griffith election means shorten days are short, page-4

Wasn't a rosey win...

LABOR may have held Griffith, but the byelection result is hardly a big win for Bill Shorten.

The Opposition Leader needed a convincing victory in Kevin Rudd's seat with Parliament kicking off for the year this Tuesday. He didn't get it.

Despite history telling us Australians like to kick the government of the day at byelections, Bill Glasson scored a swing to the Liberal National Party in both the primary and two-party preferred vote.

Glasson had a few things in his favour. Rudd took with him a strong personal vote that was matched by the local popularity of the LNP candidate after almost 14 months of campaigning before and after his first tilt at the seat in last year's general election.

Labor's candidate Terri Butler might have been comparatively unknown, but she had the benefit of a 6 per cent margin, a seemingly limitless campaign budget and the Abbott government, which was 5 per cent down in Newspoll at end of last year.

Labor framed the byelection as a referendum on Tony Abbott's government, and the looming budget cuts that will follow the Commission of Audit.

As far as referendums go, it didn't get up.

Cuts have been severe in Queensland under Campbell Newman, with 14,000 public servants axed last year.
But the state economy is turning around and there is net job growth.

Shorten might put the swing towards the LNP as the ``Glasson factor'', and there might be some truth in that.

But equally, Labor should have done much better.

It needs big wins in a seat like Griffith - one of its safest in Queensland - if the opposition can ever hope to pick up the six or seven it needs north of the Tweed River to win government.

And on the counting so far, it isn't anywhere near that.


Michael McKenna is Queensland political editor.

http://www.theaustralian.com.au/national-affairs/politics-news/shorten-misses-the-boost-he-needed-in-griffith-before-parliament/story-fn59nqld-1226821527904