And the Winner Is ...

Monday, 18 November 2002

Yesterday's paper and this morning's news have produced some very rich pickings and it looks like I'm in for a very busy couple of hours pasting them all up into my personal satire album. I'll deal with the Victorian state election first.

There's been a lot of coverage of Robert Dean's faux pas of course: I was almost tempted to feel sorry for the poor bugger myself when I saw the Herald Sun headline about how the Deans decided to buy their Hawthorn home after failed IVF treatment. Then The Sunday Age blew the whole thing away by actually checking the Electoral Rolls and disclosing that Mr Dean had changed his electoral registration details twice over the past couple of years - first from Berwick to Hawthorn and then back to Berwick where, as we know, a routine sweep of the rolls revealed that he was no longer living in the house which he leased for six months but only actually rented for two. Both Prime Minister John Howard and Victorian Shadow Opposition Leader Robert Doyle were playing it down yesterday, saying it was "yesterday's news" - I suppose by now it's even more dated being "the day before yesterday's news".

This morning brought the announcement of the most recent Saulwick Age Poll on the Victorian election, with Labor in the lead 61% to 39%. 58% of respondents preferred Steve Bracks as Premier, while 21% plumped for Robert Doyle. This makes Peter Costello's introduction of Mr Doyle as "the next Premier of Victoria" at the Liberal Party's official campaign launch look a mite optimistic. I think it's more reasonable to predict that after November 30th Mr Doyle will roll Dennis Napthine a second time and take over Dr Napthine's current position as Former Leader of the Opposition.

This is obviously going to disappoint a lot of Liberal supporters: as usual the media and the general public are allowing minor procedural infractions to distract them from the real purpose of the election which is to oust Steve Bracks who, as Robert Dean has informed us, is really Joan Kirner in drag.