The first post-budget poll is an ACNielsen survey of 1400 respondents, and it’s given Labor its second weakest poll result since the election of the Rudd government. The first was the same outfit’s 52-48 result from September last year. ACNielsen’s previous survey in March had Labor’s lead at 58-42. The poll finds that:
• Labor’s primary vote is down three points since March to 44 per cent, while the Coalition is up six to 43 per cent.
• The Coalition has opened up a most unlikely sounding five point primary vote lead in Victoria, after trailing by 20 per cent in March.
• Kevin Rudd’s lead as preferred prime minister is down from 69-24 to 64-28.
• Rudd’s approval rating is down 10 points to 64 per cent, and his disapproval is up 10 to 32 per cent. Turnbull’s ratings are unchanged at 43 per cent and 47 per cent.
• While 56 per cent believe the budget to have been fair, only 40 per cent support the budget’s phased increase in the age of pension eligibility from 65 to 67, and 38 per cent say the budget will make them worse off personally. Twenty-three per cent say it will make them better off.
The print edition will presumably feature a full chart with none-too-reliable state breakdowns.
UPDATE: No such budget narrowing from Essential Research, which has Labor’s two-party lead up from 61-39 to 62-38. However, Kevin Rudd’s approval rating is down nine points from three weeks ago to 61 per cent, while his disapproval is up eight to 29 per cent. Turnbull is respectively up two to 30 per cent and up one to 49 per cent. Interestingly, fewer people found the budget bad for them personally than had expected to beforehand. Twenty-five per cent say it will make them more likely to vote Coalition against 22 per cent Labor. Peter Brent has ACNielsen’s state, area, gender and age breakdowns here.
LOL! Turnbull is more like G.P. every day! He wants his own FACTS as well as his own opinions:
http://www.theaustralian.news.com.au/story/0,25197,25499390-601,00.html
[OPPOSITION Leader Malcolm Turnbull is standing by his tobacco tax proposal, dismissing a Treasury forecast seized on by Labor to undermine his alternative budget savings plan.]
Turnbull’s figures seem to assume that as the price of tobacco products increases, more people will start smoking.
Now let’s see, would I prefer Bush in power or Obama? Would I prefer McCain in power or Obama? Would I prefer the Democrats running the show or the Republicans? Am I happy with the change? Yes to all, so I’m not complaining.
Dio
Thanks I’ll read the full GQ piece on Rumsfeld, though I suspect I’ll be depressed by it.
Finns with all that jivin’ going on Obi could become the next amigo
Oz frog #149:
I think the point is that no Clinton wouldn’t have been any different, but that Obama purported to be. You may recall his determination at one stage to clean-up Washington, portraying himself as an outsider not trapped by the Federal bureaucracy, log-rolling and so forth.
The decision to revive military commissions has all the look and feel of a truly ‘Washington’ decision. That said, it’s not clear he has much of an option, particularly if trying the detainees in US courts is impossible due to legal complications.
At one time Obama was criticized as being naive. I don’t think this was ever true of him, but certainly was/is true of those supporters who believed that radical change in US politics was achievable in the short term.
Hilliary would have been no different. If you were expecting a saint you were naive in the first place. Time to get real.
[152 – Yes to all, so I’m not complaining.]
Let me revise that sentence. No to the first two questions and yes to the last two.
[That said, it’s not clear he has much of an option, particularly if trying the detainees in US courts is impossible due to legal complications.]
What are these so-called ‘complications’?
[What are these so-called ‘complications’?]
Ahh, so now he is lying. To what end?
No, I was genuinely wanting to know what ‘complications’ mean the Guantanamo detainees cannot be tried via the regular judicial system.
160 – fair enough.
Well, Itep, I think (and it’s been some time since I looked at it in any depth) that they include issues to do with retrospectivity, coercion, imprisonment, and the fact that the term ‘unlawful combatant’ is undefined in the laws of war, amongst others.
Now, you and I might agree that if the US can’t meet the standards that would allow them to overcome these problems then the detainees should go free. However, this would mean, effectively, sending a whole bunch of people back to a warzone with renewed motivation to fight the US. This would, I suggest, be a mistake both politically and militarily.
Pragmatically, then, some form of military commission may be the only way to effectively put on trial the detainees.
Ahem… ‘put the detainees on trial’
[Now, you and I might agree that if the US can’t meet the standards that would allow them to overcome these problems then the detainees should go free.]
Most certainly I would agree with that.
Bule
Their biggest problem is that they know almost none of them would be found guilty in a US (or Oz) . The US have also said that they will not send them back to their home country. They really have a problem with what to do with them.
[ What are these so-called ‘complications’? ]
They would all be found innocent – they were not given a Miranda Warning. So a US court would throw the case out. That is why they are being held in Cuba.
Yep, Diogenes, that’s why a revised form of military commission is the most pragmatic solution Obama has.
Clearly he created a rod for his own back in his prior criticism of the commissions used under the previous administration, and raised unrealistic expectations in a key section of his constituency. The question is, was he naive in creating the impression that he wouldn’t use such a system himself, or were his supporters naive in believing him?
[The question is, was he naive in creating the impression that he wouldn’t use such a system himself, or were his supporters naive in believing him?]
Or both?
[They would all be found innocent – they were not given a Miranda Warning.]
Could they not give them the warning now and discharge all evidence they’ve improperly obtained at Guantanamo?
Gary, could be both. However, I’d give Obama more credit than that. He couldn’t well be silent on the issue, and so chose to speak to the concerns of this significant section of his supporters.
I guess another question (perhaps more pointed) would be whether or not he ever believed that he would be able to avoid such a process. I would suggest that a person as well advised and clearly in touch with the issues as he is and was could not have possibly believed that he would be able to avoid using commissions in some form.
He did, it would appear, neatly avoid ruling it out (otherwise we’d surely be seeing quotes to that effect).
[They are all politicians at the end of the day… but then again, would Hillary have done any differently?]
No, she wouldn’t have done any different. She never pretended to want to have done anything different.
But Obi said he would have done something different and he said “Yes, we can”. And you gullible lots believed him
😎
That was the point that the Amigos were making and bashed into pieces like the miserable mices.
Diog, how does it feel,
to be under the bus?
with no direction home,
like a rolling stone.
Finns
I feel just like all the people who voted for Rudd believing that he wanted to address climate change as “the greatest moral challenge of our generation” must feel. It’s a sort of squashy feeling with exhaust fumes and tyre marks on you. 😉
Diog, The Ruddster has an “excuse”, its’ called GFC & TGR. Obi has NO excuse.
If the Guantanamo detainess get access to the US courts, they will all be released, and will probably be able to sue for compensation. Their detention is undoubtedly illegal under US domestic law, and so has their treatment been in many respects. That’s why the Bush administration has gone to such lengths to keep them away from the reach of the US legal system. Obama has no doubt been told this, and also that it will be on his head if they are all released and some of them then promptly return to terrorist activities, as some of them certainly would. So he has to find a way of closing Guantanamo as per his promise, without allowing the detainees, or at least those judged to be still dangerous, which is probably most of the, to be released. Solution: military commissions, although what he does with those who are convicted I’m not sure. If they are put in federal prisons, they will presumably be able to challenge the legal basis of their convictions. Maybe they can be sent back to Afghanistan, where the Afghan legal system will doubtless make short work of them.
I think the other excuse Rudd has is that he has a Senate made up of climate change deniers/sceptics and believers who are willing to vote against a middle of the road ETS. Just how do you satisfy the Libs and the Greens at the same time? Well you try for a middle course, one that satisfies nobody obviously but then neither would doing what the Greens want or what the Libs want. Lose/lose all round really.
[ Could they not give them the warning now and discharge all evidence they’ve improperly obtained at Guantanamo? ]
ltep
I don’t think this is possible. I was watching a discussion of this a couple of weeks ago. On Fox News, when I was in Bali.
I think it was on Greta van Sosteren’s show. 3 legal types all agreed that the “terrorists” must not be moved to the US because they would be able to avail themselves to the provisions on the US constitution – they all agreed that it would be impossible to convict them of anything. The major reason was that they should have been “Mirandized” when placed in custody. If this had happened then even evidence gained through “advanced interrogation techniques” would have been admissable in a US Court.
[Maybe they can be sent back to Afghanistan, where the Afghan legal system will doubtless make short work of them.]
This is another credible option. Some of them would go to Iraq.
To me this whole sorry affair illustates the wisdom of some military theorists (sorry can’t remember who) I heard speakign on the “war on terror” when it was first started. They thought then it was folly – better to just treat them (the terrorists) as criminals and apply normal criminal law to them. They felt there were ample powers to proceed that way; from profits of crime law to seize financial assetts, to powers to investigate based on conspiracy and proven threat. The Germans tried and convicted one of the Hamburg al Quaida terrorists in 2002. The second was acquitted in 2004 because even then some of the US supplied evidence was suspect.
http://www.guardian.co.uk/world/2004/feb/06/september11.germany
In other words, this whole process has been tainted from the start, by using evidence obtained under dubious means, that no proper court woudl accept. So now the US are desperate to keep their non-courts, because they have stuffed up the invetigations, which they know will lead to failed prosecutions, even on the guilty.
[
Mr Rudd was in Melbourne to formally launch the Regional Rail Link, which was allocated $3.2 billion in the budget and will provide a new dual-track between Werribee and Southern Cross stations.
He smiled and waved at a small group of screaming schoolgirls at Southern Cross Railway Station, perhaps glad that his popularity, which still stands at a high 64 per cent, had not completely waned.
http://www.theage.com.au/national/tough-decisions-necessary-pm-20090518-bb1b.html
]
Maybe return Guantanamo – complete with its inmates – to Cuba?
Fins
I felt under the bus with Howard too, and only had modest hopes for Rudd on this and several other issues. In fact at first he exceeed my expectations, which raised hope for a realistic policy on CC. But like Dio I see now the coal union clout is too strong.
Gary that’s why the Coalition have it so much easier in govt, there is usually a “Feilding or X’ to support them if they don’t have the numbers in the senate and they don’t ever have to deal with the Greens. Labor are stuffed because of the labor voters who think they are doing a “good thing” voting for the greens in the senate and Labor in the Reps.
‘….perhaps glad that his popularity, which still stands at a high 64 per cent, had not completely waned.’
Words fail me.
[Labor are stuffed because of the labor voters who think they are doing a “good thing” voting for the greens in the senate and Labor in the Reps.]
And is what the good voters of Fremantle will find out the hard way, by electing Adele Carles 🙂
179 – The Age is giving a lot of cred to a poll that may or may not prove to be an outlier. Did we really believe the last Nielsen poll? Wasn’t Newspoll giving Rudd a popularity rating in the 60’s not in the 70’s as the last Nielsen poll has done?
GB youre spot on, the last neilsen appeared too high and was months ago, so they shouldnt be making too much of their own poll- sounds like OO tactics to me. The Age is doing really well at being an OO wannabe
Are we due for an Essential Poll this arvo?
(spoilers to all of the law and order Libs out there)
.
.
.
.
.
.
.
.
Re GB, they ought to release all of the blokes (making an assumption here perhaps incorrect that no one in GB is female) unless VALID evidence CREDIBLE to a neutral 3rd party is strong enough to keep them. Those people, try under proper court rules and protections and if convicted, give them credit for time already spent at GB. Close GB and we are done with it.
Oh and while we are at it, close all of the detention centers and give of them all Aussie citizenship 😀 …..
Doesn’t matter what bloody country it is, we don’t need that sort of place. IF someone falls in trouble with the long arm of the law, that is what a JAIL is for (after they are in the country instead of assuming they will cause trouble before they get here).
😀 ……. my Aussie pp has me in a good mood
The age ran all those “exclusive” stories on Fitz and the Chinese spy lady for a couple of weeks
Juliem
A very special welcome to our newest Aussie bludger.
Essential this arvo and Newspoll tonight. Poss has breakdown of Neilsen Poll
http://blogs.crikey.com.au/pollytics/2009/05/18/ooooh-a-close-one/
Only poss can come up with these headlines.
Socrates, the German cases involved offences committed *in Germany*. The Guantanamo guys have never set foot in the US, they are being held because they were captured by US forces in Afghanistan or Pakistan, yet they are not legally POWs because they were not part of a the armed forces of a recognised state – hence “illegal combatants.” So that’s not much of a precedent. The options seem to be (a) release them (b) put them in front of US courts, which would release them (c) send them somewhere where they will not be released or cause any further trouble to anyone – most likely Afghanistan, where the Afghans will thrown them off a cliff or whatever they do there.
The expressed Chinese unhappiness is a gift for Rudd.
It destroys the Turnbull/Bishop meme that Rudd is a kowtowing, fawning, pliant tool.
Did anyone see the Karl Rove article in the OO? He puts a shiver down my spine, Dick Cheney makes me hope there is such thing as hell.
Essential Report also shows a drop in St Kev’s approval ?
[Those people, try under proper court rules and protections and if convicted, give them credit for time already spent at GB.]
These are not people arrested for littering, Juliem. Those kinds of civil law considerations don’t apply. If they’re released, many of them will go straight back to the Taliban or al-Qaeda. Obama can’t take that risk or that responsibility.
David Speers of Skynoooos is getting very wet of himself with the Nielsen Poll and now with the Essential Poll. But No good news for Turnbull on the Essential Poll.
What does the Essential poll say?
Finns
I think Speers was orgasmic over Neilson. 😉
Essential Report – TPP, Labor up 1 to 62.