The sample size (550 respondents) and margin of error (about 4.2 per cent) are such that you would want to treat it with caution, but a new Morgan phone poll has turned up remarkably poor results for the government: Labor’s primary vote is on just 30 per cent against 47 per cent for the Coalition and 13.5 per cent for the Greens, with the Coalition leading on two-party preferred 55-45. The poll was conducted over Wednesday and Thursday evenings.
UPDATE: Morgan has issued further data on personal ratings which shows Julia Gillard failing to take the hit on personal ratings you would expect from the numbers on voting intention, which further inclines me to treat the poll with suspicion. Julia Gillard’s approval rating is 48 per cent with 39 per cent disapproval, while Tony Abbott’s numbers are 48 per cent and 41 per cent. Gillard holds a 46-40 lead as preferred prime minister. Respondents were also asked to nominate their preferred leaders for the Labor and Liberal parties. Julia Gillard is favoured as Labor leader by 33 per cent against 20 per cent for Kevin Rudd, compared with 35 per cent and 25 per cent shortly after the federal election. Malcolm Turnbull remains favoured ahead of Tony Abbott as Liberal leader overall, by 31 per cent (down a point) to 23 per cent (up two). In both cases supporters of the party were happier with the incumbent. If Gillard were removed from the picture, 27 per cent would favour Rudd, 14 per cent Wayne Swan, 13 per cent Stephen Smith and 11 per cent Bill Shorten. Without Abbott, 39 per cent would favour Turnbull, 30 per cent Joe Hockey and 11 per cent Julie Bishop.
Zentai was not a native and was not a citizen and was caught up in the Nazi war criminal movement.
Three is no charge and it is apparent they are trying to create way to make a charge in the US. So what is this rule of law you refer to when no law has been broken and no charge made.
Would not like to live in your country.
Then there was this guy, don’t know what happened to him.
[The High Court has paved the way for an Australian man to be sent to Croatia to face war crimes allegations.]
http://www.abc.net.au/news/stories/2010/03/31/2861072.htm
GG,
Hew Griffiths.
http://www.theage.com.au/articles/2007/05/06/1178390140855.html
Can we extradite Kevin Peterson? For crimes against Australian pride.
Indiscrete ministers? What, do they form into gestalts or something?
I never knew Victorian politics was so fascinating…
blue_green,
He is incarcerated indefinitely for speeding offences.
* sadly realises I’m dreaming *
Other than it being obvious that all laws are political I don’t quite understand your premise, other than an implication that receiving and dealing with US classified material anywhere in the world isn’t a US crime? I’m not a qualified lawyer in the US I would not begin to pretend to know their laws, I would just be stunned if they didn’t have one that they applied.
This guy was extradited to the US for piracy and he had never been in the US!
Not everyone was happy with it.
[But Justice Young described as “bizarre” the fact that “people are being extradited to the US to face criminal charges when they have never been to the US and the alleged act occurred wholly outside the US”.]
http://www.theage.com.au/articles/2007/05/06/1178390140855.html
The preffered leader stuff in this poll is meaningless.
What would be better is if they polled: Who would you vote for (ALP/Coal) if the leaders were Gillard/Abbott, Gillard/Turnbull, Gillard/Hockey etc.
Kersebleptes.
Smart alec. 🙂
Indiscreet, not indiscrete.
GG
[Zentai was not a native and was not a citizen and was caught up in the Nazi war criminal movement.]
And we still haven’t extradited him!!
Griffiths was not an Australian citizen.
Neither was Captain Dragan
sk –
The US may well try the old *retrospective legislation* trick on JA.
But as soon as they get hold of him their real problem will start. Besides having to get the charges through the courts they will instantly make him a martyr while being unable to stop release of all the other cables, including the dirt on the US Banks.
It will no doubt encourage other people to leak more stuff as well.
They could send him to Gitmo – that has *really* worked so well in the past, not!
Even *IF* JA is convicted in a US court what will it say about them?
Jasmine@2708
No-one has been able to point one out for the US for Assange’s actions. Not least our A-G and PM when pressed. Then there’s the problem of the obviously political nature of any charge that might be available in an extradition hearing. Then there’s the problem of any retrospective law and an extradition hearing.
Methinks there is a lucrative contract awaiting a smart CEO advising the U.S. government on the basics of computer security.
http://www.smartcompany.com.au/information-technology/20101213-nasa-sold-computers-with-sensitive-data-report-finds.html
dave
[The US may well try the old *retrospective legislation* trick on JA. ]
I doubt a court would extradite someone to face a retrospective law. It’s hard enough to get someone extradited at the best of times.
Jasmine,
Don’t engage.
jv is about malice, cheap gotchas, and annointing him/herself as superior to others (anyone else, doesn’t matter who). And that’s it. Any positive outcome of his/her comments is purely coincidental.
He/she is in the same execrable group of commenters as MWH.
Leave well alone.
dave,
Not much and I really think that goes to the heart of the matter. Governments are meant to be representative of the people and operate in a transparent way and more and more they are being found to be acting dishonestly and way beyond their intended reach.
But if JA does get pinned by the U.S. govt, the real circus will start because then his insurance file will be released.
I think the legal focus on Assange makes it a very boring topic. Its pretty obvious he has done nothing illegal.
As for the right v wrong, good v bad and benefits v cost arguments: they are much, much more interesting.
Legal = boring.
I am not at all sure I understand your facts or your logic. But if you are betting they can’t find a law that applies and facts to make a case strong enough for extradition then that is your perfect right.
That is all very humorous and smart, you must have been very proud to draw that conclusion little insult in as well, lacking sensible facts or analysis and all. But since you poke that little sore spot I think it is absurd that the rest of the world lets the US get away with bizarre and extreme extraterritorial application of US law. But it does. The US has very openly and consistently applied its law however it likes.
In the event that there is a ‘fact’ that you seem to be hinting at that the relevant US investigators and prosecutors have looked for a law that was breached and come up empty handed so far, the retrospective application of law is a very very difficult area and in the event that was the only way they got him eventually I would concede that the smart money was very lucky, as opposed to smart.
[Its pretty obvious he has done nothing illegal.]
Although I would support moves to bring in retrospective legislation against self-absorbed ponces.
Our extradition treaty with the US says that extradition will not be granted:
“(c) when the offence in respect of which extradition is requested is of a
political character, or the person whose extradition is requested proves that
the extradition request has been made for the purpose of trying or punishing
him for an offence of a political character.”
How would the A-G get around that one?
Nice
[MP vows to stop Brough’s re-electionPetrina Berry, AAP
December 13, 2010, 7:40 am 24 Comments
Federal MP Peter Slipper has vowed to do whatever he can to stop Mal Brough from being re-elected into the Australian parliament.
This follows a decision by his own party, the Liberal National Party (LNP) to grant Mr Brough, a former Howard government minister, membership on Friday.
Mr Brough has since announced he’ll seek LNP preselection for Mr Slipper’s current seat of Fisher in Queensland at the next federal election.
Mr Slipper says he’s confident of retaining LNP preselection.
“I don’t believe he has the slightest chance in hell in being elected in the seat of Fisher,” Mr Slipper told AAP on Sunday.
“If he’s re-elected to the Australian parliament that would be a disaster for the parliament, the nation and the party.
“And I will do whatever I have to do to make sure Mal Brough is never elected again to the Australian parliament in any seat.”
He said Mr Brough was egocentric and divisive.
“The problem with Mal Brough is it’s all about Mal. He’s on a perpetual ego trip. He’s using the party to get re-elected into the Australian parliament,” Mr Slipper said.
“(His admission) will affect the unity of the party and it will make us less attractive in the state of Queensland.
“It has the potential to blow us out of the water at the upcoming state election.”
When the Liberal and National parties merged two years ago in Queensland, Mr Brough, the former member for the federal seat of Longman, said he would never join the LNP.
Mr Brough described the party as an abomination but he has since said the comments were made at a time the merger was hotly debated and there were some in the party with ulterior motives.
“People of goodwill were on all sides of the debate – but as often happens, there were some with ulterior motives that peddled misinformation and confusion, which was never in the interest of the non-Labor side of politics,” Mr Brough said in a statement on Friday.
He said the LNP had fought several individuals and they had been expelled or suspended since the merger.
“It is true to say that if I had known then what I know now about the LNP, those comments would never have been made,” he said.
Comments are being sought from the LNP’s state executive.
]
http://au.news.yahoo.com/a/-/mp/8496142/mp-vows-to-stop-broughs-re-election/
Suffered a wound that won’t heal, Kersebleptes?
I don’t think it is at all obvious he has done nothing illegal. How could laws around classified documents be so lax you are allowed to ‘find’ them and do whatever you like with them. If he really has done nothing illegal you would be starting to make an excellent case to justify retrospective legislation.
[I don’t think it is at all obvious he has done nothing illegal. How could laws around classified documents be so lax you are allowed to ‘find’ them and do whatever you like with them. ]
There isn’t a law against publishing that stuff. There is a law against stealing it though.
I still think he is an amoral jerk; just not an illegal amoral jerk.
All this trouble to find a charge to stick on Assange I can only put down to a wish for revenge. What else would be achieved? WikiLeaks and any future similar organizations can simply release such material anonymously so there won’t be anyone who can be charged. As for the 251,000 diplomatic cables, WikiLeaks has been mirrored on nearly 2000 sites so far. Nothing can stop their release, whatever happens to Assange. The horse has bolted, gentlemen.
Jasmine,
How could U.S. Government security be so lax as to allow that kind of information to walk out the door? Or to sell NASA computers with information still loaded? Seems to me the criminality starts with the U.S. imcompetence and their arrogance for writing such drivel about every one else.
It’s been quite a while now, and no-one here or in the US has been able to point to any law that Assange has broken. If there isn’t even anything the right-wing nut-jobs in the US can latch onto by this stage, it would seem that in fact there has been no law broken. All they’ve managed is to call for his assassination.
Laws are about the appropriate enforcing of the moral code of a society. If there aren’t laws in either Australia or the US to prevent the publication of classified documents then there ought to be and I would have though it ought to be retrospective.
Before the tofu eating generals have a heart explosion I would think there are only two outstanding questions, first how to draft a public interest exemption for the press (and I think there should be one but drafting it would be very hard) and whether that would extend to wikileaks type operations in the event a public interest test was passed (and I think it is irrelevant on what I’ve seen so far wikileaks would fail any public interest test, but I’m not sure the defence should even be available to them).
[Laws are about the appropriate enforcing of the moral code of a society. If there aren’t laws in either Australia or the US to prevent the publication of classified documents then there ought to be and I would have though it ought to be retrospective.]
Jasmine
I fully expect that the US and other Western nations will bring in stricter legal codes regarding government information. Less will be writen down and it will be wrtten down in more obtuse language. And the ‘truth will set you free’ crowd here will shortly find that it will be much harder to find the truth.
[Laws are about the appropriate enforcing of the moral code of a society. If there aren’t laws in either Australia or the US to prevent the publication of classified documents then there ought to be and I would have though it ought to be retrospective.]
Clearly not a fan of open government. On this basis the government lies exposed by the Pentagon Papers would be not be published.
[first how to draft a public interest exemption for the press]
First, you need to define “press”. Anyone reporting anything can claim to be “press”.
[“Beauty is truth, truth beauty,” – that is all
Ye know on earth, and all ye need to know.]
I never actually got how a poem about a pot ended in thses lines.
Well about the us security being slack, I agree completely they should be too embarrassed to request his extradition, but I’m not banking on them being that self aware as a nation.
THis is the BBC table that shows who first published the information. This is important because it means that these people should be arrested under the same laws that the U.S. eventually try to impose on JA.
http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/world-us-canada-11914040
[but I’m not banking on them being that self aware as a nation.]
US exceptionalism demonstrates that US citizens have very little self-awareness.
Jasmine@2731
The ‘moral code’ of any society is broken by politicians who tell the people they represent lies and keep important information from them, often to perpetuate their own partisan political existence. The cables have revealed/confirmed that. ‘Classified’ lies are still lies.
To suggest that government duplicity should be protected by law from exposure and ongoing scrutiny is a strange response.
The more secrecy we allow politicians, the more our trust will be betrayed. More power to transparency. The internet is our friend for that purpose.
oomster
Posted Monday, December 13, 2010 at 10:40 am | Permalink
Despite TP’s desperate attempts to spin it otherwise, I don’t see any signs of dissent on the Assange issue within the Labor party.
I haven’t seen any statement from the PM, the Treasurer, the Foreign Minister or indeed Tanya Plibersek which suggests anything of the sort.
I certainly haven’t seen anything which suggests that Rudd is somehow defiantly opposing the PM and is mounting a gallant defence of Assange in the teeth of fierce opposition….
Given the number of assumptions you need to make on the information available to arrive at the conclusion that the (Labor) govt is somehow at fault, and given that all of those assumptions have to be unfavourable to the government to arrive at that conclusion, this suggests an eagerness to find the govt and PM in the wrong which can only lead to the conclusion that the assumer is heavily BIASED to start with.”
agree
In fact Kevin rudd precisely separated USA’s responsibility for not securing Cables properly FROM his separate unqual condemn of Wikilaks fo undermining necessary oz and Internatonal diplomacy & w/o a caveat A damnation by th FA xpert Kevin rudd that not one Pro Wiki has even tried to challnege , but instead pretend he never said it !
This is something that hasn’t been examined enough in the media as well as why Gillard is taking the position she is.
The US has only recently ramped up an effort to get Assange and block/disable WikiLeaks. Why when previous leaks by them have been even more embarrassing.
And prosecuting their case in the way that they are creates a world wide focus on WL and Assange, something you think the US would want to avoid. Getting revenge doesn’t seems petty and doesn’t contain enough reward for the risk taken, but it seems they have a new determination to follow this course.
We are left thinking about the bank data and Assange’s comments that it implicates bankers and Senators. This would explain the urgency to get their hands on Assange and a reason to put heavy pressure on Gillard and the UK.
spot on blue_green. the unintended consquence of this is that what is actually recorded will be sanitised now, so there will be less transparency in the end. I for one believe that there needs be a level of secrecy and security for the system to function. Will diplomats been able to give such frank advice, and if not, what implications for world affairs and security?
please be specific about the lies that have been revealed and how they are in our national interest or the national interest of any of our allies?
I imagine retrospective law making would be a great way to control the population of a country. Anything you do legally today can put you in jail tomorrow. So what does legal really mean for any citizen? It ceases to exist.
[Andrew
Posted Monday, December 13, 2010 at 1:25 pm | Permalink
spot on blue_green. the unintended consquence of this is that what is actually recorded will be sanitised now, so there will be less transparency in the end. I for one believe that there needs be a level of secrecy and security for the system to function. Will diplomats been able to give such frank advice, and if not, what implications for world affairs and security?]
What implications? Well for one, this provides a structural disadvantage to open democracies.
blue_green,
Maybe for five minutes. The weakness in any security system are the human elements. If someone’s moral fibre is offended enough or if they are paid money enough, etc there will always be leaks.
Watergate didn’t stop the pentagon papers and the pentagon papers did not stop wikileaks from occuring.
[Nothing can stop their release, whatever happens to Assange.]
Which is why my view is he is irrelevent. If he wasn’t around anymore it’s doubtful the leaks would stop, nor would wikileaks be shut down.
Even for a lightweight like Plibesek her statement can only be described as bizarre.!
She seemed unaware that a US soldier .Bradley.has been charged with theft of documents
In Plibesek’s statement ,she seemed to leave open the possibility that Assenge stole them,if I read her correctly.! quite wrong and ill-iformed !
What a crazy statement…even Gillard and McClelland didn’t go that far in their statements.
Is she a factional mate of Arbib…in which case the US Embassy may be having an input..they both may be on a drip-fed !
As to the US practice of simply grabbing and jailing or killing their critics in secret…don’t be surprised ..that’s what Empire’s do !!..and that’s why they eventualy are destroyed by the enemies they make.
The USA is already far down the road to ruin
By the way…It seems to me that whether on the boat-people or any other matters you can name ,Gillard has become”Howard-Lite ”
Any sign of that Oz Poll yet?
Space Kidette
I take your point.
However, the weight of my concern is not wbether whitelblowing can occur in the future; but more whether wikileaks may undermine international relations and decrease the influence of Australia’s allies and correspondingly increase the influence of undemocratic and less just nations.
Jasmine@2742
Arbib’s individual protected source status with a foreign power is a notable omission from public knowledge close to home. The US’s interests are anything but our interests. The secret nobbling of the UK Iraq inquiry to protect the US as to the reasons for going to war is another. Even one I noticed yesterday about the US considering selling arms to Uganda is very much in the public interest. And there will clearly be much more along these lines.
But more generally, as spectator extracted yesterday:
Yet the leaks are of unprecedented importance because, at a stroke, they have enlightened the masses about what is being done in their name and have shown the corruption, incompetence – and sometimes wisdom – of our politicians, corporations and diplomats. More significantly, we have been given a snapshot of the world as it is, rather than the edited account agreed upon by diverse elites, whose only common interest is the maintenance of their power and our ignorance.
I am interested in the anti-US feeling here. To those that express anti-US sentiment- who would they prefer take up the role of negotiating/arbitrating in the scores of international conflicts underway?
Do they wish to see no-one in that role? Or do they have another power they wish to see replace the US?