The second week of Essential Research polling under Julia Gillard has perfectly replicated the first, with Labor and the Coalition steady on 42 per cent and 39 per cent of the primary vote and Labor maintaining its 54-46 two-party lead. This compares with a Coalition primary vote lead of 40 per cent to 38 per cent in the final poll under Kevin Rudd, when Labor’s two-party lead was 52-48. Essential has also surveyed on approval of Julia Gillard for the first time, finding her approval rating at 48 per cent (seven points higher than Rudd’s final result from May 31) and disapproval at 27 per cent (20 points lower). Approval of Tony Abbott has been gauged for the second week running, and it does not replicate the result of the previous week – which was itself reflected in Newspoll – showing a bounce in the wake of the leadership change. His approval has gone from 35 per cent on May 31 to 40 per cent on June 28 to 37 per cent on July 5, while his disapproval has gone from 50 per cent to 39 per cent to 47 per cent. Gillard leads as preferred prime minister 49-29, which is little different from the 47-30 lead Rudd recorded in his final poll. Also canvassed are best party to deal with various issues, which finds Labor gaining ground on every measure since three weeks ago (the interesting exceptions are “being honest and ethical” and “handling environmental and climate change issues”, which are stable). “Attributes to describe the Prime Minister” allow comparisons with Gillard on July 5 with Rudd on May 10, which are uniformly favourable to Gillard (who scores 21 points higher on being “down to earth”). Further questions show clear hostility to any notion of a “big Australia”.
It was minus 2 in West Queanbeyan
Socrates
We are making progress. Perhaps the hemlock can be avoided yet.
I agree that prevention is cheaper than mitigation – except to the political classes who will avoid like the plague being voted out by V8 revheads and the like.
Since this is likely to be the global driver (pun unintended) for some time to come then an early switch to mitigation may make more policy sense for an individual country than any half-*rsed approach to mitigation. And my guess is that this will become very clear sometime during the next 20 years.
[You really should stop spruiking for more mexicans and cucurachas]
True but on a serious note.
How much more do people in colder areas pay in power bills? Is it fair that people in say Canberra or Armidale or Cooma pay significantly more under a “carbon price” than people in the sub-tropics?
Surely heating is not a luxury in some areas, should it be taxed?
chiz. Sould have been… half-*rsed approach to prevention.
Can’t we just sit it out till the Yanks make up their minds?
Annabelle Crab is running a Twitter contest for the title of Rudd’s memoirs. The best so far: “Are these my memoirs? Did I write them myself? Do they contain rhetorical questions? Guess what?”
rua
I suspect you might find that the rapid increase in machines to cool air is one of the huge drivers of CO2 emissions. The tropicals have been norty by getting rid of louvres and fans.
I came. I saw. I was right.
They came. They saw. I was left.
[I suspect you might find that the rapid increase in machines to cool air is one of the huge drivers of CO2 emissions. The tropicals have been norty by getting rid of louvres and fans.]
Not me. 🙂 Sea breeze is all I need.
A micrometer! A micrometer! My Kingdom for a micrometer!
Another good one: “Let me just say this!”
[Can’t we just sit it out till the Yanks make up their minds?]
The Yanks use the behaviour of nations like us and the Canadians as an excuse to put off making up their minds. Someone has to go first. In fact the Europeans and Japan did years ago. We are one of the laggers, that others resent, on this issue.
Hence a carbon tax sufficient to have some impact, without terrifying every bogan, woudl still be a step forward politically. Even stopping further growth in emissions and fossil fuel usage would be better than our current trajectory.
[How much more do people in colder areas pay in power bills? Is it fair that people in say Canberra or Armidale or Cooma pay significantly more under a “carbon price” than people in the sub-tropics?]
Doesn’t Canberra have the highest per capita emissions in the country? It’s certainly hard to convince yourself not to use the heater but to put on an extra layer or get the rug, but it’s manageable.
rua
OK. You got me. I’m on my way.
“For Whom the Bell Programmatically Strokes at Regular Slow Intervals”
Everyone Did It My Way.
I saw in a bookstore this morning Annabelle Crab has a new book out with the unfortunate title “The Rise of the Ruddbot”. Badly needs a postscript I suspect.
“I was the very model of a modern Prime Minister”
“My Brilliant Career Gets Shortened” I like that.
I was the very model of a modern Prime Minister.
People all around me thought my motives were quite sinister.
My critics started saying that I just could not administer.
So I was replaced by a better speech deliverer.
Julia’s will be called “Obviously” 🙂
Spiers has just said that Essential shows that Labor and the Coalition are neck and neck!
What happened to 42-39 and 54-46?
‘R*tf*cked!’
Obviously it has been unseasonaly cold lately, and it is tempting to dismiss climate change at such times. Just as we all forget the heatwaves of teh past two summes quite quickly. But teh problem has not gone away. Come this September we will all be reminded again.
Psephos
Do you have to practice being a mean spirited ar**hole or does it come naturally to you.
Socrates
yeh. and this year’s UAH sat series has completely silenced the coolers.
Boerwar,
I think you’ll find their victory silenced them.
Oh Socrates…very subversive G&S! 😀
Agreed Boerwar. I like that graph though because it is easy to understand. The ice is melting… in chunks the size of Tasmania.
I learned recently that there is an 11-year cycle in the level of solar energy output. We are currently at the trough of that cycle, and that is having a cooling effect on global temperatures, masking the steady rise caused by the greenhouse effect. When we get back to the top of the cycle, in three or four years, the warming effect will hit us with a bang.
In with a bang; Out with a whimper.
Thanks Laocoon. I should have started:
“I was the very model of an Australian Prime Minister….
[yeh. and this year’s UAH sat series has completely silenced the coolers.]
Oh no it hasn’t. Only last week I was talking to a young Lib who was assuring me such and such a study has completely debunked the climate scam and there’s no way to answer it. Supposedly the study shows that the world has been cooling for some time now yada yada. It’s always odd to hear otherwise reasonable people devolve into frothing and foaming about climate change.
mytwobobsworth appears with a sudden, unexplainable tirade of abuse.
Socrates
tsk, tsk, cherrypicking… wot about Antarctic ice trends? (spoofing, really).
[Do you have to practice being a mean spirited ar**hole or does it come naturally to you.]
I think it’s my Scottish ancestry coming through.
Itep
Nah. It was his/her suggestion for the title of Rudd’s memoirs.
Also true Adam. That cycle and cycles in ocean currents (La Nina/El Nino) have a big effect on southern hemisphere weather.
In terms of the physics of atmospheric heating, about 90% of the incoming heat goes into warming seawater, 7-8% into melting ice, and 2% into warming the air. So the atmospheric temperature is the most variable and least significant part of the global warming picture. Once we heat up the oceans enough, the rest follows inevitably.
Itep
The Abbott factory, last global refuge of the coolers. I eats me hat.
Apparently a ‘senior ALP source’ is blaming Kevin Rudd for the state-based ALP’s poor performance in recent polling.
[“Our brand has suffered enormously from Kevin Rudd’s prime ministership and the fact he could get us down to 26 per cent of the primary vote federally – of course it’s going to have an impact.”
The source said Mr Rudd’s friendly relationship with Mr Barnett also enabled the premier to exploit that friendship for the government’s own political gain.
“Colin Barnett took a baseball bat to Kevin Rudd and that helps. We’re in WA; you attack Canberra and it helps your approval rating,” he said. “Rudd destroyed our brand and boosted Colin Barnett all at the same time. “I’m surprised that the Newspoll isn’t worse to be honest.”]
Correct. Since there’s probably c.2 degrees C of global warming already entrained in the world’s oceans, it makes the “no more than 1.5 degrees warming” movement a bit pointless…
Gina Reinhart is voting for the Greens ?
http://www.watoday.com.au/wa-news/rinehart-mining-tax-changes-are-likely-20100705-zwj4.html
175 mytwobobsworth
Interesting how people take offence at different things. I’m a total rusted on Ruddite, but I thought Psephos’ titles for kevin’s memoirs were very funny.
2°C
Ooh. There’s a degree symbol right on the keyboard…
[Gina Reinhart is voting for the Greens ?]
No, she’s using the fact that the Government will have to negotiate the MRRT through the Senate with the help of the Greens to launch a scare campaign that the tax will harm more people.
Love watching the chats about the “weather”, pity the “climate” isn’t affecting your livelyhoods. Here in North QLD we’ve got bannanas ripening 2 months early, the first mango’s will be out 3 months early, same in the NT..adaptation is on us, so enjoy the cool weather while it lasts, winter never happened this year for us.
Just looked up some King Lear quotes to see if I could plagiarise a few of the Bard’s lines for the title comp. Spooky stuff.
Me thinks twobob is a rose by another name …
K
Also agreed. I am a pessimist on global warming. I urgently want to see action, though I think it is already too late for places like Bangladesh. If we let it go much further, it may be too late for most of central Africa. If I read the paleo-climatic history correctly, there is no time in the past million years when there was ice on Greenland and more than 350ppm of CO2 in the air. We already have over 380ppm of CO2.