A bad result for the government in the latest fortnightly Newspoll, with the Coalition’s two-party lead out from 54-46 to 57-43. The primary votes are 28 per cent for Labor (down three) and 47 per cent for the Coalition (up four). Julia Gillard at least has the consolation that her personal ratings have improved from the previous fortnight’s dismal result, with her approval up three to 31 per cent and disapproval down four to 58 per cent. Tony Abbott’s ratings are unchanged at 32 per cent approval and 58 per cent disapproval, and there is likewise essentially no change on preferred prime minister (Gillard leads 40-37, up from 39-37).
Another consolation for Labor is the possibility that a bit of static might be expected from a poll conducted over the same weekend as a state election such as the one in Queensland. They can be fortified in this view by the fact that their standing improved in this week’s Essential Research poll, the most recent weekly component of which was conducted over a longer period than Newspoll (Wednesday to Sunday rather than Friday to Sunday). Very unusually, given that Essential is a two-week rolling average, this showed a two-point shift on two-party preferred, with the Coalition lead shrinking from 56-44 to 54-46. Given that Essential spiked to 57-43 a fortnight ago, and the sample which sent it there has now washed out of the rolling average, this is not entirely surprising. Labor’s primary vote is up two to 34 per cent, and the Coalition’s is down one to 47 per cent. Further questions featured in the poll cover the economy, its prospects, best party to handle it and personal financial situation (slightly more optimism than six months ago, and Labor up in line with its overall improvement since then), job security, Kony 2012, taking sickies and the impact of the high dollar.
pegasus
We all know Labor has problems it needs to address – so does every political party.
The trick is to get in there, roll up your sleeves and address them.
Winging to strangers on the internet doesn’t help one jot.
(and you’ve said the same about the Greens – that you don’t criticise them publically because there isn’t any point to it).
zoomster
Time for some experimenting, I think.
Boerwar
Yuk!!
Pegasus @ 3594
No problems Peg. I have withstood “The Wrath of Frank” and survived. Nothing will bother me now.
zoomster @ 3597
Well you have got me there. I haven’t a clue what you are on about. 😀
lizzie – marmalade and salmon ( with lemon juice) sounds awesome 🙂
Mayonnaise ( and Vegemite) to assist in contrast?
Those state figures looked quite volatile. They did seem to have been a bit absurdly high so they might be edging back to reality. The MOE would be pretty savage as well.
That said, if Labor does stay on 46/54 we will have a climate vandal government on our hands.
The 46/54 has hardly varied for yonks.
I imagine that people are going to sit tight to see what happens.
If it is still 46/54 next Christmas, the sparks will fly.
If it has edged back to 47/53 or efen 48/52 the sparks will start to fly in the other camp.
Things are going to be a little tense up on the Hill this year.
l
Hey, mate, I didn’t mean for you to eat the jam ones. They are for your picky guests. You get to eat the good ones.
[Bemused isn’t a defeatist. He is a realist who acknowledges that Labor has problems that need addressing.]
Well der. The difference is that bemused seems to see the only answer is a change of leader. That to me is not being realistic, not 18 months out with legislation yet to be bedded down.
tsk, tsk, bemused – David Copperfield.
His uncle was unable to write anything without King Charles’ head getting into it somewhere.
CTar1
Orange, pink, cream and brown. Very ‘tasteful’ 😀
bemused
[I will campaign as hard as I can regardless of circumstances. But the problem for some time has been the elephant in the room which all choose not to talk about and ignore.
I see no evidence of any strategy sufficient to overcome the task we face.]
Name three things Gillard has done that you’ve been proud of and that you, personally believing was good for the nation, will campaign on?
l
believe me, next time they will ask for cheese, lots of it.
Isn’t it funny… as soon as someone says they ‘don’t eat’ something, all the recipes I can think of contain the forbidden foods.
In this case, it’s avocado, banana, cheese and kiwifruit.
I’ll serve curried beef for the main. That’ll larn em.
Boer
Morgan’s state figures do suggest Labor can make big gains in a very small time – particularly when the reality of Liberal governments hit home.
The ‘we’ll be just like Labor except nicer” message gets dulled when you have two Liberal premiers (and a third getting up and running) proving that what Liberals tell you before an election and what they actually deliver are not the same thing.
zoomster @ 3609
😀 😀 You’ve got me there zoomster, your knowledge of English literature is better than mine.
lizzie – impressive dining is all about the ‘vision’ 🙂
The Joint Select Committee on Australia’s Immigration Detention Network has released its final report.
http://www.aph.gov.au/Parliamentary_Business/Committees/Senate_Committees?url=immigration_detention_ctte/immigration_detention/report/index.htm
31 recommendations have been made to the government. The opposition MPs on the committee supported only 16.
[Asylum seekers should not be held in immigration detention for more than 90 days, a parliamentary inquiry has recommended.
The inquiry also says in cases where the Immigration Department fails to meet the 90-day deadline, it should be forced to publish the reasons.]
http://www.theage.com.au/opinion/political-news/call-to-limit-asylum-seeker-detention-to-90-days-20120330-1w2y0.html
Good win for the left:-
[Galloway in shock byelection win
March 30, 2012 – 3:08PM
Read later
George Galloway testifies before the US congress in 2005. Photo: AP/Dennis Cook
Firebrand British politician George Galloway, scourge of the mainstream parties, has won a sensational return to parliament.
Running for his Respect party, Mr Galloway swept to victory in the Bradford West by-election, dealing a heavy blow to his former party, Labour, which had held the seats for decades.]
Read more: http://www.smh.com.au/world/galloway-in-shock-byelection-win-20120330-1w2xq.html#ixzz1qZxgb1v0
lizzie
of course, you can always serve up all the forbidden fruits, and then say you misunderstood the instructions!
hmmm. the three things test?
(1) carbon price regime. Not good enough but better than anything else. Plus, itis capable of expansion. Plus it is going to make some market sense.
(2) NBN. real nation building stuff. I really like this one. Shows vision.
(3) For number three I think I will go to the set of things that involved getting extra social payments out to pensioners and the like.
I don’t like the health reforms. They seem to me to be a lot of faffing on about very little. But I would be happy to be shown to be wRONg.
I actually don’t know what is happening in education. It must be something. But who knows what difference is making?
I don’t like Ms Gillard’s alarming propensity to get into bed with Mr Obama, defence-wise.
I don’t like it that we are still in Afghanistan.
P
How many did the Labor Party and the Greens party support?
zoomster
Ah, but they know I’m not stupid. Besides, I’m hoping to keep them as friends.
Something that struck me today, and I’m sure it’s well in hand at some agency or other, but why do we still have 5c pieces? They’re annoying as hell now.
So I do a quick search, and wikipedia references an article in the SMH in 2009 foreshadowing imminent removal of the 5c piece from circulation:
http://www.smh.com.au/national/get-your-5c-worth-before-it-goes-out-of-circulation-20090523-bihk.html
So what happened? Was this just a rumour or did they chicken out? I don’t remember any public discussion of the matter, and we obviously still have the little blighters…
kezza2 @ 3611
I will do the bidding of the local campaign committee and distribute campaign literature, assist in any other way they ask, and hand out HTV (I usually organise one or more polling booths and also scrutineer – a long day).
When engaging in conversation with individuals, I will talk up what the govt has done with the MRRT, the Carbon Price increased educational funding, increased health funding, steering Australia through the GFC etc.
What will you do?
Report into immigration detention and the recommendations made by the committee vindicate the Greens position on asylum seekers.
http://sarah-hanson-young.greensmps.org.au/content/media-releases/damning-report-immigration-detention-problems-gives-govt-clear-path-follow
[“The recommendations provide a blue print for a humane, practical and cost-effective response to asylum seekers,” Greens’ immigration spokesperson, Sen. Sarah Hanson-Young, said.]
Jackol
I still pick them up when I find them on the footpath, which is surprisingly often. Got dudded today, though: picked up a NZ 10c. It appears to have QE2 on one side and a butterfly with its tongue poking out on the other.
So the Labor Govt spending more on rail and roads since 2007, than ALL previous Govt combined does not get a top 3 gig?
[The Australian share market has posted its largest quarterly gain in 2.5 years…]
Doom and gloom rules over data again.
The 5c coin – removing coins and requiring rounding always provokes price rise scare talk from Oppositions.
BW (changed your name to bemused?)
[Boerwar
Posted Friday, March 30, 2012 at 5:30 pm | Permalink
hmmm. the three things test?]
[(1) carbon price regime. Not good enough but better than anything else. Plus, itis capable of expansion. Plus it is going to make some market sense.]
Bedded down a Rudd govt program. So, according to those who favour Rudd, that’s a Rudd plus. Still, bemused should be able to campaign on that.
Remember the press coverage at the time it was passed? Celebrations as Labor gets
CP legislation through the Lower House (Upper House a foregone Greens conclusion): Gillard and Rudd hugged and kissed – headlines JUDAS KISS.
[(2) NBN. real nation building stuff. I really like this one. Shows vision.]
Bedded down another Rudd promise. Never mind Telstra recalcitrance. Gillard not given one shred of kudos for this. Note ongoing msm contradictory commentary. Even today! Still bemused should be able to campain on that.
[(3) For number three I think I will go to the set of things that involved getting extra social payments out to pensioners and the like.]
Another Rudd initiative. But no kudos to Gillard there, not a thing.
I’d say my number 3 – and there’s a lot of them – that are also counted as Rudd initiatives (as if Gillard wasn’t part of that team) – but now bedded down :PPL, HIR, MRRT, etc. And then there’s the SKILLS revolution: increase for teens, TAFE places (& fees charged like HECS), scholarships for country kids.
Then there’s the Malaysian solution. Eminently arguable.
Re your misgivings: US in Australia, Cocos (Keeling) Islands.
Hey, we could argue till the cows come home, but the US considers us its 51st state, and we consider the US as our mom. Not going to change, at least in my lifetime.
Boerwar –
That’s a bit harsh, NZ 10c is about 8c Aussie, so hardly “dudded”, and Kiwi coins are cute.
I did find it kind of funny that the Kiwis went to all the trouble of going to an entirely new set of coins – I figured it was just to say “we’re not Aussies and we’re not copying Aussie coins”, but I guess they run with the argument that the older coins (and our coins since they were the same size) were too big and clunky while the new coins are small and sexy. Or something.
zoomster
[(and you’ve said the same about the Greens – that you don’t criticise them publically because there isn’t any point to it).]
What i said is that i don’t criticise the Greens on PB because there are already so many here that do it so why would i waste my limited time and energy on doing the same.
Consequently, i focus on addressing the misrepresentations, etc of Greens policies and positions made on PB when i am around to read such posts.
My other priority is to indicate to the PB audience out in cyber world the progressive policies and values that the Greens Party advocate.
Unsurprisingly, Annabel Crabb is in favour of Abbott’s nanny policy with a few snirks thrown in about hos Labor is betraying working women by not subsidizing their nannies.
Apparently, it’s all about Labor being relentlessly negative, while Abbott’s the positive one and the female voters friend.
[It’s simple, really. The message from Ms Gillard, Mr Swan and their colleagues is now very clearly that Mr Abbott is for the super-rich, and Labor is for the battler. They don’t have very long to build a simple, compelling narrative, and this is the one they’ve picked.
…
Labor is so desperate to stoke these flames that it will even chuck working women on the pyre. The view that domestic labours are legitimate work and should – ideally – be recompensed as such used to be a passionately-held one among Labor women.
Mr Abbott’s argument – that child-rearing is valuable work, so it’s insulting to characterise parental payments as welfare – would probably appeal to many of Labor’s past campaigners if it came from anyone but Tony Abbott.]
This is coming from a woman who is too lazy to get out of bed to write her worthless opinion pieces, written about a man who thinks making jokes about the Prime Minister’s arse is the way to win the female vote. Together they make quite a team.
On the one hand we have Annabel: the giggling schoolgirl who ended up in a cushy job, claiming that she doesn’t want her salary paid to her by taxpayers for just having a baby, and her nannies subsidized so she can maintain her vital lifestyle, but rather because of her support for her working sisters, the nannies to whom she will give dignified work, wiping her moppets’ bottoms and reading them stories so Mummy can go to work and write the first vacuuous thing that comes into her empty, grinning head.
And then there’s Tony: described this morning on ABC TV as “knuckle dragging”, the man with the chimpanzee walk and the exercise fetish, complete with views on marriage, birth and upbringing that would make Sister Mary Angela look like a Kings X tart, they’re so backwards looking.
And yet again, there’s Labor: cynical, hypocritical backstabbers who are so keen to oppose Abbott’s get rich quick schemes for middle class looker-downerers, that they’ll kick their beloved working class in the guts to do it. As long as it’s “No” to Tony Abbott, Labor doesn’t care… says Annabel.
There’s your bad guy, again: the government. All the rest is plain sailing and egalitarianism, right? I mean it’s only fair that high achievers like Annabel are rewarded with whatever they can scrounge out of poorer taxpayers, isn’t it?
They’re the elite, after all.
http://www.abc.net.au/news/2012-03-30/crabb-labor-choices-in-nanny-debate/3922830
peg
exactly. So you can I understand why I don’t see any point trashing Labor here either – there’s an abundance of places on the internet dedicated to that.
zoomster
[The trick is to get in there, roll up your sleeves and address them.]
The impression i have of bemused is that is exactly what he does.
What u fail to understand is that if the ALP had more members like him, more people like me would be glad to stand shoulder to shoulder with Labor stalwarts if the need arose to further mutual interests.
kezza2 @ 3630
I think not. Check out last night… we were at it hammer and tongs, no holds barred until we both limped away to bed… 😀
But I did agree with Boerwars post you are attempting to dissect.
I also left out the NBN 😮 How could i????
What a surprise! Most of the big things being legislated by the Gillard Govt were initiated under Rudd.
That is not to criticise her, it is just the way it is.
And with that I must leave for a while.
Catch you all later.
bemused
[When engaging in conversation with individuals, I will talk up what the govt has done with the MRRT, the Carbon Price increased educational funding, increased health funding, steering Australia through the GFC etc.
What will you do?]
I will never talk down our PM, just as I never talked down Kevin Rudd while he was PM – but you do your utmost to trash JG – and I can’t believe you’d convince anyone to vote Labor when your heart isn’t in it.
bemused
[What a surprise! Most of the big things being legislated by the Gillard Govt were initiated under Rudd.]
That’s because Gillard – like Rudd – has been legislating Australian Labor party policy.
It’s a bit concerning when a member of said party doesn’t recognise that.
peg
[The impression i have of bemused is that is exactly what he does.
What u fail to understand is that if the ALP had more members like him, more people like me would be glad to stand shoulder to shoulder with Labor stalwarts if the need arose to further mutual interests]
In that case, you would be glad to do so with me; bemused has frequently said on this site that he admires the work I do within the party.
zoomster
[So you can I understand why I don’t see any point trashing Labor here either…]
Yes, i understand.
But PB is basically a cyber meeting place inhabited by Labor supporters who come here just about every day to not only discuss politics but spend a lot of time talking amongst themselves about their life problems, etc, etc, etc.
My perception of bemused is that he engages constructively with Labor’s shortcomings and cares deeply about the party he supports.
(Last comment from me about bemused)
Pegasus
As do I. But I don’t waste my time recounting Labor’s failings here – I do that in forums and in ways which actually address them.
I worked out my Carbon tax on my yearly power bill to be about $63.48 , Origin gives you a Greenhouse Gas emissions chart and figures ( Pre- Solar system fitted ) and i get a $18,200 Tax free threshold after July 1st. Can do is spinning lies already trying to use the Carbon tax as a cover for his Increase in living costs. Some of the dumb punters won’t read the fine print and blame the Carbon price.
bemused
[What a surprise! Most of the big things being legislated by the Gillard Govt were initiated under Rudd.]
Have you had an intelligence bypass? Not to mention an ironic one as well!
And what a surprise Gillard has had to put to bed those Rudd (& Gillard) govt initiatives because Rudd couldn’t do it.
[I did find it kind of funny that the Kiwis went to all the trouble of going to an entirely new set of coins – I figured it was just to say “we’re not Aussies and we’re not copying Aussie coins”, but I guess they run with the argument that the older coins (and our coins since they were the same size) were too big and clunky while the new coins are small and sexy. Or something.]
Whichever party promises to follow New Zealand’s lead on this one has my vote forever. Our coins are absolutely too big and clunky relative to their negligible monetary value, and the 5 cent piece is purely and simply a pain in the arse. NZ got rid of theirs and introduced a 10 cent piece that looks like the old 1 cent piece, a small silver 20c piece, a larger silver (but still smaller than our 20) 50 cent piece and gold $1 and $2 coins with the astounding innovation of the $2 being larger than the $1. It’s only when you go there and experience the liberation of a pocket unencumbered by heavy, useless metal crap that you realise what a boon this is.
24 has just shown some video of the David Murray interview ending with him being shown out and an ABC staffer pulling the door closed behind him. I wonder who edited that ?
zoomster
[In that case, you would be glad to do so with me; bemused has frequently said on this site that he admires the work I do within the party.]
I do not always agree with what bemused says.
zoom
[That’s because Gillard – like Rudd – has been legislating Australian Labor party policy.
It’s a bit concerning when a member of said party doesn’t recognise that.]
It’s more than concerning, it’s despairing when a member of said party is actively campaigning against the leader!
[Should Greer apologize to Gillard? If not then why should Abbott?]
Are you really that stupid?
Peg
[My perception of bemused is that he engages constructively with Labor’s shortcomings and cares deeply about the party he supports.]
Spot on Peg!
Looking at the published polls alone Federal Labor couldn’t win a chook raffle in a pub at the moment. That certainly oesn’t indicate that all is going well all we need to do is just give it time.
[It’s only when you go there and experience the liberation of a pocket unencumbered by heavy, useless metal crap that you realise what a boon this is.]
You use real money? Seriously the only cash I ever withdraw is the $20 I pay to get my lawns mowed every two weeks. Do people still use cash?