Another empty and meaningless week with no Newspoll. Essential Research however offers us its usual weekly poll, this one showing the Coalition’s lead on two-party preferred narrowing from 52-48 to 51-49. However, there has been little change on the primary vote: both the Coalition (45 per cent) and Labor (37 per cent) are down a point, with the Greens (11 per cent) and others (7 per cent) up one. The poll also inquired into various leaders’ handling of the flood crises, with 77 per cent rating Anna Bligh favourably against 6 per cent poorly; 61 per cent against 4 per cent for Brisbane lord mayor Campbell Newman; 42 per cent against 23 per cent for Julia Gillard; 19 per cent against 32 per cent for Tony Abbott; 34 per cent against 8 per cent for Ted Baillieu; and 21 per cent against 23 per cent for Kristina Keneally.
Also covered were “most important issues in deciding how you would vote” and the best party to handle those issues, which Essential Research last canvassed in a poll about six weeks after the election. The main change on the former is “ensuring a quality education for all children”, which for some reason has gone down from 32 per cent to 23 per cent. On the latter, the report does not provide figures from the October 2010 survey for easy comparison, but you can find them here. Given that the voting intention figure has only changed from 51-49 in Labor’s favour to 51-49 against, Labor’s across-the-board deterioration is rather surprising. They have gone backwards on every measure, most markedly on fair taxation and population growth (down seven points) and political leadership, interest rates and asylum seekers (down six points). Tellingly, this has not translated into gains for the Coalition, with “don’t know” taking up most of the slack.
madcyril – send the Courier Mail editorial to Neil Mitchell. He needs to read something intelligent.
Thanks for posting that b_g – what a nice change to see an editorial making sense of both the flood issue and the NBN.
I don’t think Abbott is a goner just that he has lost a bit of traction. It turns out that last year’s learned responses did not apply during and immediately after the flood crisis.
In particular, the great big new tax parrot bit him on the bum. The human traffic light approach was opposed as a bit on the shallow side.
Abbott is a good learner. He will change his policy tyres, and will plough ahead. Those skerricks of the MSM who got twitchy will forgive this temporary aberration.
Boerwar @ 99
Paul Sheehan embraces all manner of nutty ideas and phobias in his columns. It is rare for any of them to make much sense. 😆
Opposition leader JPL has demanded means-testing for flood payments be increased to at least $100,000.
I think there was discussion the other day whether these payments should be means tested.
blue-green:
There’s also the potential to split the coalition. Can you imagine the LNPers voting against a Qld reconstruction levy?
Sheehan is a scatter gun contrarian. He sometimes gets it right- like an amateur sometimes gets a bullseye playing darts- but often also misses the board.
[blue-green:
There’s also the potential to split the coalition. Can you imagine the LNPers voting against a Qld reconstruction levy?]
I think that is what the ALP are hoping for. They know 3 separate Nats have proposed a scheme.
[marygoode #BoM has released a special climate statement on #flooding and heavy rains in eastern Aus. Says Dec was westtest on record for eastern Aus ]
Wettest December ever for Eastern Australia. Hmmm. Keep prodding at mother nature folks. Lets see what else she can do.
Space Kidette,
[Does anyone else get the impression that the OO Phony Tony lurv-in might be over?]
The OO’s love-in with Moany Tony will continue till the Liberals get themselves their next “leader”. Then the love-in will commence for him/her, while remaining ever fond of Moany and the Phoneys generally.
[Abbott is a good learner. He will change his policy tyres, and will plough ahead.]
Tone’s weakness is policy development. If the govt keep up with the substance (decision making, being on the front foot wrt policy and legislative proposals) the opposition will always be playing catch up, simply because Abbott lacks the skills needed to match an action government. His cheap sloganeering seemed to work largely because the government was cathartic and wasn’t asserting itself.
[Then the love-in will commence for him/her]
Him. Who are we kidding?
Just opened the CM and under that Paul Syvret editorial, there is
“Bland PM losing some bubbles as reinvigorated Rudd looks to Rise”
They really can’t help themselves.
confessions
The unhinged one has an Achilles Heel – policy development. If he keeps going the way he is he will create his own vacuum.
If the govt puts forward a flood levy legislation in the first parliament. It takes all the oxygen away from every other issue and gets the government a good month where they control a posisitve agenda.
If Gillard makes some cuts as well, it will be very hard for ABbott to find any traction.
BK:
His one contribution to policy development since becoming leader involves a levy on business. A levy, which when applied to flood reconstruction is described as a big tax, but not his levy which is…er…a levy rather than a big tax.
He’s hopeless!
bemused@61
31st December (UK Guardian):
“Gillard toured an evacuation centre in Bundaberg [with Anna Bligh] and announced that families whose homes had been flooded or damaged would be eligible for disaster relief payments of A$1,000 (£650) per adult and A$400 per child.
A day earlier, she had pledged A$1m in federal aid to match a relief fund already set up by the state government.”
4th January (The Australian):
“JULIA Gillard has ordered more government funds be diverted to flood-ravaged Queensland in a bid to prevent the state slipping into a long economic slump.
In what may become Australia’s largest and most costly rebuilding operation, clean-up grants of up to $25,000, along with low-interest loans, were offered by the Prime Minister yesterday in addition to the commonwealth’s normal emergency relief payments. Production has almost ground to a halt in the coal industry, while early assessments of Queensland’s agriculture sector have put the cost of the floods at more than $1 billion in lost production.”
12th January (Channel 7 News):
“What we’re going to do is just keep working through to assist people at every stage of this crisis, from putting an emergency dollar into someone’s pocket when they have to flee their home because it’s filling up with floodwaters to helping small businesses and householders and farmers when they return and start cleaning up the devastation,” she told the Seven network this morning.”
20th January (7.30 Report):
“But I want to be very blunt with Australians: We have a lot of flood damage to repair in Queensland. There will be some economic effects on GDP growth, a short-term effect on inflation with food prices and the like, but our economy is strong and we will get through this by pulling together the same way we got through the global financial crisis, by pulling together.”
24th January (Doorstop I/V):
“PM: Good morning, I’m here in Brisbane for the first meeting of the Prime Minister’s Business Taskforce. Leading corporate figures from around the country are gathering here today for our first discussion about how corporate Australia can work even harder to assist the people of Queensland during this difficult time.”
Hardly “mute” bemused……but hey! continue to revel in your particular delusion…it obviously gives you comfort…
[Opposition leader JPL has demanded means-testing for flood payments be increased to at least $100,000.
I think there was discussion the other day whether these payments should be means tested.]
While I agree that we need to be careful about moral hazard arguments and flood compensation for people who were uninsured, I think there is a problem with (income based?) means tests as a policy principle here. The real question on people’s financial vulnerability in this case will be their mortgage debt relative to income, which is not the same thing. Plus there is the question of whether their property is too flood prone for them to be allowed to rebuild.
[
Just opened the CM and under that Paul Syvret editorial, there is
“Bland PM losing some bubbles as reinvigorated Rudd looks to Rise”
They really can’t help themselves.
]
blackdog
I gather this is the piece you are referring to
[
Julia Gillard going flat as Kevin Rudd reinvigorates
WHAT has happened to Julia Gillard’s leadership? It’s flattening faster than champagne after New Year’s Eve.
Last year closed with accusations the Gillard Government lacked an agenda for 2011 – a serious charge for a newly elected team with no parliamentary majority and no real mandate. But the new year has begun even more blandly and public feedback has it that Gillard is lacking that indefinable prime ministerial essence.
]
The article goes on to speculate about a Kevin Rudd, Tanya Plibersek joint ticket to take on Gillard and Swan! Oh brother
http://www.couriermail.com.au/news/opinion/pm-going-flat-as-rudd-reinvigorates/story-e6frerdf-1225994075706
Wow, thats a powerful ticket Rudd/Pliberseck. The powerbrokers must be shaking in their boots.
[Him. Who are we kidding?]
True, the probability of Bishop being elevated is slim. But you can bet they’re considering all options, including to cynically project themselves as a Party so enlightened that it would elect a – gasp! – woman as leader.
madcyril
Thanks for posting article. Yes that is the one. Apparently when Labor implodes we will need Kevind Rudd and Tanya to run as a ticket.
That Paul Syvret article was very moving.
I think Bishop as Leader, Turnbull as Treasurer/climate change, hockey as education is the best combination for the Libs.
[True, the probability of Bishop being elevated is slim. But you can bet they’re considering all options, including to cynically project themselves as a Party so enlightened that it would elect a – gasp! – woman as leader.]
There’s always our Sophie, of course.
[Looking at the party ratings on the important issues from Essential, the Coalition win on all the following:
……
Environment
Climate change]
You appear to have overlooked the Greens Party. The Greens Party has the highest rating for:
Protecting the environment – Greens (40%) ; Lib (19%) ; Lab (16%)
Addressing Climate Change – Greens (34%) ; Lib (20%) ; Lab (18%)
Socrates
I think the current cut off of $48,000 for a coupleis a little bit low, but think the $100,000 is too high.
There are a lot of letters to the editor in favour of giving money to everybody. The trouble is that the Flood Relief Appeal has only raised about $127 million which would end up being a very small payment to all involved.
Paul Syrvet may not have realised it when he wrote that “well intentioned” editorial about Labor leadership but, if Labor did start entertaining such speculation, it would destabilise the party just as it was about to get a probably jump in polls from handling of the flood crisis. I’m sure Labor realises though.
Curious there has been no speculation about Abbott’s leadership, given the spectacularly inappropriate comments he made about costs of the NBN while the crisis was at its height, adn already poor response apparent in Essential Research. If there was anyone who ought to be the subject of leadership speculation…
blackdog
[I think the current cut off of $48,000 for a coupleis a little bit low, but think the $100,000 is too high.]
The average wage/PAYE income is about $62K. Many graduates get that starting out from uni. The average household income is well over $100k. I think $100K for a limiting couple’s income is way too low; that would exclude many people with large mortgages who are now very hard up, and would recieve a lot of deserved criticism.
Most of the graduates in the Adelaide office I work in are on $60K to $70K with couples all on over $100K, and are all signing up to mortgages of over $200K. Given the higher housing prices in Brisbane, the situation must be worse there.
[There’s always our Sophie, of course.]
Still thy beating heart!
Immigration Dept twitter stream. Is this a first for a fed agency?
http://twitter.com/sandihlogan
For those interested, Bob Brown was interviewed by Alison Carabine this morning about the flood levy.
http://www.abc.net.au/rn/breakfast/stories/2011/3120846.htm
[Still thy beating heart!]
Entirely Platonic, Cuppa, I can assure you.
markjs @ 116
Not at all.
You did a lot of research to come up with those quotations. But I don’t read The Guardian, or the OO, nor do I watch the Channel 7 news. Otherwise, your first date there is 20 Jan 7:30 report.
It really was those Bligh regular updates that got everyone’s attention and where Julia should have, without detracting from Bligh, stepped forward with full backing for Qld. A missed opportunity, but there will be others. Nothing delusional at all. 😛
b-g,
Thank you for the Courier Mail post. Probably the best piece of journalism I have seen all year. Now, all we need to see is more of it.
Sadly, the Gold Coast Bulletin is reporting a recommendation to demolish many of the damaged riverside homes.
Heading into the State of the Union Speech, Obama now has his best approval figures in 18 months. Now over 50%. The Obama hatred is falling away.
Its going to be hard to knock him off.
Socrates
It is definately difficult to know what is the best way to distribute the funds from the appeal. While I think that low income earners and pensioners should get the payments, you also describe the other problems relating to this.
In a lot of the flooded areas, there is a mix of wealthy and not so wealthy, that is they bought their house a long time ago, when prices in Brisbane were very cheap.
I also agree with your point of income, what is a low income earner or average income earner these days. Apart from people being on different pensions, it is definately hard to work out.
My mum and dad bought their current house in 1987 for $79,000 in 1988. Now it is worth at least 5 to 6 times but mum survives on her pension.
Did everyone notice the piece I posted earlier in the Brisabne Times about the QLD oppn wanting to have WIvenhoe store more water (As opposed to using it for flood retention)
This was a story we discussed ages ago.
[Damned if they do: the LNP’s water problem
Daniel Hurst
January 25, 2011 – 7:13AM
The Queensland opposition’s call for less of Wivenhoe Dam to be used as a flood buffer last year could come back to bite it, a political expert says.
The dam’s operation is now in the spotlight, with a commission of inquiry set to investigate whether this month’s Brisbane River flooding was made worse because the government-owned dam operator initially acted too slowly to release excess water.
However, in March, October and December, the opposition called on authorities to look at reducing the portion of dam capacity set aside for flood protection so that more could be used for drinking water storage.]
http://www.brisbanetimes.com.au/queensland/damned-if-they-do-the-lnps-water-problem-20110124-1a2uq.html
So the quotes weren’t immediately & personally delivered to your door, nor were they then read out to you by a honey-toned voiceover. Therefore you are perfectly at liberty to act as if they don’t exist.
No, nothing delusional at all…
WA’s Water Corporation suggest Perth’s dams will have a role only for storage of recycled and desalinated water, rather than catchment and storage, due to drying conditions in the state’s south west.
http://au.news.yahoo.com/thewest/a/-/newshome/8705511/role-of-dams-evaporates-fast/
[I think Bishop as Leader, Turnbull as Treasurer/climate change, hockey as education is the best combination for the Libs.]
One thing I’ve learned from observing politics during the past few years is the folly of making predictions. (Predictions made rarely come to pass.) In saying that, I’ll stick my neck out and predict that Turnbull’s got Buckley’s Chance of a Climate Change portfolio. If indeed the conservatives have such a portfolio designation. There was so much ill-will towards him in the ranks for his position on emissions trading that he will be kept from that contentious (to them) area of policy. Deniers and skeptics, after all, had the sway to anoint Moany.
Cuppa
It wasn’t a prediction. It was a suggestion.
[It wasn’t a prediction. It was a suggestion.]
Yeah, I know it wasn’t a prediction. But mine was.
blackdog
[My mum and dad bought their current house in 1987 for $79,000 in 1988. Now it is worth at least 5 to 6 times but mum survives on her pension.]
Yes that is the problem. A pensioner with no mortgage and $70K per year income is quite comfortable. A 28 year old who has just paid off a $30K HECS debt and now has a $200K mortgage is not. The average new mortage is now over $250K.
The revamped MySchool website seems to still have problems with its ranking system.
[PARENTS in the top income-earning occupations are not taken into account by the My School website when it calculates which schools are the most advantaged, prompting allegations it is producing grossly unfair results.
Schools and education experts say the ranking system on the revamped website – which also ignores parents at the bottom of the pay scale, including the unemployed – is fundamentally flawed.]
http://www.theage.com.au/national/education/myschool-how-it-gets-it-so-wrong-20110124-1a2vm.html
Kersebleptes @ 137
Well… actually, mostly in your paragraph above.
Again the heavy hitting journos are shiftng more to issues and policy rather than politics.
http://www.thepunch.com.au/articles/you-cant-take-climate-change-out-of-the-flood-equation
Some snippets.
[It wasn’t just a random mongrel of a season.
The idea that it was simply a bigger version of the regular flooding doesn’t, ahem, hold water, even allowing for greater urbanisation and significant landscape changes over the past four decades.
At the very least we have to give consideration to the notion we have experienced one of the more dramatic consequences of climate change. To dismiss this possibility is mere cussedness.
One reason consideration should be given for this is that heavy flooding has been a forecasted feature of climate change, and that includes predictions in Queensland.
—
Skepticism should be to the forefront when reading a report which justifies the existence of the reporting authority.
But to outright reject climate change as a factor in the floods would be beyond skepticism. It would be a dangerous dishonesty. }
Socrates
I know what you’re saying about the mortgages.
It has changed so much in the past 10 years especially.
My Mum only gets about $20,000 a year, we are poor, but we are happy.
Judith Bessant on unaccompanied minors still in detention.
[THE High Court’s decision last Thursday to reject Sister Brigid Arthur’s case for releasing four young Afghan asylum seekers suggests that Australia has lost its way.
While these legal questions are clearly important, the moral questions are equally important. Cruelty and compassion draw on our capacity to imagine the effect of our actions on another. Deliberately inflicting suffering indicates we are not able to put ourselves in their place, a capacity that makes us human. It requires the ability to recognise their equal dignity and in the case of children the ability to accept or reject a duty of care.
That duty of care has been breached by governments and now again by the highest court in the land. We may well conclude that our society is very sick indeed.]
http://www.theage.com.au/opinion/politics/soul-searching-is-needed-over-child-detention-20110124-1a2y5.html
[Again the heavy hitting journos are shiftng more to issues and policy rather than politics.]
Except at the Australian, where it’s still politics over issues of substance.
Confessions
I foresee that the Australian AND Tony Abbott will become a running joke within the journo fraternity this year.
I don’t know if this has been mentioned yet, the BBC is going to be another victim of cost cutting.
“The BBC says it is closing 200 of its websites, with the loss of 360 jobs over the next two years, in a drive to cut overall costs and reshape online content for the digital age”.
http://www.abc.net.au/news/stories/2011/01/25/3120802.htm?section=justin