An email to 2UE’s Jason Morrison
G’day Jason,
I think you’re right that Barry O’Farrell’s stance of ostracising Pauline Hanson and not ostracising The Greens is a peculiar one and not the message that he should be sending to conservative voters, although I think it’s wider than just conservative voters. Ten News had a phone poll last night asking whether people would be willing to vote for Pauline Hanson which I believe they started after their 6pm interview with her…by the time the late news came around, 86% of Ten News viewers were saying “yes” they would vote for Pauline Hanson.
Perhaps the Ten News core demographic has changed in recent times, but I see the typical Ten News viewer as being less likely to vote conservatively than viewers of the other commercial networks’ news services, so needless to say, the result surprised me. I’m hoping that it also surprised Barry O’Farrell and he changes his stance to reflect community attitudes by denouncing the Greens and supporting some of Pauline Hanson’s positions.
I can understand why Barry doesn’t want to denounce the Greens…he’s worried that disenfranchised Labor voters may swing to the Greens. Well if they’re that silly to think that the Greens would do a better job and they’re that committed to vote for the left, then they deserve what they get, and Barry shouldn’t be risking the support of the overwhelming majority of sensible voters by targeting Greens voters.
All the best from a rather wet Deniliquin!
Samuel Gordon-Stewart