No Morgan poll this week, so I’ll instead relate the results of the latest semi-regular (about three times a year) Australian National University Social Research Centre phone survey of around 1200 respondents on a range of matters other than voting intention, conducted between April 27 and May 10. The special subject chosen for this survey was gambling, and it found 74 per cent support for mandatory pre-commitment measures as advocated by Andrew Wilkie, with 70 per cent expressing agreement that gambling should be more tightly controlled (so at least 4 per cent offered the counter-intuitive response that they favoured the former but not the latter). Against this, 42 per cent took the view that “the government has no right to restrict a person’s gambling”. There were slightly fewer supporters for mandatory pre-commitment among those who identified as regular gamblers, but they were still in a substantial majority.
As always, respondents were also asked to nominate the first and second most important problems facing Australia today, and to rate their satisfaction with how the country is heading on a five-point scale. The latter question produced almost identical results to the previous survey: 51 per cent satisfied and 12 per cent very satisfied, against only 20 per cent dissatisfied and 7 per cent very dissatisfied. The “most important problems” question is best examined from a long view: the following chart adds responses for “most important” to “second most important” for six of the issues canvassed, going back to the first such survey in early 2008.
By far the outstanding feature is a GFC-inspired spike in economy/jobs which washed out of the system at around the time Labor’s federal poll numbers began to tank. The scale of this obscures some of the trends in other categories: a steady descent in environment from 30 per cent to the high teens, an escalation in immigration from barely into double figures to its present place in the low thirties, and an apparently mounting concern – traceable, it seems, to the first half of last year – that government should be, in whatever sense, “better”.
Another recent poll result that has so far gone unmentioned here is from Essential Research, which occasionally holds back on questions from its regular polling for exclusive use by the Ten Network. This one is yet another humiliating leadership poll for Julia Gillard, who trails Kevin Rudd 37 per cent to 12 per cent on the question of preferred Labor leader. The commonly raised objection that such figures are skewed by mischievous Coalition supporters is dealt with by the fact that Rudd leads by 43 per cent to 31 per cent even among Labor supporters. Speaking of mischief, Malcolm Turnbull and Bob Brown were also thrown into the mix, respectively scoring 11 per cent and 3 per cent. However, it’s hard to say exactly what respondents were making of their inclusion: Turnbull was far behind Rudd among Coalition voters, and Brown was far behind both Rudd and Gillard among Greens voters. Of the Labor also-rans, Stephen Smith recorded 7 per cent, Greg Combet 2 per cent and Bill Shorten 1 per cent.
Besides which:
• The parliamentary library has published a paper by Murray Goot and Ian Watson with the self-explanatory title, “Population, immigration and asylum seekers: patterns in Australian public opinion”. Exhaustively reviewing public opinion measurement dating back to the late 1970s, they find that while opposition to immigration has increased since 2005, it is still lower than it was in the 1980s and the early 1990s. The fall in the intervening period is put down to declining unemployment, while the rise since has been driven by boat arrivals. Opposition to immigration is nonetheless found to be primarily environmentally rather than economically motivated – though racial motivation is, it seems, placed in pollsters’ too-hard baskets. The archetype of the immigration opponent is Australian-or-British born, of low income and education, and lives in public housing – though in defiance of other stereotypes, they are more likely to be female than male, and as likely to live in inner as outer metropolitan areas.
• Fairfax economics writer Peter Martin reviews the literature on that hottest of topics, the impact of media partisanship on voting behaviour. His broad conclusion is that while newspapers have very little impact, “television and radio are different”.
• Antony Green examines data on above-the-line voting patterns for the Legislative Council at the recent-ish New South Wales state election. The system here differs from the Senate in that voters can sequentially number as many parties as they choose above-the-line, after which their vote exhausts. Voters are thus spared the farce of having their preferences allocated in full by their one nominated party. The figures show that despite the different rules, voters continue to follow habits acquired from the Senate, with 82.2 per cent voting for one party above the line: 15.6 per cent numbered multiple parties above the line, with the remaining 2.2 per cent voting below the line. Antony reckons that if this system were adopted for the Senate, the high number of exhausted votes “would make the filling of the final Senate seat in each state a regular lottery rather than the occasional lottery under the current group ticket voting system”. However, I can’t see this myself: looking at the last two elections, each state elected four to five Senators off quotas derived from the primary vote, and after that major party and Greens candidates had easily enough in the way of surpluses to see off any micro-party chancers who might have been in the race for the final one or two seats (I await to hear where I’ve gone wrong here). However, double dissolution elections would be a different matter.
• Ben Raue at New Matilda and Peter Brent at Mumble review the Mike Rann situation. The timing may remain farcically up in the air, but the smart money says that South Australia will sooner or later be looking at simultaneous by-elections for Rann’s seat of Ramsay and his former deputy Kevin Foley’s seat of Port Adelaide. Defeat in both would cut the government’s majority from five seats to one: luckily for them, the respective margins are 18.0 per cent and 12.8 per cent. However, safe seats often prove the most vulnerable to high-profile independents, and Antony points to Max James (who polled 11.0 per cent at the election last year) and Port Adelaide-Enfield mayor Gary Johanson as possible contenders in Port Adelaide. A Liberal strategy of boosting independent challengers by declining to field a candidate is complicated by the fact that the swing they require there is not quite beyond the realms of possibility.
• If having the government’s majority chipped away through by-election defeats doesn’t do it for you, Family First MLC Robert Brokenshire is introducing a bill to the South Australian parliament allowing for early “recall” elections in the event that a petition calling for one is signed by 150,000 people within 30 days of its initiation.
• Malcolm Mackerras reviews some election timing history in Crikey. Also from Mackerras: a month or two ago I raised an eyebrow when he professed himself “quite confident in predicting there will be no by-elections during the current term”, since “Members of Parliament do not die these days”. On July 6 he offered a follow-up in the Canberra Times, which fleshed out the point that deaths of sitting parliamentarians have become a lot less common:
The essential reason is the generosity these days of parliamentary superannuation schemes and the ease with which former politicians get good jobs post-politics. In the past the typical politician expected to fail in the employment market post-politics. Since parliamentary salaries were good there was a great incentive for the politician to stay in his seat for as long as possible. Also medical advances mean that longer lives are now normal. A current Labor member in any of about 30 marginal seats killed in a car crash would, of course, wreck the Gillard Government. Surely Labor could not win a by-election in such a circumstance. However, such an occurrence is very unlikely.
UPDATE (8/7/11): Bernard Keane at Crikey reports Essential Research has the Coalition gaining a point on two-party preferred for the second week in a row, now leading 57-43. On the primary vote the Coalition has gained a point to 50 per cent and Labor is down one to 30 per cent. In the event of “another global financial crisis”, 43 per cent would more trust the Coalition to handle it against 27 per cent for Labor. Also:
The survey also revealed remarkable levels of ignorance about the numbers of asylum seekers coming to Australia. 36% of voters believe that the number of asylum seekers arriving by boat has “increased a lot” in the past 12 months, and 26% say it has “increased a little”, with 20% saying numbers have stayed the same. Only 7% of voters believe the number of asylum seekers has fallen. When told that the number of asylum seekers arriving by boat has fallen by more than half this year, the proportion of people “very concerned” about asylum seekers falls from 43% to 33% and those “a little” or “not at all” concerned goes from from 30% to 39%.
UPDATE 2: Full Essential Research report here.
Fiz,
Our local Government can use interest rates to stimulate the economy. Our base rate is 4.75% whereas the rest of the world is close to 0. This means we are, once again, well placed to go through any global downturn.
It’s pretty obvious that S&P have told the US and by extension the rest of the world to try harder.
The major problem in Australia is the high level of personal debt which has been fuelled by over inflated property prices.
Fiz,
The problem is that it diminished the office as well.
dave,
“I just read that Credit default swap prices suggest investors think France has ~3x the default risk of United States. But S&P rates them AAA”.
Scary times
Excuse my ignorance, but is S&P a Rupert Murdoch organ?
The ratings agencies better have good bunkesr to climb into. They are going to cop heaps. Its already started –
http://www.ritholtz.com/blog/2011/08/sp-downgrades-us-to-aa/
Tony Jenner@52
Yes via McGraw-Hill I believe.
GG +1
Scary indeed.
GG,
Let me remind everyone of the beautiful set of numbers:
1. Unemployment 4.9%
2. Inflation 3.6%
3. Public Net Debts 7% GDP
4. RBA Interest rate 4.75%
5. Growth rate 3.3%
6. AUD Vs USD 1.0403
7. Trade Surplus – $2B jun 2011- Australia’s $2 billion-plus trade surplus for June brought the tally for the last financial year to $22.4 billion – easily the biggest surplus in raw terms for the past 40 years of records compiled by the ABS
8. “ALP best manager of money, history shows” – Mega
9. Australian families depending on one breadwinner pay among the lowest amounts of tax in the world and have become better off under the Gillard Government – Natsem
10. Investment in the next year in mining and related infra-structure projects $140B
11. Labor’s Tax take 21.75% of GDP Vs 25% under Liberals
12. No interest rise for the 10th consecutive month Vs 10 consecutive rises under Howard/Costello. It is now expected no rises in the future with a prospect of interest rate cuts.
13. The number of people filling for bankruptcy in Australia has fallen by 16%.
14. Australia safe from debt crisis: OECD – http://afr.com/p/national/economy/australia_safe_from_debt_crisis_rgznLP6HTyYo7nGragUwyI #auspol
15. Credit Rating AAA
16. We are in Asia
17. Business investment spending is expected to grow by 15 per cent this year and another 15 per cent next year. – Ross Gittin
dave,
The introduction to the comments section on that article is a pearler.
“Please use the comments to demonstrate your own ignorance, unfamiliarity with empirical data, ability to repeat discredited memes, and lack of respect for scientific knowledge. Also, be sure to create straw men and argue against things I have neither said nor even implied. Any irrelevancies you can mention will also be appreciated. Lastly, kindly forgo all civility in your discourse . . . you are, after all, anonymous”.
Speaking of murdoch –
http://finance.yahoo.com/news/Elisabeth-Murdoch-delays-apf-3000495654.html?x=0
+1. 🙂
William would love it.
The quote of the day is fitting too. Very sad, but fitting. 🙁
The whole mechanism is connected. China-USA-Europe —— Australia
Australia depends on export markets, Australia depends on cost of access to o/seas funds. O/seas are concerned with Australia’s property market (Banks)….contractions in China/USA/Europe increases risk assessment – cost of access to funds…..goes to feedback loop….
I would not get complacent on the basis of Rudd saving us last time – bought enough time for China massive stimulus and massive USA Europe stimulus to come on-line. Now reaching the end game the net result being stuff all growth (apart from China), massive increase in debt and interest costs. China has massive miss-allocation of funds – non liquidating (non productive) borrowings – huge burden on economy.
[Talking of ‘leg’ men – as we were on the previous thread – my sister has a theory (tested exhaustively at parties) that bottle fed boys grow up to be leg men and breast fed ones grow up to be tit men.]
Interesting theory. But pray tell, how do we explain those who fancy the derriere.
Thefinnigans TheFinnigans
The Dirty S&P AAA dozen- Australia; Austria; Canada; Finland; France; HK; Holland; Norway; Singapore; Sweden; Swiss; UK #downgrade
8 seconds ago
Geoge,
If that one gets up we will be having an election every six months in SA.
Every time I think I have seen the depths of stupidity plumbed, some-one comes along to prove it a bottomless pit.
[Fiz,
The problem is that it diminished the office as well.]
Yeah… I just don’t about that actually SK. I think when a man gets back in they will all go back to referring to the PM as they did before, using the full name, surname or title. I do wonder if Julie Bishop were to ever become PM if they would refer to her as ‘Julie’.
Darn,
They’re queer, French or Rughby players.
[Every time I think I have seen the depths of stupidity plumbed, some-one comes along to prove it a bottomless pit.]
… I guess you didn’t see that the Victorian Lib govt has initiated community surveys on criminal sentencing asking for feedback based on generic examples. Apparently they want to more closely align sentencing with ‘community expectations’. The Herald Sun has gleefully jumped on board with that one.
http://www.theage.com.au/victoria/lawyers-slam-sentencing-survey-20110531-1fepv.html
[Talking of ‘leg’ men – as we were on the previous thread – my sister has a theory (tested exhaustively at parties) that bottle fed boys grow up to be leg men and breast fed ones grow up to be tit men.]
Has this theory been subject to peer review? I retain copious notes (unpublished) on this question, after many years of eager research in the field. This is serious. I will go this far: I doubt we can blame Rupert for this one, or Howard. But, I could be wrong.
Finny,
Your beautiful numbers just did a wander over to the tucker site. Being a Christian, I decided I should give the prayer wheel a turn too.
One of the tenets is to be thankful but I do not see a lot of that going around the right-wing sites. I send a load of thanks that during these unsettled times we have a Labor gov’t (with a PM not into religion), but I didn’t go that far on the truckers’ site. Maybe next time.
Did anyone else have trouble logging in today? I had to log in and out like 10 times before it would let me post.
Whoops, just realised how gross that sounds.
Fiz,
No I didn’t see that.
What has happened in this country that we are electing such ignorant fools to parliament?
It’s official junk bond AAA rater S&P has just officially downgraded the USA to
[The credit rating agency Standard & Poor’s has stripped the US of its top-notch AAA credit rating, downgrading it to AA+ and warning of further future downgrades because of political and economic uncertainty.
The downgrade and negative outlook came late on Friday night, after news surfaced of a furious rearguard attempt by the White House to convince S&P that its calculations were flawed.
The move shifts long-term US government debt onto the same level as Britain, Japan and other countries – but below that of Canada, Australia and France.
As a rule, a lower credit rating means higher borrowing costs for debtor nations. But because of the size of the US and its deep capital markets, it remains to be seen exactly what impact the move will have when financial markets reopen on Monday.]
http://www.guardian.co.uk/world/richard-adams-blog/2011/aug/06/us-credit-rating-downgrade-debt
Why does anyone listen to this corrupt bunch of a**holes? This is the mob who, along with Moodys & Fitchs, couldn’t define ‘conflict of interest’ and in doing so helped give us CDO’s, Junk Bonds and everything else that gave us GFC 1 and as a result is now giving us GFC 2.
Most ratings agency CEO’s should be breaking rocks in the hot sun.
shows on,
My say alluded to a similar problem yesterday, I believe.
Maybe William is just testing out your desperation level of desire to be a PBer.
AA+
Showson,
Have the nutter-truckers messed with your head so you can’t manage a PB login anymore? Or did you forget to wipe your feet before you tried to open the door to the PB lounge?
GG
😆
ShowsOn
I’ve been trying for three hours. Finally sneaked inthrough the back door by logging on to the previous thread and jumping across. Weird.
[My say alluded to a similar problem yesterday, I believe.
Maybe William is just testing out your desperation level of desire to be a PBer.]
Pollbludger is my #2 app tab in firefox! Only slightly less important than facebook.
[I’ve been trying for three hours. Finally sneaked inthrough the back door by logging on to the previous thread and jumping across. Weird.]
Thanks, I’ll try this trick if it happens again.
Well I agree with Finns on virtually all recent points:
– USA is stuffed and Obama will pay a price in 2012. They may not get AAA back.
– Yes S&P are owned by Murdoch, yes they were incompetent in GFC but yes, US economy really is a wreck. Like I said before, real unemployment is 15-16%.
– The ratings agencies should have been killed off three years ago. They still should be. Obama must deal with structural reform of economic institutions. If Obama doesn’t do that and get Murdoch under control now, he will regret that too. Maybe too late now.
– The numbers here in Oz are still good.
– I don’t agree that the USA staying down will kill Chinese growth. The Chinese will deeply resent their US bonds being devalued. But if they stop loaning USA money that will hurt USA more than China. China needs to deal with internal imbalances anyway.
– Paradoxically I would have thought that all the members of Finns “dirty AAA dozen” who are not in the Euro (Australia, HK, Norway, Singapore, Swiss) will be seen as safer than ever. I really don’t understand why the Aussie dollar is being sold off. Our public debt is trivial, and our private debt is dropping. BHPB and Rio Tinto make enough cash to fund their own expansion.
And the winner is… Beijing!
ShowsOn
I believe Sat morn is when Crikey dusts and sweeps and does the housework. Anything can happen 🙂
I just tried to post and got thrown off again.
I’m still wondering why in 2012 the American people will elect someone from a party that will hand it to the rich and stick it to the poor. It’s in the repubs DNA.
Maybe the door to the PB lounge-room has been hidden in a maze only a True Bludger can solve.
Is it any coincidence after Gus gave this warning?
One thing though – for those who want to go after S&P (and I said governments should have back in 2008, but nobody listens to Socrates…) there are many ways to do it.
If ratings agencies are going to be consistent (required for credibility, otherwise one AAA does not equal another) then they must use this new factor of political weakness to further downgrade other countries with the same problem and bigger debts. That would surely include Italy and Portugal. For that matter, we could ask why did they downgrade some Australian States (eg Qld) when their real default risk is IMO zero.
There is really a need for the whole system to be tightened up. Ratings agencies must be more transparent on criteria for achieving ratings in advance of issuing them. They need to link their criteria to evidence and analysis of when countries have defaulted in the past, otherwise it is just market sentiment dressed up as a theory. They need to adopt practices like independent peer reviews. In short, if they are going to stay this powerful, and not be closed down and replaced, they need to be held to account like real professionals.
Finally, given events in England and Murdoch ownership, it might be worth checking if there was any leaning on S&P before this decision. It wouldn’t shock me, given the brinkmanship we saw in the debt ceiling deal.
i just wrote a long post and it disapeared, what a waste of time,.
yes something is up with this site i am sure gary doesnt really post 6 times in row.
i wanted to know gg amoung other things about the france situation could you explain.
hope it works this time
i was telling every one about the bad times in canada but if you type to much the who thing needs refreshing and logging inagain
i have tried three times now, gg can you explain the france this is getting ridiculous william
One thing though – for those who want to go after S&P (and I said governments should have back in 2008, but nobody listens to Socrates…) there are many ways to do it.
If ratings agencies are going to be consistent (required for credibility, otherwise one AAA does not equal another) then they must use this new factor of political weakness to further downgrade other countries with the same problem and bigger debts. That would surely include Italy and Portugal. For that matter, we could ask why did they downgrade some Australian States (eg Qld) when their real default risk is IMO zero.
There is really a need for the whole system to be tightened up. Ratings agencies must be more transparent on criteria for achieving ratings in advance of issuing them. They need to link their criteria to evidence and analysis of when countries have defaulted in the past, otherwise it is just market sentiment dressed up as a theory. They need to adopt practices like independent peer reviews. In short, if they are going to stay this powerful, and not be closed down and replaced, they need to be held to account like real professionals.
Also, interesting that this downgrade was announced the day after the Dow plunged. The plunge seemed like an overreaction at the time. Did somebody know something? Did S&P leak? Is there insider trading going on here?
Finally, given events in England and Murdoch ownership, it might be worth checking if there was any leaning on S&P before this decision. It wouldn’t shock me, given the brinkmanship we saw in the debt ceiling deal.
[I’m still wondering why in 2012 the American people will elect someone from a party that will hand it to the rich and stick it to the poor. It’s in the repubs DNA.]
Gary
thats a lot of wondering going on
Sorry about my double post; obviously some problems at present.
Krugman has a good comment up about S&P and the USA’s AAA downgrade:
[On the other hand, it’s hard to think of anyone less qualified to pass judgment on America than the rating agencies. The people who rated subprime-backed securities are now declaring that they are the judges of fiscal policy? Really?
Just to make it perfect, it turns out that S&P got the math wrong by $2 trillion, and after much discussion conceded the point — then went ahead with the downgrade….
In short, S&P is just making stuff up — and after the mortgage debacle, they really don’t have that right.
So this is an outrage — not because America is A-OK, but because these people are in no position to pass judgment.]
http://krugman.blogs.nytimes.com/
The sooner Labor and US Democrat go after these right wing goons and stop pretending they will ever be reasonable, the better for all of us. Wind up rating agencies I say.
8 with one blow! Must be a record.
Budgie blues 😉
http://resources2.news.com.au/images/2011/08/05/1226109/358290-110806-kudelka-gallery.jpeg
Back on the air.
What happened?
Thought PBer’s might like this.
[cosmikdust Dee
Ah, yes we love the workers. http://t.co/7UEehtD
14 minutes ago Favorite Reply Delete]
[What happened?]
Crikey didnt pay its bills
Credit rating: A—
Australia doesn’t need to worry about GFCII, Wayne saved us last time and he can do it again. How does everyone feel about Pink carpets and school basketball courts?
Vera will be glad about this: Kevin Rudd is making such a fast recovery from his operation that he could very well be back at work before the original estimated time of early October. 🙂