The Courier-Mail brings a Galaxy poll of Queensland respondents which shows the Coalition with an imposing 59-41 lead on two-party preferred. This points to a 4 per cent swing compared with the state’s result at the election (55.1-44.9), which is entirely in line with the general picture of national polling. On the primary vote the Coalition is almost doubling Labor, with a lead of 53 per cent to 28 per cent. Even more remarkable is the scale of Julia Gillard’s unpopularity in Queensland: she is favoured as Labor leader by just 19 per cent of respondents compared with 59 per cent for Kevin Rudd, compared with 44 per cent and 33 per cent at the previous such poll in February (Wayne Swan has also dropped from 15 per cent to 9 per cent since then). We are variously told “Tony Abbott has pulled in front of Ms Gillard as preferred prime minister by a strong 16 percentage point margin”, and that “Mr Abbott has pulled ahead of Ms Gillard as preferred prime minister by 53 per cent to 47 per cent”. Hopefully the print edition will clear things up.
UPDATE: JWS Research now has full results from its post-budget automated phone poll of the 20 most marginal seats, which collectively showed an 8 per cent swing to the Coalition since the election. It points to an exacerbation of the state-level divide recorded at the election, with Coalition swings of 8.8 per cent swings in the NSW seats covered (Reid, Banks, Lindsay, Robertson, Greenway, Macquarie) and 9.8 per cent in the Queensland seats
(Petrie, Moreton, Brisbane, Forde, Longman), but only 3.6 per cent in the Victorian seats (Deakin, La Trobe, Corangamite, Dunkley, Aston). Much further detailed is offered in the link, from which Spur212 in comments notes Tony Abbott’s astoundingly poor personal ratings among “soft” and anti-Coalition voters: his net approval is minus 35 among all soft voters, minus 74 among supporters of the opposing major party, minus 63 among minor party/independent supporters and minus 42 among the undecided. The respective figures for Julia Gillard are plus 1, minus 64, plus 3 and minus 12.
David
He keeps shifting his argument. Now it’s small business will suffer even if households and big business are compensated. Grrrr
[lizzie
Posted Monday, May 23, 2011 at 12:50 pm | Permalink
my say
They’re not lazy. Every girl needs a holiday some time in the year!!]
now thats what i will tell oh when he comes home, but that the longest holiday i can remember the chooks having,. ( i dont think they call them chooks on the bug island do they}
o dear now your the bug island welll lol
well yes you are the big island
lizzie @ 1825:
Yes, that too.
I think Kerr was attempting to escape his Labor routes by showing the Establishment that he was really one of them.
I’m not that knowledgeable with parliamentary conventions but one would think that the fact Whitlam commanded a majority on the floor of the House, he, not Fraser, should have been appointed caretaker PM. Although, as someone pointed out last night, conventions have no legal force – they’re merely obiter dicta.
how will the media handle these revelations re climate change
when does the present head of the board retire i did here it was aroung November
i was just thinking as i was cutting up quinces, just imagine if a polly said
well its not our generation ect.
i would think if we didnt look after our children’s best interests in the home environment we would hauled in front of the courts, so whats the difference
my say
Chooks here, too. I have a number at different ages, so always have a few eggs.
BK @ 1853:
That’s not entirely true.
Insiders say that Sophie has very interesting elbows.
lizzie @ 1906
This morning two of our new chooks decided to fly over the fly over the fence. Now they are locked away awaiting wing clipping.
A bit like some of the Coaltion, eh?
charlton
The mind boggles. I hope your not suggesting some form of fetish.
Toxic Tone; This report gives a thumbs up to Direct Action.
Christine Milne; This report blows rabbits direct action plan clean out of the water and then doing a good job of explaining it.
[Toxic Tone just said that the CC Commission says that direct action will be an important method of quick repair. He says they think burying carbon is a good way.]
lizzie – Steffin did say that putting carbon into the ground is something that can be done but he said carbon pricing with renewables (direct action) is the way to go. Nothing will evolve without carbon pricing.
Gilbert on Sky deliberately chose to push the first bit when he spoke with Andrew Leigh and Jamie Briggs.
Briggs & the Oppn line this morning was that the 5% goal is bipartisan so they will be doing it with much less pain for the public than the carbon tax plan to achieve the same goal. Of course nobody believes Direct Action will get to that goal and Labor can always increase the goal upwards. Direct Action alone apparently leaves no room for that.
Gaffhook
Christine is doing a good job with it today.
Christine Milne giving a very strong performance on ABC 24.
That NY Times article was quite creatively selective.
‘Thousands’ rally in opposition to carbon tax rally with only a few weeks notice?
No mention of the rallies in support.
Go, Christine. She has the guts to say “Abbott’s plan is rubbish”.
She is also putting it to the media to support it and not encourage the deniers. Very pointed.
I am confused.
Christine Milne doing a press conference on ABC24 and now actually being asked sensible questions and she is giving serious sensible answers with no interuptions or gotchas.
Go figure.
Dee
Yes, I agree. Some lies, some mis-speaks! Not a good report.
[Clearly there’s been realignment in the political preference of media corporations since the Hawke/Keating years. The predominantly liberal media of the 80s and 90s has diminished in size and reach, and has been replaced in part by the right-wing Murdoch press and a public broadcaster diligently striving to strike a balance between diversity of view and objectivity.
It’s not surprising at all that Green MPs, their advisers and their supporters are unhappy with this realignment and the heated media attention it has brought.
No doubt Coalition supporters would instead see it as a welcome, and long-awaited, turning of the worm.]
http://www.abc.net.au/unleashed/2725266.html
Former advisor to John Howard, who has missed the point. Opinion is one thing, but framing news items to suit one’s political agenda is quite another. This is quite clear in the reporting of the BER and HIP.
I expect that there will be a considerable delay before the first question is asked in QT. Condolence motions for Lionel Rose and Bill Hunter.
Christine Milne on fire!
Didn’t we get a condolence motion for Lionel Rose the other week? They’ll probably do condolences for that Gould bloke and the former Nat MP who died.
BK @ 1909:
No, but even Sophie must have at least have one redeeming feature (two if you count both elbows).
confessions
Hey yes, you’re right.
All the more time to get stuck into Tone.
Bernard Keane on the symbolism of the Victorian conference. hard to disagree with him on any of it:
[It was a moment rich in symbolism for a party in decline, one facing hard questions about its entire purpose for existing: the Victorian ALP conference on the weekend was unable to form a quorum to debate motions relating to gay marriage.
It may have been a procedural stunt pulled by one faction to thwart another and short-circuit an inconvenient debate, but it couldn’t have better symbolised the existential woes of a party facing a rapidly shrinking, rapidly ageing membership, hopelessly adrift in terms of its core beliefs.]
….
[As the bad polls continue, don’t doubt that the same geniuses who thought it would be a good idea to ditch Rudd will start thinking it might be time to do the same to Gillard. The repeated and spectacular failures of the strategising of the NSW Labor Party won’t deter them; nor will the realisation they’d be wrecking a third leader within three years. The same phenomenon will be at work as it was last year — a mental fragility, an inability to take political pressure, the desperate search for anything that will give a temporary break from it.
The only real solution to pressure, of course, is to resist it, and turn it back onto its sources. The Liberals traditionally don’t cope with opposition well. They spent two of the three years of the last term at each others’ throats. Abbott’s failure to countenance any positive policy, and the wretched nature of what has been allowed to come out, is clearly causing deep tensions among his colleagues.
A politically adept government would be able to knock this mob out of the park. But the last thing this government is is politically adept, of course. For the moment, its ambition should be merely to be patient, and learn how to absorb pressure and in turn let it build on its opponents. That’ll stand Labor in good stead regardless of who wins in 2013.]
Gaffhook
Hard to explain, but perhaps the few there (seemed to be few) were willing to listen to facts – and she gave them to them in spadefulls.
Lionel Rose was a lovely man.
[lizzie
Posted Monday, May 23, 2011 at 1:16 pm | Permalink
my say
Chooks here, too. I have a number at different ages, so always have a few eggs.]
now funny you should say that Oh recently bought a whole new lot of barnevelders
mm i said shouldn’t you have staggered them,,. but you know whats it like the garden is his domain and i just got a blank look
yes bk a couple came in our yard a few years ago same thing happened. O well if hadn’t of locked them up stray dogs would of got them
Mr Minchin doing chicken little in the Senate.
This Government has all the look of a company about to go to the wall.
The sky is going to fall down, everyone unless you get with the Rapture Party.
[Didn’t we get a condolence motion for Lionel Rose the other week? ]
Believe so, I recall thinking a pity Mr Rose didn’t get toxic into the ring show him how a real boxer operates.
As expected, the shoppies appear to have been behind the cowardly walkout at the Vic conference to shut down debate. From Andrew Crook at Crikey:
[Senior Left sources inside the Victorian ALP have accused conservative forces aligned to the Shop Assistants union of “breathtaking hypocrisy” for shutting down debates on gay marriage and asylum seekers at Saturday’s state conference, vowing swift and bitter revenge when the issues shift to the federal arena later in the year.
In scenes reminiscent of the worst of student politics, representatives of the so-called “shoppies” are alleged to have staged a co-ordinated walk out on Saturday afternoon, following addresses from Prime Minister Julia Gillard and state Labor leader Daniel Andrews.]
Boerwar
The Oppn is flat out shooting the messenger today, isn’t it…
[I am confused.
Christine Milne doing a press conference on ABC24 and now actually being asked sensible questions and she is giving serious sensible answers with no interuptions or gotchas.
Go figure.]
Maybe they’re becoming more disciplined now knowing that their chances of getting this thing through have increased? And if the Coalition response continues how it has been, its definitely going to be an interesting next few days.
Climate report reveals Coalition divisions, as Lib sceptic calls it ‘offensive’
http://www.theaustralian.com.au/national-affairs/make-carbon-tax-hurt-julia-gillard-advised/story-fn59niix-1226061130074
Bring forth The Unravelling.
My bad.
That was not Mr Minchin it was Mr Robb. I got so excited by the verve of the delivery and the shocking revelations that I lost my ability to identify which Liberal was which.
One of the blokes who reccommended hogwarts to sign off on their shonky $11bil blackhole election policies now reading the governments honesty hororscope on the current budget.
Hypocrite large.
Mr Robb said that something or other had ‘… died overnight.’
Just when I was thinking he could do a good line in funereal orations at pauper funerals for homeless people.
David:
Yes, I remember thinking Tone would use his speech to hook into the govt about indigenous affairs. From memory I don’t think he did.
What the opposition can’t do now is criticise the government for working with the Greens, not when they are trying to do just that in the Senate.
Also, this is quite annoying to read in that NYT article:
[While the precipitous decline in her popularity has coincided with the introduction of the plan, Ms. Gillard has not been helped by the general perception of her as a calculating careerist that she earned during the ouster of Mr. Rudd, nor her wooden public appearances during the flooding that ravaged the state of Queensland earlier this year]
It sucks when media stereotypes get parroted overseas.
The msm is going with Abbott’s selective quotes from the report, to prove his Direct Action Plan (DA, or duck’s arse, for short) will bring the quickest results. 😡
Mr Hockey in his speech this morning was reminding people that they should be resentful: keeping the entitlement/resentment pot bubbling.
[This Government has all the look of a company about to go to the wall.]
verbatim what Mr Moggadon just said in the house.
Crook on the shoppies – same article. The second paragraph reminds me very much of Bill Shorten for some reason:
[The socially conservative shop assistants, who have charged themselves with keeping the flame of Tony Abbott favourite B.A. Santamaria alive within Labor, have become a burgeoning political force in recent years, intervening in the Kororoit by-election in 2008 and recently pursuing court action in an attempt to dislodge Frank McGuire in Broadmeadows.
Critics have accused the union of preserving their power by pursuing sweetheart deals with employers, in which annual wage claims are deliberately suppressed in exchange for the employer plugging the union during staff induction sessions. The union rejects the suggestions.]
If I have got the gist of Mr Robb’s speech right, he is not in favour of the budget or of the Government.
Is there a “general perception” of Gillard as a calculating careerist?
First I’ve heard of it outside Coalition circles.
Thefinnigans The Finnigans
@
@JuliaGillard Dear PM, what else do you need to go for the kill in the debate on #climatechange and #pollutiontax. Never let a chance go by
9 seconds ago
I think it’s most unfortunate that the govt has been monstered into getting rid of any budget deficit – investment in clean technologies right now would be of benefit.
[The Oppn is flat out shooting the messenger today, isn’t it…]
That’s all they have left. Discredit the science, discredit the scientists, discredit the academics, discredit the professionals, discredit anyone that doesn’t see it their way. Destroy the credibility of their opponents at any cost, call them “cult like”, call them “elitist”, call them “anti-Australian”, call them “terrorists”. The opposition have only just begun their attacks on those who oppose their “profit at all costs” mantra. Prepare to see the worst in right-wingers and their News Limited supporters in the coming months.
Mr Robb moving an amendment now.
[The msm is going with Abbott’s selective quotes from the report, to prove his Direct Action Plan (DA, or duck’s arse, for short) will bring the quickest results.]
That’s because he disagreed with Will Steffen’s assertion that direct action won’t produce the same results as pricing emissions (or wtte of). Once an issue becomes political, any idiot’s opinion is elevated to equivalency with that of experts, in the name of balance.
So, the govt has Steffen (an expert) to say direct action is crap, and Tone to say no, no, direct action is all good. Balance achieved.