hat.

But soon the rituals that mark every election will play out across the land. Paul Keating will need to be sedated. Ditto John Hewson. Lubricants of all kinds will be applied to Alan Jones. First-borns offered to Rupert. Piers Ackerman will explode. Robert Manne will implode. Oakes will trump Milne and Ramsey will invoke Hayden. Centrebet will cash in. Gen X will tune out. And people everywhere will struggle to name to leader of the Nats.

Sweet stuff indeed.

One final criticism. In the age of universal word processors, a reference book without an index is inexcusable.

[Disclosures: Crikey paid me to write a story based on one of my blog posts, and will probably publish another on Monday. However I bought this book with my own money and wrote this review of my own free will. I have drunk beer with Antony Green, and survived.]