The latest weekly Essential Research result maintains the outfit’s record of consistency with the major parties unchanged on last week – the Coalition leads 48% to 36% on the primary vote and 54-46 on two-party preferred – and the Greens up a point from last week’s unusually poor result to 9%.
Whereas attitudinal questions often point to a social democratic bent among the population at large, questions posed this week on Newstart indicate that this particular buck stops with unemployment benefits. Fifty-three per cent agreed with the proposition that the current welfare system created a “culture of dependency”, with only 30% opting for the alternative proposition that current benefits are “the least a civilised society should provide”. In relation to Newstart benefits specifically, 33% said they were not high enough, 30% about right, and 25% too high. As Bernard Keane notes in Crikey today, variation by party support was not as pronounced as it often is in relation to such questions.
Further questions dealt with trust in various industries, with good rankings for agriculture (72%), tourism (68%) and manufacturing (56%) and poor ones for banking (33%), mining (32%), media (30%) and, tellingly, power companies (18%). Crikey will tomorrow publish Essential’s biannual “trust in media” results, which always makes for fun reading for critics of the fourth estate.
UPDATE (25/1/13): An automated phone poll for the Tasmanian seat of Bass, conducted by ReachTEL for the Launceston Examiner, has produced a dire result for Labor, with incumbent Geoff Lyons trailing Liberal candidate Andrew Nikolic 60.3-39.7 on two-party preferred. The primary votes are 54.7% for Nikolic, 26.7% for Lyons and 8.7% for the Greens. The sample size for the poll is 543.
Two days ago the PM outlined key national security priorities for our country, and yet our media is still obsessed with a Senate preselection in the country’s least populous state!
mari
The clever Scots have developed a “Star Trek” tractor beam. Only works on wee things though.
http://www.telegraph.co.uk/science/science-news/9825165/Miniature-Star-Trek-style-tractor-beam-built.html
Better than the first Scots Star Trek effort 🙂
http://www.metacafe.com/watch/52129/scottish_star_trek/
shellbell:
Thanks for replying. It makes no sense to me, but not much of the vagaries of our legal system do, to be honest.
[why am i not excited about this year Australian of the Year?]
Something you don’t have in common with the late Kerry Packer?
Out of curiosity, how do you guys think KAP will do? How many seats, if any?
john wright
KAP the 21st Century One Nation.
[Tom Ballard @TomCBallard
Bloody refugees, coming over here, taking our triple law, science & arts degrees and our Young Australian of the Year awards…]
I have to say I think the awards committee got the other 3 right, so 3 out of 4 ain’t bad. (with apologies to Meatloaf)
I think I can post here again.
Well if Howard was still pm, Ricky ponting would have won it
Why is the Friday 7.30Report a copy of the Monday–Thursday Liberal boosting effort? What happened to the State based Friday 7.30Report? I can actually watch that!
Musrum
[No it’s an Alchemical glyph that represents “squaring the circle”.
Just a reminder to myself about pointless effort…]
Just think of all those mathematicians who had all that spare time on their hands when it was proven you can’t square the circle.
Leroy@3501
Yes I’m aware of another one (not including seat polling) that has never and will never see the light of day, but if I divulge the slightest hint of details the source may never leak to me again!
confessions
[Tom Ballard @TomCBallard
Bloody refugees, coming over here, taking our triple law, science & arts degrees and our Young Australian of the Year awards…]
Libs other slogan. Stop The Brains.
poroti@3430
I am surprised they only won a couple. I would have expected them to win all, based on experience in the RAAF when our Rugby team played our VFL team and thrashed them.
john wright@3555
Katter’s, perhaps another 1-2 if lucky, maybe 1 in Qld Senate. Just don’t see them getting that much at this stage.
I missed 7.30. What happened?
Ita Buttrose has done a lot for medical education and research. I’m sure she is a worthy winner.
The Senior Australian Prof Ian Maddocks works at the same hospital as me. He’s got a very tough job in palliative care and does it very very well.
Poroti
[Like the OM reaction to the PM’s THAT speech the US OM old farts ( Fox ,Limbaugh et al ) banged on about her anger being confected and not spontaneous.]
A lot of husbands have got that bit wrong, too …. 😕
Respamming for evening patrol:
http://kevinbonham.blogspot.com.au/2013/01/federal-labor-getting-smashed-in-bass.html
Re today’s ReachTel on Bass – title selfexplanatory 🙂
Well I doubt KAP will get much of the gay vote.
I hope not. I know that Katter means well, but he’s an absolute nutter.
[Ita Buttrose has done a lot for medical education and research. I’m sure she is a worthy winner.]
She is worthy enough to be parachuted into the Labor party to replace another Rudd backer.
Dio:
I’m very happy with the Senior, Young and Local Hero AOTY winners. Not so much about Buttrose. As I and others said earlier, I’d rather see the award recognise those who don’t necessarily have a high public profile and therefore the capacity to leverage support for their causes.
That said I was pleased when Fiona Stanley and Fiona Wood were recognised.
I presume that 7.30 have just got too lazy to source new stories and have abandoned any semblance of a commitment to balance. Two, or is it three, nights in a row on Nova Peris, all content anti-PM, bar a few seconds.
Uhlmann has already decided its bad judgement.
There’s no point watching such a biased person on what should be a show worth watching, but is now just a mirror of News Ltd.
shellbell
[
Well if Howard was still pm, Ricky ponting would have won it]
Quite a few PMs have had to give it to people they wouldn’t choose in a fit.
Howie had to give it to Tim Flannery.
Rudd had to give it to Patrick McGorry who had caned his government on the state of mental health care in Australia.
[Better than the first Scots Star Trek effort
http://www.metacafe.com/watch/52129/scottish_star_trek/%5D
Well I suppose that was funny, but between the canned laughter and the Scots accents, I didn’t understand a word.
Don’t forget the Irish space programme:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Nfz9O_mSY1U
rummel:
Her age makes her more appropriate for the Liberal party.
fess
If you look back at other winners, the winner is almost always high profile. Sports has provided the most winners of any area which is a joke.
[She is worthy enough to be parachuted into the Labor party to replace another Rudd backer.]
Please explain what is wrong with that.
What are you supposed to do? Promote your enemies?
Rudd tried that (Costello, Downer) and that turned out well. NOT.
Howard never did it.
In politics – that’s what it is, “politics” – you gather your supporters around you, not give them preferential treatment.
Crossin did more than vote for Rudd. She white-anted behind the scenes.
After 16 years (including a generous old-style parliamentary pension for life) her time was up.
Ita Buttrose? Really. I can’t recall anything useful she’s done in the last 20 years, leave aside 2012.
The last mention I saw of her was joining Dawn Fraser in attacking Julia Gillard over the carbon “tax” or something.
OK, I don’t agree with the concept of “Australian of the Year”. It’s at best fluff, and also offensive to those of us who favour inclusive governance. Yet if I can get past the paradox of having someone to inspire me to ignore them and focus on equitable collaboration, it wouldn’t be Ms Buttrose.
There just has to be someone out there who has beavered away selflessly all year to raise the banner of social inclusion who wasn’t some fellow traveller of one the most repulsive men in Australian History, surely?
[Uhlmann has already decided its bad judgement.]
And Richo this morning said it was “clumsy”.
But who’s in charge? Not Richo or Uhlmann, that’s for sure.
Despite all their naysaying, Gillard has trumped them all.
Some “clumsy”. Some “bad judgement”.
They’d have to be a big shot of getting the third (or fourth!) conservative Senate seat.
Can’t see where they could get another HoR seat. Can’t see them wresting Leichardt off Entsch or Maranoa off Scott. Flynn and Blair are the only other seats I could see any kind of run at.
[confessions
Posted Friday, January 25, 2013 at 8:19 pm | PERMALINK
rummel:
Her age makes her more appropriate for the Liberal party.]
Libs have a very good representation for the older generation. Labor on the other hand use political euthanasia at the hand of the Captain before members or senators make to many runs.
Uhlmann on 7.5 saying that NT Senator get treated worse than workers under Labor’s Fair Work Act. Like you get a MP job with a 3 year contract that doesn’t get renewed. What has that to do with usual workers’ rights.
Damned if you do, damned if you don’t.
Do nothing and there’s criticism of the process of selecting ‘factional hacks’.
Do something and it’s a disgraceful repudiation of democracy.
Can’t win with our dumb media.
[Ita Buttrose? Really. I can’t recall anything useful she’s done in the last 20 years, leave aside 2012.]
I’m happily prepared to concede Buttrose has done lots of good things although I haven’t exactly been glued to coverage of her career).
But plenty of OTHER people have done equally good things.
Tey don’t get the gong because they’re not celebrities.
The first rule of being AOTY is you have to be a celebrity.
Good works come a distant second.
Kevin,
I like the expression “ultra green splitters”.
Dio:
I’d love it to be different, ie next year I’m going to nominate a DEC firey volunteer who saved the life of one of the two women who were caught in a fire here a couple of months ago. He cut off her clothes to prevent further burns. Her fellow volunteer firey died with burns to 60% of her body.
Agree re sports people. A total joke.
[Libs have a very good representation for the older generation.]
That’s one way of putting it.
Another way of putting is that they have a bunch of geriatric seat-warmers, araldited to the misbegotten dream of a return to Howardism (now 6 years gone, and 9 years since it had enough oomph to win an election).
Just like the old days.
[What are you supposed to do? Promote your enemies?]
We know Gillard does not promote enemies as she has been taking them out one by one for almost four years. She makes JWH look like a political teddy bear.
bemused
They only had a few days to learn the game it would have been very foreign back then. Re the RAAF experience I experienced something similar when playing a local AFL side. They had no answer to our forming backlines and close passing. They also learnt what real tackles and hip and shoulders looked like 😆
In the early days of the Eagles Ron Alexander got rugger buggers in to teach them to tackle.
[confessions
Posted Friday, January 25, 2013 at 8:27 pm | PERMALINK
Dio:
I’d love it to be different, ie next year I’m going to nominate a DEC firey volunteer who saved the life of one of the two women who were caught in a fire here a couple of months ago. He cut off her clothes to prevent further burns. Her fellow volunteer firey died with burns to 60% of her body.]
I second that.
rummel
[Labor on the other hand use political euthanasia at the hand of the Captain before members or senators make to0 many runs.]
Like appointing Bob Carr …?
[Another way of putting is that they have a bunch of geriatric seat-warmers, araldited to the misbegotten dream of a return to Howardism (now 6 years gone, and 9 years since it had enough oomph to win an election).]
They dont have long to wait now BB 🙂
rummel:
Yes, Bronnie has em all rolling in the aisles at their nursing homes.
Seriously though, you don’t get generational change and moving into the future while you’re preselecting has-beens like Ross Vasta and Warren Entsch. And that’s without looking at some of the complete duds who were elected in Qld last election.
fess
I think recognising organisations would be better than individuals.
I know a couple people who have won State person of the Year awards and they were both disgraceful human beings.
Fiona Wood is a nice person, but she seems to be an exception.
[We know Gillard does not promote enemies as she has been taking them out one by one for almost four years. She makes JWH look like a political teddy bear.]
What rot!
She got rid of Rudd in two fair ballots (one of which was abandoned because it was so pointless).
She got rid of McClelland because he was leaking, as was Carr. The leaks stopped when they got the boot.
Now she’s got rid of Crossin becuase she’s been warming the seat as well as leaking against her boss, damaging the party since 2010.
You’re either incredibly naive Rummel, or deliberately obtuse if you think that politics is run by philosopher-scholars dedicated to turning the other cheek.
It’s a serious business with serious consequences for the losers.
[Like appointing Bob Carr …?]
Well, yes that goes against the trend 🙂
Though Carr did role Gillard on Israel, so thats another fail in the book.
[Though Carr did role Gillard on Israel, so thats another fail in the book.]
And on that! where was the “captains” pick that day?
[What are you supposed to do? Promote your enemies?]
Obama and especially Lincoln did that.