GhostWhoVotes reports Galaxy has plugged a hole in the Newspoll and Nielsen schedules with a federal poll conducted from 1015 respondents on Wednesday and Thursday (UPDATE: Make that Thursday and Friday – The Management). The result is at the low end of Labor’s recent form, with the Coalition leading 48% to 34% on the primary vote and 54-46 on two-party preferred, compared with 47% to 35% and 53-47 in the Galaxy poll of a month ago. The Greens vote is steady on 11%.
Galaxy also grapples with the AWU matter, with what to my mind are problematic results. Poll questions are most effective when gauging basic affective responses, namely positive or negative feelings towards a person or thing, and mutually exclusive choices, such as preferences out of political parties or election candidates. On this score, the best question to emerge so far has been Morgan’s effort on approval or disapproval of the Prime Minister’s handling of the controversy. Difficulties emerge where the range of potential opinions is open-ended, as too much depends on the choices offered by the pollster.
A case in point is Galaxy’s question on whether Gillard had “lied” (31%), been “open and honest” (21%) or, as a middle course, been “economical with the truth” (31%). Particularly where complex or half-understood issues are involved, choices like this are known to activate the strategy of “satisficing” (“choosing the easiest response because it requires less thinking”, according one of the pithier definitions available). This results in a bias towards intermediate responses, in this case the “economical with the truth” option.
I have similar doubts about Galaxy’s question as to whether respondents believed Gillard “should provide a full account of her involvement through a statement in parliament”, an over-elaborate proposition that feels tailored towards eliciting a positive response. Sixty per cent of respondents duly gave it one, although it is clear the thought would have occurred to few of them before being put to them by the interviewer. Only 26% offered that such a statement was unnecessary, with 14% undecided.
Then there is the finding that 26% of respondents said the issue had made them less likely to vote Labor. Like any such question, this would have attracted many positive responses from those whose pre-existing chance of voting Labor was zero. However, the question at least allows us to compare the results to those of similarly framed questions in the past. In July, a Galaxy poll found that 33% were less likely to vote Labor because of the budget. In January, 39% of respondents to a Westpoll survey said power price hikes had made them less likely to vote for the Barnett government. In July of last year, The Australian reported polling by UMR Research (commissioned, it must be noted, by Clubs Australia) had 23% of voters less likely to vote Labor due to mandatory pre-commitment for poker machines. And a month after Kevin Rudd was deposed as Prime Minister in June 2010, Nielsen found the proportion saying they were less likely to vote Labor as a result was similar to today’s finding: 25%.
UPDATE: GhostWhoVotes reports News Limited has published a further result from the Galaxy poll, a four-way preferred prime minister question which has Kevin Rudd on 27%, Malcolm Turnbull on 23%, Julia Gillard on 18% and Tony Abbott on 17%.
CTar1,
I think the word you are looking for to describe the imperious Ms Barlow, is ‘conceited’. 🙂
I really don’t feel comfortable with the fact that Poll Bludger appears to have been colonised by Ms Barlow after Larvatus Prodeo disappeared up it’s own Green fundament, and that she is attempting to turn PB into a virtual Greens classroom of hers, constantly picking us up on our ‘mistakes’, and marking and correcting our written work.
And the constant proselytising for The Green cause, and abuse if you don’t agree, or proffer a different point of view.
It’s frankly tiresome.
Even when you put up a well-argued case pointing out the hypocrisy of a Green position or policy, she just casually dismisses it with a wave of her imperious virtual Green hand. And then thinks up some new line of sneering put-down.
As it has been said elsewhere, I hope Fran Barlow doesn’t destroy Poll Bludger the way she did Larvatus Prodeo.
Still, we have Free Speech in this country, so I guess we’ll just have to keep on putting up with it, and countering her Green slime of the Labor Party with the facts and reasoned argument.
As, at the end of the day, Poll Bludger is a forum for ideas. Not a classroom.
Since I didn’t rely on the DT for my argument, there is nothing for me to withdraw.
Logically, if AS think it’s worth risking death to get to Australia full stop, then it’s even more worthwhile risking death if you know that you’ll have means to live if you survive it.
Regarding the latest Telecrap beatup on Asylum Seekers, I read the whole story, rather in the spirit of a ‘morals’ campaigner who forces himself to read a risque book. The byline is “JONATHAN MARSHALL in Bogor, Indonesia News Limited Network”. The sources of the story are interviews with asylum seekers languishing in an Indonesian coastal village. It tells us what asylum seekers hold told ‘News Limited’.
Some facts are buried within the story. One thing that is obvious (although not highlighted by the Telegraph) is that Nauru and Manus Island are hardly deterrents, given the conditions that they are living under in Indonesia.
It also quotes the PM “Anybody who says that there is a simple fix to you is not telling you the truth. It takes a range of policies, and we are putting that range of policies in place.” Exactly, although that’s not the message the Telegraph is trying to push. As to the whole ‘partying’ theme, I surmise that was fed to the interviewees by the Tele.
There are no simple solutions to this issue. Manus island and Nauru won’t work, TPVs won’t work (they didn’t before) and towing back boats is just not on, for any number of reasons. The Opposition does not have a policy to address Asylum Seekers risking their lives on leaky boats, it has a marginal seat strategy to coral the votes of racists. I am not saying that those who support the opposition’s policy are racist, but that racists support the policy and they vote. And the Murdoch media is assisting by nudging them into voting for the Opposition.
Ross Gittins on 5% being “full employment”, which is evidently NAIRU.
http://www.theage.com.au/business/few-good-reasons-why-5-unemployment-is-considered-full-employment-20100709-1047v.html
There are a number of types of unemployment but reading some of the comments here there appear to be only one “type” of unemployment”
See http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Unemployment.
I think that the word “churn” is an unfortunate and uninformative. As the economy changes and adjusts to changes overseas then the type and number of unemployment/ed will change.
We are lucky in this country we have an economy and a Government that reacts very appropriate and speedily to changes in the economy. Of cause outside of the GFC other factors that affect unemployment include seasonal factors and structural adjustments with sections of the economy along with such things as technological advancements.
When you take all these adjustments into account I would suggest that an unemployment rate of 5% is relatively small.
Talking about underemployment (ie only working for a small number of hours per week and wishing to do more) or people not being able to find employment commensurate with their training or skill level is really not helpful either.
One of the polling organizations tries to calaulate the number of unemployment but one only had to read Ross Gittins article some months ago to realize that it really is a rule of thumb calculation and very soft.
Fran
[Quod erat demonstrandum, surely.]
More pseudo sophisticated noise.
[As it has been said elsewhere, I hope Fran Barlow doesn’t destroy Poll Bludger the way she did Larvatus Prodeo.]
I share that hope.
C@tmomma,
If I were to engage Ms Barlow in argument I would speak in dot points and use words of no more than three syllables.
Oh, and I would limit myself to the English language.
guytaur@1348,
I was talking about what to do about the racists using the issue for their advantage. Also pointing out that Labor does not want to chase that vote.
I agree with you there. The government has to show that it’s asylum seeker policy is not the Xenophobic one that the Opposition’s is. They need to demonstrate more forcibly the egalitarian nature of it, with ‘No Advantage’ of one type of asylum seeker over another. That they are for the ‘level playing field’, with no quarter given to the People Smuggler trade.
Also, with Labor holding 6/7 seats with high numbers of Muslims in them, I don’t think that these electors consider them ‘racist’, nor pandering to the racists, as the Liberals do.
[David Bradbury MP @DavidBradburyMP
Changes made to the GST threshold could mean the costs of collecting the tax are greater than the revenue collected #LVPP ]
I shall continue to post “off-topic” until PB returns to a more measured conversation 😉
Jackol@1328
You are really just being absurd and trying to create a straw man. Go ahead, but don’t attribute any of it to me.
I have never suggested re-creating the conditions of the 1950s.
I have suggested re-instating ‘Full Employment’ as a primary goal of economic policy. It goes without saying this would be in the contemporary world.
So conditions are different? So what? Just something to acknowledge and adapt to. We cannot apply what was done in the 1950s, we need a strategy for the 21st century.
As billie points out, people like Bill Mitchell at CoFFEE believe it is achievable. So do I.
TLBD,
You would get a Gold Echidna stamp. 🙂
C@tmomma
[It’s frankly tiresome. ]
Yep. Fran should be set free by those of us who actually contribute by making decisions and actually vote, rather than turn up to avoid a 20 buck fine.
An excellent comment by Margo Kingston from her Tony Abbott and his slushy fund question piece at Independent Australia:
[Hi. I don’t know why the Drum turned down the piece and I didn’t ask. It is their prerogative, and I respect that.
The issue has not been raised by the press gallery because it hasn’t got a head of steam. The AWU one has, so they go with that. In my time only a few gallery people were prepared to do their own thing, and my guess is that hasn’t changed, except that there are fewer journalists now, given the cuts, so there’s even more pressure to conform.
My guess as to why Labor hasn’t raised it is that if they did it would like like they were saying you’re as bad as we are. Abbott has crossed a very big line here – he’s prepared to call her a criminal without evidence, then demand she hold an inquiry in case there is any. She must defend her integrity tenaciously, and throwing back dirt makes her case weaker. It is up to the media – old and social – to raise this and pursue it until he has to answer the unanswered questions. Just as Hedley Thomas and co. would say they have done to Gillard.]
I really can’t see the problem with the DT story. The reporter found some people happy to game the system – who didn’t know that was happening?
Bemused –
If the conditions are different then it is meaningless to use it as an example. The example cannot relate to our current conditions.
We have to do the best we can with the circumstances we face now, and as you seem to agree, those circumstances are a long way from what they were in the 1950s.
So, it is entirely conceivable that what was “full employment” at 2% in 1960 is simply not achievable in the current circumstances – we don’t know, and using the example of the 50s and 60s is not proof of anything.
You dismissed as objectionable the notion that the government might be “content” with an unemployment rate of 5%, but you’ve offered no argument that the government could or should pursue a lower target at the expense of other priorities apart from “I don’t like it”.
Why would the asylum seekers in Indonesia be afraid of The Big Bad Tony? Wouldn’t stop them from coming.
sprocket_ @# 1257
Inflation rate approaching a big fat zero.
Rather than the “unimaginable price increases” forecast by Abbott due to the “carbon tax”. This over reach and groos exaggeration by Abbott should not be let to lie dormant.
Let’s hope that inflation does not reach “zero” or lower. Deflation is worse than inflation. In fact an economy needs a certain amount of inflation to be healthy. That is why the RBA target is between 2 and 3 percent.
C@tmomma@1361
I can’t be bothered subjecting myself to her badly-written drivel.
Zoomster
After my formal studies in Macroeconomics and its application to labour markets I endorse Bill Mitchell’s proposition that the only thing standing between us and 2% unemployment is government lack of will.
Is it better to have some one in a low skill low paid job, or is it better to leave them unemployed?
Are we prepared to pay unemployed Australians more than $245 per week? The government says “NO”
I can remember that all railway stations were manned from first train until last train. If Seaford Railway Station had been manned in 1992 the young lady commuter would not have disappeared between the alighting the train at 6:20pm getting to her car. There would be open toilets, perhaps a garden, and the station would be cleaner.
Personally I agree with conservatives that being unemployed for long periods destroys employablity. It erodes self-reliance and destroys “get up and go”.
I have no problem with paying people not to work, but Newstart is too low an amount and is micromanaged to ensure the unemployed are engaged in job hunting. Surely a more soul destrying task couldn’t be devised in a climate where there are 7 qualified applications for every vacancy in Victoria
Chris Pyne has joined twitter. Is he gong to follow Chris Murphy?
fiona
Unless I am misinterpreting Margo’s tweets, it appears she is going to see this through
TLBD –
Because it’s all about the PR. Howard managed to get his PR right – the impression was that we were a hostile destination and people stopped getting on boats.
Tony Abbott’s solutions may be completely bogus, but if the PR is such that asylum seekers believe he will turn them away or lock them up or whatever, then he may well get the PR landscape that discourages boat arrivals simply by assuming the PMship.
Which would all be a crock of bullshit of course, but that’s the power of PR.
bemused
noone is arguing that full employment isn’t achievable – we can pay people to paint rocks, etc – but whether that’s desirable is another issue.
Paying people to paint rocks – and thus meeting your criteria of full employment – robs them of the time and incentive to chase up more meaningful work.
If their problem is that they need skills which qualify them to do work beyond painting rocks, then we should be looking at the State governments – they’re the ones who have cut programs to TAFE etc which would provide those pathways.
I’m not sure why you want to bash the Labor Federal government on this one, and ignore the role of the Liberal State governments, who are more directly in control of providing the skills needed to create ‘full’ employment.
Unless you’re happy to have people painting rocks, of course.
TLBD
Why are asylum seekers afraid of Tone? It doesn’t matter what matters is that there is aperception among a considerable number of Australian voters that this is the case and that’s an election winner.
[Geraldine @Fluffula
LNP policies is NDIS only in a surplus & nannies will be funded first, (Abbott’s) support of disabilities is shallow & inscincere #ndis ]
lizzie
[Changes made to the GST threshold could mean the costs of collecting the tax are greater than the revenue collected #LVPP]
Currently a ‘task force’ of AQIS, Customs and the Tax Office people are trying work out how to respond to two commissioned reports, both of which strongly confirm that putting GST on imports under $1000 by individuals (buying via the Internet) is not economical, in the face of the ‘blitz’ by Gerry Harvey paid for by his like minded retailers.
@senthorun: High Court to hear landmark case on #Indigenous rights to equality, non-discrimination and self-determination. http://t.co/gkbknM4G #auspol
CTar1
This GST argument is a furphy. Case in point. Son just had delivery of products from the UK. Total cost $120.00 including delivery to your door. Exact same products purchased here would cost $220.00. 10% GST on would only cost him a total of $132.00, still well short of the $220 best price here in Australia. This is but one example
ratsars 1367 I think it’s likely parts of the economy have been experiencing deflation for a while. It’s a real mixed bag at present and the headline statistics tend to mask a number of problems. The critical problem for Australia in 2013 if the mining sector slows more is can the rest of the economy pick up the slack.
Ctar1
Fran really runs rings around you, doesn’t she? It’s very amusing.
I think the point Fran is making is, if her views are “irrelevant” (in your own words), then why do you keep responding to her?
DR
CTar!
I thought the GST discussion also referred to the idea of making GST relate to all the existing eliminated items such as raw food. Someone said that the GST-exempt items had risen in cost more than those affected by GST.
interesting developments on the #newscorpse front. It appears Tom Mockridge head of News International has been “boned” in favor of Robert Thomson, who looks like more the brown noser Rupert would approve of:
[Mr Murdoch and Mr Thomson share a deep love of newspapers – something that some of the other contenders lacked – but this is not all they have in common. Both Mr Murdoch and Mr Thomson come from Australia, share the same birthday and have Chinese wives. Mr Thomson was the only non-family member from News Corp to attend the baptism of Mr Murdoch’s youngest daughter in the river Jordan, while Mr Thomson made Mr Murdoch godfather to his two sons.
]
http://www.telegraph.co.uk/finance/newsbysector/mediatechnologyandtelecoms/media/9717992/News-Corp-to-split-as-top-executive-Tom-Mockridge-poised-to-go.html
Wouldn’t it be nice to have at least one popular TV personality as prepared as Jon Stewart or Stephen Colbert to really stand out and be known as a centre-left supporter?
The Liberal fans have heaps of angry white conservative males in the media gunning for them, so why can’t Labor supporters have someone to entertain us? Or is being a Labor supporting personality dangerous for someone’s career in this media landscape, and anyone to the left has to be an Anti-Labor Green or something?
Ratsars@1354
Ratsars, interesting stuff from that Gittins article:
[But how do economists explain why the lowest point at which inflation pressure can be quiescent has shifted from 2 per cent to 5 per cent over the past 35 years or so? Well, the reason you can get inflationary wage pressure while still having 600,000 people looking for jobs is ”structural mismatch”: the remaining unemployed either don’t have the skills employers are seeking or don’t live in the parts of the country where those workers are being sought.
But that doesn’t explain why structural mismatch is a much greater problem today than it was 40 years ago. So the truth is economists can’t offer a thorough explanation for why the full-employment rate has risen, as many of them will admit.]
This structural mis-match is in part an artificial construct with employers wanting the “perfect match” instead of just someone capable of doing the job. This “perfect match” is often so tightly defined that it is someone who has performed exactly that role before, an absurd proposition.
Professor Peter Cappelli has done some work on this phenomenon in the US and the same applies here. This article is well worth reading, as is his book and other articles. Why Good People Can’t Get Jobs: Chasing After the ‘Purple Squirrel’
Policies to address the issues Cappelli raises would be a good start.
CTar
No. I didn’t mean CTar! I meant CTar1.
Hands sore from driving tractor-mower and that always causes typos. 😉
c@tmomma:
[I really don’t feel comfortable with the fact that Poll Bludger appears to have been colonised by Ms Barlow]
An examination of the proportion of either posts or words from me in this place would not suggest colonisation. I’m one of many voices here. I probably appear more significant because I’m not repeating the ALP party position.
[she is attempting to turn PB into a virtual Greens classroom of hers, constantly picking us up on our ‘mistakes’, and marking and correcting our written work. {…} It’s frankly tiresome]
Defensive much? I like to enrich knowledge and spur reflection. I have no means with which to force others to reflect, but I do what I reasonably can to encourage it. I accept that for those who come here principally for affirmation in a world that isn’t always affirming, my contributions won’t appeal.
[And the constant proselytising for The Green cause, and abuse if you don’t agree, or proffer a different point of view.]
Again, your irony meter is playing up. You hurl more abuse than most here. I am by comparison, very civil. I speak sharply of the ALP and its policies but putting aside those who declare by their words that abuse is a legitimate means of dealing with others, I remain civil.
For the record, you and your fellow travellers are not so much proposing ‘a different point of view’ as a mainstream point of view where ‘mainstream’ means “a view deemed respectable within the mass commercial media”. If my posts consisted of nought but more or less wordy affirmations of the rectitude of positions trickling down from whatever orifice within the ALP that ‘mainstream’ views issue, there’d be no point in posting at all. It would be a complete waste of bandwidth. It really would be irrelevant.
[Still, we have Free Speech in this country, so I guess we’ll just have to keep on putting up with it, and countering her Green slime of the Labor Party with the facts and reasoned argument.]
When will you start doing that? Chance would be a fine thing.
[As, at the end of the day, Poll Bludger is a forum for ideas. Not a classroom.]
False dichotomy. Any place that can fairly be described as ‘a forum for ideas’ is functionally a place of learning — i.e. ‘a classroom’ metaphorically speaking.
Abbott sure has a sensitive way with words… 😉
[Mr Abbott pledged his ”personal commitment” to do all he reasonably could to support people with disabilities. He said that this year, his annual charity bike ride, Pollie Pedal, was in support of Carers Australia – and that he would ride for the organisation again in 2013.
Mr Abbott observed that his cauliflower ears were not just due to rugby scrums. In part, they were the result of the way carers had ”chewed my ear” about disability support, Mr Abbott said.
Read more: http://www.smh.com.au/opinion/political-news/disabled-woman-interrupts-pm-20121203-2apwc.html#ixzz2DwoAOp91%5D
“@SwannyDPM: Australia has today joined Mexico and Russia on the G20 “troika” – the group of past, present and future chairs that manages the G20”
“@PeterLewisEMC: Essential out soon – no shift in 2PP, interesting findings on slush, asylum seekers and christmas shopping #auspol”
Essential coming…
[Peter Lewis @PeterLewisEMC 57s
Essential out soon – no shift in 2PP, interesting findings on slush, asylum seekers and christmas shopping #auspol
]
Jackol @ 1365
[You dismissed as objectionable the notion that the government might be “content” with an unemployment rate of 5%, but you’ve offered no argument that the government could or should pursue a lower target at the expense of other priorities apart from “I don’t like it”.]
You will have credibility when you ‘volunteer’ to be among the 5% (or 10%+) who are unemployed and enjoying that lifestyle.
[Godwin AEC-Gate Geek @geeksrulz
Who are the donors of the Abbott slush fund? Abbott says we have no right to know. What has he got to hide? Who is he protecting? #auspol ]
“@BernardKeane: Today’s Essential shows the number of voters who think the PM is too soft on asylum seekers has gone from 21% to 32% in the last 12 months.”
“@andrewcdodd: @Wendy_Bacon says News Limited ‘almost bullied’ the rest of the media into going on and on with the AWU story last week #jeaa2012”
@MargaretGees: Fairfax outstreams News Ltd by 3 to 1, ninemsn leads news video market http://t.co/bI8TjY35
Illegal smokes being stopped at the borders by Customs.
China production increasing. Good news for Budget Surplus by May.
Probable Rate Cut by RBA tomorrow, putting a little more money in the pockets of consumers by Christmas.
What’s not to like about the job the government is doing?
billie@1369
Go billie!
I am right with you. You are 100% right in this post.
(Don’t be too alarmed. 😉 )
“@andrewcdodd: @Wendy_Bacon says News Limited ‘almost bullied’ the rest of the media into going on and on with the AWU story last week #jeaa2012”
“almost’ is superfluous in the above tweet.
Bemused –
Excellent argument!
What tosh. You have no idea of my personal situation, nor is it relevant to the strength of my criticism of your throw-away outrage.
I am unemployed, but I am not looking for work. That’s a combination of having a modest amount of savings to live off along with a complete lack of faith in my ability to find and hold down another job due to a history of chronic depression throughout my adult life.
But then your throw-away snark becomes just nasty doesn’t it?
Go away Bemused, you are a mean, sanctimonious, thoughtless fool.
Oakeshott Country@1374
[ TLBD
Why are asylum seekers afraid of Tone? It doesn’t matter what matters is that there is aperception among a considerable number of Australian voters that this is the case and that’s an election winner. ]
As you say, it has nothing to do with asylum seekers or people smugglers, and everything to do with a gullible electorate.
It seems clear that the OM and the Opposition has decided that BOATS! is the only lever they have left to pull, so they’re going to pull it as hard as they can and hope they win a jackpot.
None of their “We’ll all be rooned” predictions have come to pass, and they have developed no positive policies to offer. Also, none of their smears have worked in unseating Gillard, or depriving her of a working majority in the HOR. Worse, she just keeps edging closer to an election winning position!
There is also the fact that Abbott seems to know no other strategy than “go hard and hope like hell”. This has always been his strategy of choice from his boxing days, and it has worked for him surprisingly often … until he came up against Gillard.