The latest fortnightly Morgan face-to-face poll has not replicated the Newspoll bounce, but that’s cold comfort for the Coalition as they still trail 59.5-40.5, unchanged from last time. The Greens are up three points on the primary vote to 10.5 per cent. Labor’s primary vote is down from 50.5 per cent to 48.5 per cent and the Coalition is down from 35.5 per cent to 34.5 per cent.
We also have Newspoll’s latest quarterly aggregation of polling broken down by state and age group. The outstanding features is a picture of relative Labor weakness in New South Wales, consistent with the theme that the state government is damaging their brand there. Charts galore from Possum.
In other news, 65-year-old back-bencher Philip Ruddock has made the surprise announcement that he plans to run again in his blue-ribbon Sydney seat of Berowra. However, he seems in some danger of being blasted out by the state party’s vigorous Right faction, which did so much to contribute to the party’s success at the last election.
UPDATE: By popular demand, here’s a chart showing how Labor’s two-party vote has tracked across Newspoll, Morgan and Essential Research this year. I only have figures going back to June for Essential, and have generally only used every second poll for Morgan and Essential to keep the figures concurrent with Newspoll. Alternatively, you could just look at Possum’s chart dump, which includes ACNielsen.
Mayo
Good point about per-capita emissions. Even Europe and UK have half our emissions on a per-capita basis. Adopting a per capita approach opens Australia up to more criticism not less. Besides, the per-capita argument only is worth even considering if we intend to keep growing the population at a historically high rate. We shouldn’t.
Read a few CSIRO reports on the population carrying capacity of Australia, in terms of water and many other resources, and you soon realise that going beyond 25 million is crazy, even if you don’t give a damn about the environment. Its time we stopped paying people to have children and started paying them to use their brains.
Sorry Mayo you already know all this. I take it you have read Diamond’s Collapse?
[Possum, you don’t need structural separation for open access regimes to work. Telstra is willing to have ACCC oversight. Read its submission to the senate inquiry.
Furthermore, Telstra has not requested overbuild protection.]
You need it when the core of the monopoly network is built into the NBN proposal of the existing monopolist! It’s why Telstra can say things like “Telstra does not seek any overbuild protection – any competitor can build or upgrade its networks at any time to compete with a Telstra NBN” and not be caught telling lies. The effect comes not from the guarentee of no overbuild but from Telstra knowing that with no structural separation we get the effect of no overbuild happening – as we’ve seen over the last 5 years with the rollout of just about any technology by competitors needing Telstra to play ball.
They don’t.
And anyway – on competition grounds alone, if someone else gets the NBN, Tesltra have an alternative, competitive network.
Have you got something against the benefits of real competition comrade? 😀
No 897
I am not a libertarian dave.
Also, despite the musings of Whingepool participants @ http://www.whirlpool.net.au; Telstra is the best company for the job. After all, the NBN is an upgrade of the Telstra network.
Conroy has failed to enunciate how he will navigate the constitutional obstacles relating to compulsory acquisition of assets.
Bad luck Telstra. You’re pushing a big pile of brown stuff up a mountain on this one GP lol
[Conroy has failed to enunciate how he will navigate the constitutional obstacles relating to compulsory acquisition of assets]
Buying back 50.01% of Telstra would be one way hahaha
Building FTTN would be another…
Sorry, FTTH
No 902
I disagree with your analysis. The regulations in this industry are the reason why competitive overbuild of Telstra’s fixed line network has not occurred. It remains cheaper for Optus to rent Telstra copper than it is to use its own HFC network. How on earth is that an appropriate regulatory outcome? Only Graeme Samuel knows.
Also, if the government has some all-encompassing competition agenda, it should not implement it by confiscating Telstra’s assets. That borders on communism.
[Conroy has failed to enunciate how he will navigate the constitutional obstacles relating to compulsory acquisition of assets.]
That’s assuming that Conroy doesn’t accept a bid that says they will build their own independent network.
BUT, even if the winning bid does require the compulsory acquisition of Telstra’s network, I don’t see how the constitution prohibits it. The Commonwealth would merely need to comply with Para 51(xxxi) of the Constitution – it would need to offer just compensation for the acquisition. This amount would be determined by an independent panel that could estimate the value of the network.
As for the soon-to-be Bell J, I hope she continues the activist tradition of Kirby J on the High Court. Quite often, it is the vigorous dissents that have greater judicial longevity (and relevance) rather than the bland pronouncements of judicial centrists and conservatives…
No 909
None of them, to my knowledge, countenance the prospect of not using Telstra’s last mile copper. In which case, the government would be up for a compensation payout of something in the vicinity of $60 billion.
As for judicial activism, it has no place in a democracy.
I note a number of comments about critics of the ETS cave-in decision have implied comments about being niave, left wing or anti-Labor to the critics. I don’t agree. I support a set of principles that Labor has shown itself more willing to to embrace in politics than the alternatives in recent times. Hence I support Labor. But it is not blind support. If Labor does something I think is wrong then I believe democracy works best if I say so. As Edmund Burke said, “All that is necessary for the forces of evil to triumph in the world is for men of good will to say nothing”. Hence I say again the ETS decision is weak and deserves criticism. Rud has had a good year, but this is his weakest moment.
[You still don’t seem to understand. If we don’t reduce our emissions by at least 25% by 2020, that’s it. Game over.]
Tell me Oz who do you mean by we?
[I note a number of comments about critics of the ETS cave-in decision have implied comments about being niave, left wing or anti-Labor to the critics. I don’t agree. I support a set of principles that Labor has shown itself more willing to to embrace in politics than the alternatives in recent times. Hence I support Labor. But it is not blind support. If Labor does something I think is wrong then I believe democracy works best if I say so. As Edmund Burke said, “All that is necessary for the forces of evil to triumph in the world is for men of good will to say nothing”. Hence I say again the ETS decision is weak and deserves criticism. Rud has had a good year, but this is his weakest moment.]
+1
No 911
I actually think Rudd has come to a reasonable compromise.
The hysteria from the Greens lays bare their stupidity in blindly allocating preferences to the Labor party every election, only to endlessly whinge when they don’t get anything they want.
[The hysteria from the Greens lays bare their stupidity in blindly allocating preferences to the Labor party every election, only to endlessly whinge when they don’t get anything they want.]
The choice for the Greens is to allocate their preferences to a party who MAY give them something they want (Labor) or to allocate their preferences to a party who definitely won’t give them anything they want (Liberal)
[Telstra is the best company for the job.]
Pray tell, where has Telstra deployed fibre outside of selected esates or in extremely limited metro areas.
The best company for the job will not be decided by you, it will be decided by the expert panel. Who frankly, have a lot more experience and qualifications than you and are the ones taking the time to analyse each proposal and communicate with the parties involved.
Anything you is your opinion and the fact that it’s not based on anything makes it pretty much worthless.
No 915
Swing Lowe, the only difference between Labor and Liberal on emissions trading is that Rudd wants to introduce it much earlier.
[You still don’t seem to understand. If we don’t reduce our emissions by at least 25% by 2020, that’s it. Game over.]
Everyone, Gary Bruce. And that doesn’t mean everyone besides Australia, k?
Read back a page and you’ll see what nonsense it is to be talking about “Oh we are only 2%!!!!”
[None of them, to my knowledge, countenance the prospect of not using Telstra’s last mile copper. ]
Axia does.
GP – If Acacia win the bid, the government won’t need to confiscate much if anything at all since the Acacia plan is a mix of FTTH, FTTN and wireless.
The more FTTH, the less Telstra assets are relevent. Anyone want to bet on the government upping their contribution to enable greater FTTH rollout if Tesltra get shirty in the courts?
New thread.
[it should not implement it by confiscating Telstra’s assets. That borders on communism.]
What so every time the government compulsorily acquires land they’re being unconstitutional communists?
No 916
Telstra has a national NextIP Fibre backbone which trumps all of its competitors in scope. That is in addition to its Fibre/Coax network in the major cities and small FTTH deployments, known as “Velocity”, in greenfield estates.