Labor has enjoyed an unlikely sounding spike in the latest Morgan poll, to 61-39 from 57-43 a fortnight ago, for which the most likely explanation is that the previous one was a rogue. Its primary vote is up 4.5 per cent to 53 per cent while the Coalition is down 5.5 per cent to 33.5 per cent. The Greens are up two points to 8 per cent. Furthermore:
• The Victorian Nationals have endorsed Bridget McKenzie, a university lecturer and former school teacher from Leongatha, for the safe number two position on the Coalition Senate ticket at the next election. McKenzie fills the position held at the 2004 election by Julian McGauran, who subsequently defected to the Liberals and will now be the number three candidate on the Coalition ticket, with Michael Ronaldson at number one.
• Andrew Landeryou at VexNews reports that industrial relations lawyer John Pesutto has emerged as another challenger to Josh Frydenberg’s bid to succeed Petro Georgiou as Liberal member for Kooyong.
• Imre Salusinszky of The Australian notes that beef stroganoff enthusiast John Murphy would almost certainly lose his seat of Lowe in the event that an early election required a “mini-redistribution” to reduce New South Wales to its required number of seats.
• The Australian Parliamentary Library has published a paper mapping poverty rates by federal electorate.
fredn
The Palace has made quite positive noises about The Queen and Michelle’s hug. The Queen actually reciprocated and put her arm around Michelle. She also asked her to keep in touch. A spokesman said that the visitors are not given any instructions about not touching the Queen. Perhaps the rules are different for Americans as they are not the Queen’s subjects.
Finns
I used TM to commune with the Knowledge Trees last night. I’m sure you have noticed the more enlightened and spiritually aware Diogenes today, even if not everyone else has.
I’d say there must quite a lot of voters lost by Howard that won’t be back. I be one.
Ruawake @ 108
[It is a truth universally acknowledged that a single man is possession of a good fortune, must be in want of an acquaintance.]
Hahaha!! Brilliant.
Oh God, Make that Grog @ 112, Sorry. 🙁
Don’t worry Roxanna, I am happy to claim Grog’s brilliance. 😉
A disbenefit of being Grog.. 😉
[It went down like a lead balloon so he reverted to type. ]
Yep all I heard from him today was him saying Rudd only apologises when he is “caught out”. Which would be fine except if you read the original article it stated this:
[“The crew were distressed but later in flight apologies were made by all,” the report says.
It is believed Mr Rudd made a personal apology. ]
What you mean he apologised back in January??? Well done Malcolm over-reaching yet again.
[Don’t worry Roxanna, I am happy to claim Grog’s brilliance. ]
such that it is 😉
anyhoo must go. The footy’s about to start. Evenin’ all.
[It is a truth universally acknowledged that a single man is possession of a good fortune, must be in want of an acquaintance.]
I often read the first sentence of a book before decideing what to do with it. That one made me give Pride and Prejudice to Mrs Diogenes who loved it.
The OO has been quite fair and balanced about Rudd’s big trip. Franklin said this in summary today and seems to be pretty accurate.
[Kevin Rudd will return to Australia satisfied with his performance in London.
The Prime Minister was clearly across the issues and achieved his aim of being seen as an activist leader of a middle power nation with the ambition to punch above its diplomatic weight.
While Mr Rudd is not the father of the new global order, he was in the room when it was delivered.]
http://www.theaustralian.news.com.au/story/0,25197,25283233-5013871,00.html
Rupes worried.
[Murdoch says papers should charge on Web
“People reading news for free on the Web, that’s got to change,” said Murdoch ]
http://news.yahoo.com/s/nm/20090403/media_nm/us_cableshow_murdoch
Diog, Obi has been brilliant at G20, with Hillary’s background support of course. If we get the gig for the next G20, it would just be sensational.
btw: can you channel some of your TM under the KTs for you know who. He’s kinda alone again, naturally.
[Even as they cut costs, publishers are looking for ways to get more people to read — and pay for — journalism.]
Simple really – provide quality journalism, not commentary or opinion pieces. I would pay for a decent news site.
More fun with Stewart and Rush.
http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2009/04/02/idaily-showis-stewart-bra_n_182113.html
What is the current demographic of on-line readership? What would the demographic be if the made a on-line subscription?
The worry for Murdoch is that he will have to compete with a number of semi-professional and non professional sites but still of good quality and free. And I would imagine they will proliferate as in the USA. Blogger ‘journalists’ will be legitimised and get increasing access to ‘news’ that the MSM does.
But will a pure on-line MSM need to be less bias to attract subscribers? In fact if the on-line demographic is in large part on the left will they have to pander to them. Now that would be interesting – a left leaning Hun with Ackerman and Bolt spruiking Rudd.
Wonder if he will be looking for government to make some laws that enables him a monopoly again?
Praise for Rudd by Jeffrey Sachs in The Turkish Weekly 🙂
[The G20 came through. What I witnessed as a member of Secretary General Ban Ki-Moon’s delegation was deeply heartening. The leaders were serious, consequent, and – yes – even efficient in their work. UK Prime Minister Gordon Brown ably chaired the conference, President Barack Obama brought America back to global diplomatic leadership, and a number of leaders filled the room with intelligence, commitment, and determination to cooperate. Standouts included Jose Luis Zapatero of Spain, Kevin Rudd of Australia, Felipe Calderon of Mexico, Hu Jintao of China, and Lula da Silva of Brazil.]
http://www.turkishweekly.net/news/70299/the-g20-summit-accomplishments-beyond-expectation-by-jeffrey-sachs-.html
[btw: can you channel some of your TM under the KTs for you know who. He’s kinda alone again, naturally.]
probably cos he has been demoted from matre d’ back to junior pot scrubber.
😉
[ Thomas Paine
Posted Friday, April 3, 2009 at 8:15 pm | Permalink
Rupes worried.
Murdoch says papers should charge on Web
“People reading news for free on the Web, that’s got to change,” said Murdoch ]
Ruperts problem is that there are other players in the market that are content to provide a news service based upon the advertising revenue of their sites. i.e. little companies like
http://www.reuters.com/news
Tom.
Turkish Weekly, eh? Sounds like a left-wing rag to me.
Grog,
NO scores please and no hints? unless you preface it with a don’t read juliem and a screen full of these little guys ..
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.
.
.
thanks much 🙂 ….. we are channel switching with cricket and footy but not until 11pm east coast time 🙁 … the ONLY benefit to being out here timewise is that with DST, we will get the beginning of Ashes tests this winter at @ 5:30 local 😀
Good grief. Can you guys take this somewhere else? Off Topic is an understatement.
Gary @ 35 – I think it would be hard to find an economist anywhere who thought handing out public cash to people was going to help with the looming recession.
You would find economists who approve of Roosevelt’s New Deal, which put Depression labour to work building infrastructure which is still in use today.
Handing out cash is unconscionable.
Did you see the figures on casino turnover the night after the last stimulus? Quoting from the SMH here:
Gambling rose $40m after stimulus: clubs
January 29, 2009
Gaming revenue in NSW clubs last December – the same month the federal government’s economic stimulus package kicked in – was $40 million higher than December 2007, Clubs NSW says.
[the ONLY benefit to being out here timewise is that with DST, we will get the beginning of Ashes tests this winter at @ 5:30 local ]
The Olympics last year would have been on at a good time as well?
Tom @ 167
Rupes worried because newspaper revenue is declining – advertising revenue mainly, circulation hasn’t actually dropped all that much.
The thing is that newspaper buyers are getting their news almost free anyway. The revenue from sales of newspapers accounts for only a small proportion of total revenue. The rest is advertising.
If the buyer had to pay the full cost of producing a Saturday SMH or Age they’d be paying at least $10 a copy.
Grog,
probably but we were in Canberra at that time and I tried to avoid the Olympics last year whereever possible. You know my political persuasion and I had a bit of a problem with China hosting the games. however that is water under the bridge and not an arguement to have now …
This does not look like there is a likelihood that Australia will host a further G20 Summit later this year.
[Meanwhile, Mr Berlusconi has confirmed that the G20 will hold a third summit on the financial crisis later this year in Japan, to follow up world leaders’ meetings in London this week and in Washington in November. ]
http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/uk_news/7980912.stm
Loved the headline of this story.
[Queen is not amused by Berlusconi ]
Scorpio@ 173
[Queen is not amused by Berlusconi]
Well she’d be on her own there. Most people think he’s hilarious.
Channel 10 News – Rudd denies he needs anger management classes.
Grog Posted Friday, April 3, 2009 at 7:20 pm | Permalink
Um, da de de, da de de, um um-
Bork Bork Bork!
http://www.news.com.au/dailytelegraph/comments/0,22058,25282526-5001021,00.html
God my union is useless- HSU they have the bargaining skills of a gnat. I could have done better blinfolded and I hand. I’ll haver to reconsider my dues
On G20, I’m with GP and with Kohler. I reckon the G20 output is basically a turkey with some feathers glued on to make it look like a peacock.
The G20 failed in job number one which was to increase the amount of financial stimulus on the table, as per Krugman. The way the G20 $trillion plus package has been spun is flim flam. It is not a stimulus package at all. As well:
‘The proposed remedies, some critics said, treat some peripheral effects of the crisis rather than its thorniest causes. On the critical question of how to grapple with trillions of dollars in “toxic assets” clotting the financial system in Europe and the United States, there was a declaration of goals but few specific actions.’
http://www.nytimes.com/2009/04/03/world/europe/03summit.html?_r=1&hp
Not only did the G20 fail to treat some of the main symptoms, it did not get around to addressing the causes of the Global Financial Crisis in any substantial way.
Kohler is also correct in stating that the market does not know what it is doing. Last week the WTO doubled current predictions for the percentages by which major world economies (except for China) would decline in 2009. So the market takes a run up. When, contrary to the market’s hopes, the G20 does not put any major financial stimulus on the table, does not address one of the major blockers to recovery, and does very little to address the causes of the GFC, the market takes another run up.
But hey, why should the market know what it is doing when really, the G20 was more like a financial tower of babel, with huge unresolved differences of basic opinion about what to do, than a group of people charting the future of the world?
The parliamentary paper cited above about poverty is not pleasant reading.
11.7% of Australians living in poverty in 2006.
Over 2 million people.
@175
Oops, forgot the tag 🙂
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=L9oyr_MKABY
They allow comments on those silly beat up Rudd stories to allow their demographic to unleash their hate, which they do in rather sad ways.
I figure that murdoch papers would do better being left leaning as people generally like good news and a positive feel, even right wingers. Being right leaning means they are weighted to more engagement in hate, spite, negativeness and dishonesty all the usual characteristics of the Republicans and the Liberal Party.
Here we are at one of those significant moments in history, standing on the verge of another Great Depression if the wrong decisions are made and, with the emergence of a new super power but the media of the day in Australia is concerned about what? Trivia. It goes show that the murdoch model of media has destroyed honesty and responsibility and are most concerned with trashiness and pushing the masters political leanings. These people deserve to close down for what worth they are.
Hopefully tomorrow they can redeem some self respect and give the G20 summit outcomes their proper space.
[Over 2 million people]
I thought at that time we were never better off?
more better off.
Boerwar
Actually Krugman was fairly upbeat about the outcome of G20.
[Credit where credit (line) is due: the G20 outcome was better than I expected, with something substantive and important emerging — namely, much bigger funding for international financial institutions (IFIs), plus expanded trade credit. This will help smaller, currency-crisis countries a lot.
A turning point? No. But realistically, most big-time international meetings produce nothing; this did something significant.]
wtf…
I’m not going to cry bias, cos I know how that will play, but this is just sloppy, stupid and demeaning. From ABC online
[Crean chats up Pacific nations over FTA
By Pacific correspondent Campbell Cooney
Posted 22 minutes ago
Australia has begun a ministerial charm offensive to convince Pacific Island countries to sign a free trade agreement (FTA).]
Gary Bruce,
[
Gary Bruce
Posted Friday, April 3, 2009 at 10:06 pm | Permalink
Channel 10 News – Rudd denies he needs anger management classes.
]
compared to Mark Latham, I would say that is a fair statement 😀
[A fine article in the Times about how Europe’s strong welfare states soften the impact of recession. I think it’s important, however, to distinguish between the role of the welfare state in stabilizing society and its role in stabilizing GDP.
On the macroeconomic front, however, the strength of Europe’s “automatic stabilizers” has been exaggerated. ]
http://krugman.blogs.nytimes.com/
They count spending on welfare on the unemployed as part of stimulus spending. But I thought the point of Stimulus spending was to lessen or stop unemployment, they idea is to replace demand to keep jobs.
Once on welfare there no tax income for govt and little productive output apart from minimum life maintenance. Yes it is important and the funding does help. But for the sake of measuring stimulus I would have thought pre unemployment stimulus programs are the ones that count. Logically then 100% unemployed being paid welfare would be even a greater stimulus spend but goes nowhere into recovering an economy.
This from the Curious snail – “Tell us: Have you seen Rudd rage, or Kev kindness?”
What a bloody joke.
Just perfect for the Rudd haters.
[This from the Curious snail – “Tell us: Have you seen Rudd rage, or Kev kindness?”
What a bloody joke.]
Expect comments from former Public Servants from the Goss era who dealt with Rudd when he cut the Publish Service.
Why do you guys get so upset about it? this bias business?.. remember the last two years?, think about the two before that.
Look at the polls, look at the results, look at the reality
If the bias has been this bad for that long… more power to it I say!
It gets me what I want
Steven Long is finally asking Leigh out!! Well, she has dressed for it.
Cricket on deck now with pre-game, probably bottom of the hour for the first ball; have to get to FS2, ABC radio (?) or cric info since we’ve an informal ban on blow by blow cricket reporting on this blog ….
It just gets worse. Now Laurie Oaks has jumped on board. It looks like there’s more to the story.
[But there’s more than that behind the Rudd rage incident. This column can reveal that the Prime Minister has been involved in a long-running spat with the RAAF’s 34 Squadron, which operates the VIP flights.
“He has issues with them and they have issues with him,” a source said. ]
The dark side of Prime Minister Kevin Rudd
http://www.news.com.au/heraldsun/story/0,21985,25286571-5000117,00.html
Murdoch papers, the king of trash. The whole point of course being to denigrate Rudd as best they can with any bit of trivia. The polls are not moving so they are getting more desperate.
But the polls seem to be saying that people know the Crouier Mail, The Australian and the whole murdoch stable is simply partisan rubbish to be ignored, and they obviously do. So the ABC and Murdoch boys become even more desperate and make an even bigger disgrace of themselves.
These guys in the ABC and Murdoch media hate for Rudd must go up in proportion to the quality of the work that he is doing. Now with his obvious personal success at the G20 they must be incensed. How dare a non Liberal PM do so well etc.
The Australian ought to take notice of the Crikey article on the temper affair where people stood up for Rudd. My interpretation is that people sensed it was the media unfairly attacking him.
I wonder if it has also been the media’s continual attack on Rudd that has 1. strengthened his poll position and 2. reduced their credibility and effectiveness.
Must be a survey in there somewhere.
Diogenese
The key phrase is ‘better than he expected’ which must have meant that he must just about have expected nothing. I think he is looking for an extra $US2 trillion from the US alone. He got a bit over $1 trillion from the lot, but that $1 trillion is not actually a stimulus package.
[Must be a survey in there somewhere.]
maybe even a PhD!
[It just gets worse. Now Laurie Oaks has jumped on board. It looks like there’s more to the story]
The latest smear, badly executed,though with maximum timing,about a event tha really nothing
[But there’s more than that behind the Rudd rage incident. This column can reveal that the Prime Minister has been involved in a long-running spat with the RAAF’s 34 Squadron, which operates the VIP flights.
“He has issues with them and they have issues with him,” a source said. ]
Tho this may also be payback for the lindsay thingy
😉