GhostWhoVotes reports the first Nielsen for the year has the Coalition leading 56-44 on two-party preferred, compared with 52-48 in the final poll last year. The primary votes are 30% for Labor (down five) and 47% for the Coalition (up four) – we’ll have to wait on the Greens. Even worse news for Julia Gillard on personal ratings, with Tony Abbott seizing a 49-45 lead as preferred prime minister compared with 50-40 to Gillard last time, and she trails Kevin Rudd 61% to 35%. However, the latter result is very similar to Abbott’s 58-35 deficit against Malcolm Turnbull. Opinion is divided on whether the parties should actually do anything about it: 52% support Labor changing leaders and 45% don’t (up four and down three), with eerily similar numbers for the Liberals (51% to 46%).
We also had overnight a Galaxy poll of 800 women voters concerning voting intention and attitudes to the leaders. The voting intention figures were 36% for Labor, 46% for the Coalition and 10% for the Greens, for a two-party preferred lead to the Coalition of 53-47 – about where you would expect it be when allowing for a 55-45 poll trend, the size of the gender gap in recent years and perhaps a smidgin of house bias in favour of the Coalition on Galaxy’s part. When respondents were asked if they were concerned about Abbott saying “‘no’ to everything”, his views on abortion and “the way he treats women”, abortion recorded the lowest response rate among Labor voters and the highest among Coalition voters (albeit by slight margins in each case). The divide was still wider for the question of whether was Abbott was a misogynist, breaking 44-24 for among Labor voters and 9-69 against among Coalition voters for a total of 25-44. Thirteen per cent of respondents said they were less likely to vote for Gillard because she was unmarried and has no children, and the same number said they were more likely to vote for Abbott for the opposite reasons.
UPDATE (18/2/2013): Essential Research breaks the freefall with the Coalition two-party lead back down to 54-46 after a week at 55-45, with Labor up a point on the primary vote to 35%, the Coalition down one to 47% and the Greens steady on 9%. The poll also finds 56% approval and 22% disapproval for recent thought bubbles about development of northern Australia. Other questions relate drugs in sport, including the eye-opening finding that 52% would approve of a ban on sports betting.
Spotted this on a power pole next to Burwood Highway #springst #auspol pic.twitter.com/zePh0Cx1kE
https://mobile.twitter.com/ShaunLeaneMP/status/304764920094916608/photo/1
[Why would people want to join an organisation that provide money to another entity that they do not agree with?]
Well you woulnt do it would you. Roughly in order of selfishness people join organizations for – benefits to them individually, i.e. employment protection, idealism, coercion…
For example, NBN links in to a whole lot of other policy initiatives such as e-health, productivity growth, economic growth etc.
NBN is good on its own, but tied to the other policy initiatives it is compelling.
bemused,
It is compelling for the reasons you state. It is also more compelling because of the possibilities hidden within the etc and waiting to be exploited.
dave@4961
I know you are not stupid, but you do manage to do a good impression.
So when you read something, you expect to have metaphors and other literary devices pointed out to you as if you are a child? Should I keep that in mind?
[It is compelling for the reasons you state. It is also more compelling because of the possibilities hidden within the etc and waiting to be exploited.]
Scarpat
One only has to look at the burgeoning exploitation of mobile phones to see how when the platform is put in place the previously unforseen application of new capacities and capabilities.
Copper networks are way past saturation.
[DWH
The freeloaders are those officials who abuse their trust and use the members monies for their own personal use. We come across a few of those lately.
Stop confusing the issue!.
Thats not freeloading it is just corruption
]
Until the court case determines the matter it is just more disgusting liberal spambot smear that ignores the presumption of innocence in the pursuit of political gain. Pathetic and disgusting.
Bemused, the metaphor was violently offensive, and a better person than you would be apologetically retracting it. Ordinarily I wouldn’t approve of people storing up old comments to throw back at online enemies at their future convenience, but you know what they say about sauce for the gander.
@MTBW/4978
Well you told me to grow up – but now your telling me to that I have to respect you.
Respect is to be earned – not by age group.
@bemused/5000
I agree that on that on NBN.
Right now, France just announced broadband policy for fibre, it’s another long list of countries adopting to fibre based:
http://uk.reuters.com/article/2013/02/20/uk-france-broadband-idUKBRE91J11D20130220
But for some reason, Australia just hates the idea.
Rua according to Nicholl’s the Bligh government and federal Labor are responsible for the proposed increase. However let’s wait and see what actually happens.
Personally I think it’s just the result of a number of factors most not the responsibility of any government. We should do something about those feed-in tariffs though.
Another company which has been trading with huge profit product margins bites the dust at the first sign of hard competitive times.
http://www.abc.net.au/news/2013-02-22/billabong-posts-large-loss-on-write-downs/4534524
Dear Dave
I believe that the Gillard Government has done an excellent job – quite remarkable in the circumstances. I believe it deserves to be returned with a substantial majority.
Sadly, though, that is unlikely to happen. Not, as so many posters seem to think, because of media bias or the ambitions of Kevin Rudd, but because the Labor Party is so on the nose in its former stronghold, New South Wales.
Many people never accepted the minority government or its leader. They are blind to their achievments, the more than 450 bills passed, the forward-looking ground-breaking legislation. The media has been more interested in frivolity and folly, that’s true (though Labor has certainly provided a bit of ammunition from time to time).
Now the hope is that Labor can peg back the Coalition’s lead and prevent a holocaust. It has some prospects in Victoria, maybe Queensland, SA and even WA. But intervention was needed in NSW and it didn’t happen. A pity.
What relevance is there in this sentencing remark?
[The judge found Abel was remorseful, saying he had spent more than 40 years living in the community as a church-going “family man”.]
http://www.abc.net.au/news/2013-02-22/jail-for-man-over-1959-child-sex-crimes/4534428
[they are all listening again and there (sic) terrified of Labor and Gillard all over again.]
What evidence do you have of this phenomenon?
There is no movement in the polls which remain within the MoE at around 55 – 45 as they have for some months.
I love the post that said: “If God didn’t want Abbott for a priest, why would I choose him for a Prime Minister”
Says it all, really.
Right now, France just announced broadband policy for fibre, it’s another long list of countries adopting to fibre based:
http://uk.reuters.com/article/2013/02/20/uk-france-broadband-idUKBRE91J11D20130220
But for some reason, Australia just hates the idea.
At least a certain Malcolm Turnbull likes the idea enough to invest in what France is planning to do. To bad he doesn’t live in Australia. He’d love the idea of the NBN.
http://www.theage.com.au/it-pro/government-it/turnbull-likes-fibre-to-the-home–in-france-20120821-24kpe.html
[Personally I think it’s just the result of a number of factors most not the responsibility of any government. We should do something about those feed-in tariffs though.]
Tim Nicholl’s should realise that he (as Treasurer) is the shareholder of all Ergon and Energex shares. He should stop blaming them and maybe look at the dividends they pay.
bemused@5004
Actually you said Now Rudd will return and she will get an axe right between the eyes. And the public will cheer.
No mention of a knife.
No mention of a metaphor, until now over a year later.
You really need to fix this enormous blunder.
Just withdraw the comment unreservedly and that will be the end of it.
Given your senior position in your branch you really need to fix this.
[ I know you are not stupid, but you do manage to do a good impression.
So when you read something, you expect to have metaphors and other literary devices pointed out to you as if you are a child? Should I keep that in mind? ]
So you stand by what you said ? And the other stuff?
Be a lot better to correct ‘the axe’ etc and just move on.
Your call….
Ah metaphor, metaphor, my kingdom for a metaphor
1. Juliar – Burn Bob Browns Bitch
2. Ditch the Witch
3. Gillard ought to be ”put in a chaff bag” and dumped at sea – Alan Jones
4. PM & Albo: ”walking around with targets on their foreheads” – Tony Abbott
5. “Their baseball bats aren’t there for Anna Bligh, they’re there for this Prime Minister” – Tony Abbott
6. ”They ought to be kicking her (PM) to death” – Grahame Morris
7. “I mean anyone who chooses to remain deliberately barren” Senator Bill Heffernan.
8. “Gillard is dead,” Peter Costello told Network Ten.
9. “She has chosen not to be a parent… she is very much a one-dimensional person – George Brandis
10. “She wont lie down and die” – Tony Abbott
11. “She should be fed to the shark – NLP
12. ” Now to be minced at the abattoir like an old cow – David Farley
13. PM Julia Gillard’s father died of shame over his daughter’s “lies” – Alan Jones
14. “A government which should have already died of shame.” – Tony abbott
15. “lack of experience within the Government of raising children – Tony Abbott
16. “Are you suggesting to me that when it comes from Julia, ‘No’ doesn’t mean ‘No’?” – Tony Abbott
17. “If the Prime Minister wants to, politically speaking, make an honest woman of herself…” – Tony Abbott
18. Authorise his Deputy Julie Bishop to SMEAR PM based on “evidence” by a self confess fraudster, bagman & sleazy sex-predator tourist whose sister has called him “rotten to the core”
19. PM Gillard will be grilled – says Abbott,
20. “What a bloody pity the Taliban don’t have a single sniper worth his shekels” – Mike Smith
21. Openly accused of PM of “criminal wrong doing” without proofs – Abbott, Bishop, Brandis, Pyne
22. she is like the Crematorium Undertaker, everything she touches turn into ashes – Grahame Morries, Skynews, 28/1/13
William Bowe #5007
you only keep him around as click-bait, yes?
There are is remarkable the number of posters on here claiming to be old fashioned Labor supporters, they then spend most their time bucketing Labor. Reading their posts one could be forgiven for believing that they are really “Shy Tories” of the fifth columnist variety.
Nikki Savva , Brendon O Neill and faithful Richo all self identify as lefties but they only expect to gull the really gullible.
William Bowe@5007
There is plenty of worse stuff on here William so I will take my place at the back of the queue of those who should apologise for something said long ago that offended someone.
If dave was so offended he would not keep dragging it out with obvious glee.
triton@4982
[ “an axe right between the eyes” is not the sort of language one typically applies to a person whom you’ve been keen to reassure Bludgers recently you hold nothing against personally. Why else would you choose such an extremely violent metaphor to describe the act? I can almost picture you swinging it yourself, and with some delight. ]
Bemused has been caught out many, many times. He simply blusters, denies it thereafter and carries on with the same old crap. His single-mindedness is admirable, in a perverse kind of way.
While it is worthwhile picking him up on his outrageous hypocrisy occasionally (just so everyone knows where he really stands) don’t expect him to ever own up to anything.
“@latikambourke: PM Gillard says it’s a good thing the Australian swim team ‘came out…and took responsibility.’”
Toorak Toff@5011
TT – I agree with most above.
Obviously things look terrible for Labor atm and we may well end up being chucked out of Government.
But, this far out and even in loss I will still support this Labor Government for its achievements and what it also tried to do.
I know they are not perfect, but I will not put the boot into Labor and give tories a cheap thrill and I certainly won’t concede defeat until the polls are declared.
I think we can agree on that.
Labor people divided only helps the tories and we need to stick together, more so when things are difficult.
Best Regards
Just Me
It’s a very basic incontrovertible fact; one persons vote makes bugger all difference.
Lots of people realise that and choose not to have any interest in politics. They put their energies and valuable time into other areas. They also don’t trust politicians anyway.
That isn’t drivel; that is cold hard reality.
zoidlord
I didn’t ask you to respect me at all!
just said that we were taught to respect other people’s point of view with tolerance and without the angst.
dave@5016
OK Dave, you are winning. You are convincing me you really are stupid.
No, I didn’t mention a knife. But Gillard is frequently accused of having knifed Rudd in the back as you would be well aware. And of course that use of the term ‘knifed in the back’ is metaphorical and no-one believes otherwise.
And you choose to take the metaphor I used as somehow real.
I have moved on, clearly you see some advantage in not moving on.
[ bemused
Posted Friday, February 22, 2013 at 4:05 pm | Permalink
If dave was so offended he would not keep dragging it out with obvious glee. ]
Certainly no glee at all.
I had dropped the matter until your #5004 can back 39 minutes later. I thought you had dropped it as well until then.
Its up to you if you correct / clarify what you said or let it stand as is, as I’ve said previously.
Stop calling Dave stupid, Bemused.
bemused,
Do you really consider that Now Rudd will return and she will get an axe right between the eyes. And the public will cheer. as being one of your finest moments?
Disappointing.
Puffy
[Is Dio about?]
Just arrived.
It seems to me that the whole view of a party as a movement pressing for specific goals within a broader ethical and intellectual paradigm no longer has any relevance to the parties that traditionally form governments in most English-speaking countries.
Certainly, in Australia, I see no real evidence that the branches of the ALP and Liberals have any role to play in developing either overarching ideas or even policy initiatives that could form the basis of any campaign. In effect, they are merely cheerleaders and foot soldiers for the parliamentary wings of the parties that can occasionally can serve to endorse some aspirant for office.
So really, having a bunch of semi-engaged cheerleaders go through the motions of selecting someone amenable to head office doesn’t seem like an exceptionally productive exercise. And being a cheerleader is pretty boring in between elections — which is why, one suspects, hardly anyone turns up. I read somewhere that there are about 178,000 nominal members of all political parties in Australia, which simple maths tells us is a bit over 1% of people who vote. I doubt the majority of that 1%+ would even turn up to meetings more than three times per year. People work a great many hours these days and giving up a night to pretend you’re doing something with others also pretending isn’t that appealing.
From the ALP’s POV, whether the power is with the branches or the ‘unions’ (the term is misleading because it really describes the official apparatchiks of the unions) is probably neither here nor there. In effect, a narrow caste of people is offering a service to a much wider public with which it is not actively engaged — the service being “producing candidates for office”. The party itself operates as a kind of career management vehicle for those associated with its activities in a more direct sense. Ideas — in the sense that those who are not career politicians think of them, have almost nothing to do with the party.
A very long time ago, the ALP really was organically connected to actual union activity. The local union official would actually be an organiser living in a district active in local branches and the party activity was connected with his advocacy for union matters. Those days have long passed.
It seems to me that it would be better to put parties at arm’s length from elections. Today we have administratively cheap and timely ways for individuals to make their views known on matters of broad public policy. We probably would be better with a process in which people were selected to run for office the way juries are selected for trials — let’s call it #sortition#. People could put their names forward — a short list could be generated at random — these people (if they accepted) could be provided with support in drafting their ideas, undergoing training in the skills required, research assistants to assist them in refining their ideas and so forth. They could then go through a deliberative voting process where electors could evaluate their ideas, their significance for them in policy terms and their confidence in the person and then be given a score which would then determine their chances in a weighted first draw. Candidates could then modify their positions if they saw fit and then at a subsequent draw much closer to the time when the successful candidates would have to take up their seats, a second deliberative vote would occur and this would be added to the first mix and a final selection made.
The value of this procedure is that it would be pretty much impossible for any party to rig the vote or trade as a career vehicle for office aspirants. The parliament would come to resemble the populace and the populace itself would be far better informed and inured to media trolling — since what was happening on the ground would be far too heterogenous and fragmented to be subject to the media dark arts. Power would be torn from the grasp of the media and the apparatchiks and the contest would be about policy substance.
The parliament itself could be guided by a national plan devised by the parliament and subjected to a vote — like a referendum. Their job would be to implement it. Everyone would have ownership of it.
The role of parties in this system would be to suggest policy ideas and campaign for them in between elections — in an attempt to influence the context in which candidates for office formed their ideas. This of course is the proper role for political parties. They might well use the media to perform this function which, rather than being focused on how popular the PM was or was not, would be focused on what needed to be done or resisted. Over time we would get a far more educated and outcomes focused electorate — and one immune to the vacuous nonsense one hears and reads today. Each of us could entertain the thought that with the right arguments and the right pitch, some idea of ours might come to pass. That alone would make civic engagement something worthwhile for many who are not engaged at all.
Bill B
[There are is remarkable the number of posters on here claiming to be old fashioned Labor supporters, they then spend most their time bucketing Labor. Reading their posts one could be forgiven for believing that they are really “Shy Tories” of the fifth columnist variety.]
Care names? BTW are you a member of the ALP?
davidwh
We now have the official word.
[Electricity prices in Queensland are under acute pressure from rising network costs and the rapidly growing
cost of solar feed-in tariffs. Network costs in south east Queensland are forecast to rise by 23 per cent in
2013-14. Embedded in these network charges are the rapidly rising cost of the Solar Bonus subsidies for
households with solar panels. Higher network charges, including the solar subsidies and network costs
deferred in 2012-13 because of the tariff 11 freeze, account for 72 per cent of the increase for the typical
residential customer.]
So 72% of the increase is due to action or inaction by the Qld Govt. I suggest Tim Nicholls has nowhere to turn.
A lot of ‘violently offensive’ things are said from time to time, but nothing to match Jack London’s description of a scab:
[After God made the rattlesnake, the toad and the vampire, he had some awful substance left with which he made a scab.
A scab is a two-legged animal with a corkscrew soul, water-logged brain and a combination backbone made of jelly and glue. Where other people have their hearts, he carries a tumor of rotten principles.
When a scab walks down the street, honest men turn their backs, angels weep in Heaven, and the Devil shuts the gates of Hell to keep him out.
No man has the right to scab so long as there is a pool of water deep enough to drown himself in, or a rope long enough to hang his carcass on.
Judas Iscariot was a gentleman compared with a scab, for after betraying his master he had enough courage and character to hang himself, but a scab has not.
There is no word in the English language that carries so much hatred, scorn, loathing and contempt as the term ‘scab’! Once branded, a man is marked for life. There is no escape.
It is infinitely worse than the brand that was placed on Cain. It goes with the man everywhere. It shadows his every footstep till he dies, and no wonder, for it is a synonym for all that is mean, contemptible and unmanly.
It signified that it is impossible for its owner to descend to lower depths. He has tried to undermine men who are battling for the bred and butter of their wives and children, and rivet the chains of oppression around them. He sought to defeat his fellows.
Judas Iscariot would never have sunk so low. The criminal from the penitentiary may, to some degree, rehabilitate his character, but the scab is an eternal fixture, a living monument of self-inflicted shame, a reproach to honest men. A something that bears the outward semblance of a man, but from whom dignity of manhood has departed forever.
As men shun the leper for fear of physical contamination, so they shun the scab for fear of moral contamination.
When a man has descended so low as to deserve this title, it is as eternal as though graven on marble tablets, or plates of brass. It never deserts him. It even descends with him to the grave.]
Bit of a lost opportunity there, TT. You should have replaced the words “a scab” with “Bemused”, and then told him he was stupid if he took offence.
Here’s a misleading headline, no doubt designed to attract clicks:
[Melbourne should cut ties with St Petersburg over anti-gay laws: Katter]
Read more: http://www.theage.com.au/victoria/melbourne-should-cut-ties-with-st-petersburg-over-antigay-laws-katter-20130222-2ew44.html#ixzz2LbTRJccW
Of course, when you open the article, it refers to Bob’s half brother Carl.
A scrub is a guy who thinks he’s fly, and is also known as a buster.
rummel i read that you already think the gov, will not be returned,
quite narky it sounded
now i think you owe a reason to why you think this
give me a list of 10 things that labor have NOT done for you .and dont mentioned the falsehood word lies
please as they dont excist.
10thins that you would like to all see being done for YOU.
if you cannot actually say why you dislike the gov,
and give your reasons
you are just making a noise
the post came across as rather narky
short memories re last years fund raise , is it
Well said, my say.
http://www.couriermail.com.au/news/queensland/galaxy-poll-finds-kevin-rudd-would-lead-labor-to-election-victory-if-he-regained-alp-leadership/story-e6freoof-1226583686587
The first test pitch in India looks like a sandpit.
Galaxy Poll – http://www.couriermail.com.au/news/queensland/galaxy-poll-finds-kevin-rudd-would-lead-labor-to-election-victory-if-he-regained-alp-leadership/story-e6freoof-1226583686587
“The poll surveyed 800 people across Queensland on the evenings of February 21 and 22.”
but it’s 22/2 and it’s not evening time yet? 😆
Am I missing something here? How is taking Stilnox, a sleeping tablet, helping bonding?
[Magnussen said the prescription drug was taken “to bond with these guys”.]
[The poll surveyed 800 people across Queensland on the evenings of February 21 and 22.]
Given it is 3:50 PM in Qld and today is the 22nd, how can they know the result if they have not polled yet?
Galaxy – the prostitute of pollsters. Money for Polls.
TT
I recall reading that Jack London extract in about 1969. I never forgot it. Although I don’t endorse the relgious and metaphysical references — for obvious reasons, I did undertake then and there never to breach a workers’ picket line, or to accept goods that I knew to be produced by scab labour.
Now if this doesnt send them pussycats into 7th heaven, nothing else will:
[Galaxy poll finds Kevin Rudd would lead Labor to election victory if he regained ALP leadership – KEVIN Rudd would catapult Labor into an election-winning position if he was reinstalled as leader, according to a new Galaxy poll taken for The Courier-Mail.]
http://www.couriermail.com.au/news/queensland/galaxy-poll-finds-kevin-rudd-would-lead-labor-to-election-victory-if-he-regained-alp-leadership/story-e6freoof-1226583686587
Hello My Say
William Bowe@5035
I really do love the way you berate people on here and squeal and ban them if fire is returned.
Are you an umpire or a player?
Oh I see the story is going to be in tomorrows newspaper, funny how they already know the results. Did they consult a Ouija board?
Diog
Good question. Was it one or more? n Was it mixed with alcohol to get “off their face”
This was denied. How four guys in a room “bond” while sleeping is a conundrum?