The Australian reports the Coalition’s lead in Newspoll has blown out to 58-42, from primary votes of 30% for Labor (down four on the previous fortnight’s result) and 50% for the Coalition (up six) and 10% for the Greens (down one). There has also been a big move to Tony Abbott on preferred prime minister, going from 42-38 behind to 43-35 ahead – remembering that the result of the previous poll was well above the trend for Labor. More to follow.
UPDATE: Julia Gillard has recorded her worst personal ratings since September 2011, while Tony Abbott’s ratings are the best they have been since the middle of that year. Gillard is down six on approval to 26% and up eight on disapproval to 65%, while Tony Abbott is up three to 39% and down five to 50%.
All this meaningful and earnest talk about serious, worthy matters suggests rather starkly and gloomily that all is lost, and all that remains is to discuss serious, worthy matters, as a way of proving that Labor types are more values-driven than the C-team that is about to take over the reins of government.
Mod Lib
No. HealthCare must be universal, or it has problems. You get the rich guys in other ways.
Puff
Agreed.
If Medicare was funded out of general revenue, Howard would have starved it to death. By having its own levy and therefore a reliable revenue stream, it is a bit safer from rightwing nutters when they get into power. Gough must have known what Lib maggots would do to it.
I wonder whether William is updating Bludgertrack?
I have been looking for the TDSP*
*triple digit seat projection
Here here!
[jaundiced view
Posted Thursday, March 28, 2013 at 12:09 am | PERMALINK
Mod Lib
No. HealthCare must be universal, or it has problems. You get the rich guys in other ways.]
So you think the government should fund healthcare for everyone but education only for the poor?
Is education not an essential nation building investment too?
Trawler
Splits are a pretty silly way to go. Historically they always seem to fail.
If Labor was silly enough to push anyone out or disendorse them then perhaps a break away party could form.
Mind you the way FitzG was talking you have to think that he is planning a showdown
There would be time enough to get a party together and candidates BUT the vetting process would be lousy and you would get a lot of nutters
Maybe there could be an ex pollies party.
Can I just say The Boss concert was the best I have ever seen since The Beach Boys concert which was the best I have ever since the Leonard Cohen concert which was the best I have ever seen since The Pet Shop Boys.
Alias
6 Months of this to come. All so after the accepted loss, the remaining faction leaders of the hollow (mainly Victorian kind) can bestow favours on acolytes still in executive positions in the affiliated unions. Howes from NSW first. Wow…(/
[Puff, the Magic Dragon.
Posted Thursday, March 28, 2013 at 12:10 am | PERMALINK
If Medicare was funded out of general revenue, Howard would have starved it to death. ]
If Medicare was funded out of general revenue, Gillard would have run it dry by now.
Just wondering whether people think it is ever justified for governments to ever subsidise private industries regardless of if they health, education, vehicle manufacturing, farming, tourism etc etc?
2757
The Government should make government funded education available to all if they so choose. And that is the case. Anyone can go to a government school. They are not means tested (even though the IPA wants them to be).
Mod Lib
The government does provide education for everyone. Has done – in NSW since 1880 – as legislated: ‘universal,free, and secular’. What a brilliant exposition of what education should be. So far back, and so lost in the modern mists of greed.
Private patients can go to public hospitals and receive medicare benefits.
Private patients can go to private hospitals and receive medicare benefits.
Yes JV, a sort of six month long wake before the death is confirmed by Kerrie O’Brien or Antony Green, what about 7pm AEST, I suppose?. Well, I don’t know if I can take it. The adrenalin that accompanied the remote possibility of a different pathway (note the sensitive language for all those automotons unwilling to square up to reality) has well and truly dissipated. The frightening reality that grows more real with every passing day is too stark to face up to directly – as in hanging about here day in day out, to watch every frame in the slow-motion death march.
http://www.afr.com/p/national/labor_faces_annihilation_in_marginal_MRqll2ldnEA2yvStbw4IMM
[jaundiced view
Posted Thursday, March 28, 2013 at 12:20 am | PERMALINK
Mod Lib
The government does provide education for everyone. ]
That is not the point JV.
You think everyone, rich or poor, should receive Medicare benefits, but at the same time you think rich people in private schools should not receive Education benefits.
Why?
davidwh
Education isn’t ‘an industry’. It is an all-of-people interest, bar none. It therefore shouldn’t be subject to special interest subsidies. It is basic; should be universal; and should be publicly provided at high standards.
If private quibblers want to keep their brats from the real world, fine. But not on my money. Especially when my kid’s money is being used for their exclusive bullshit.
[On a two-party preferred basis, the Coalition leads Labor in the marginals by 59.4 per cent to 40.6 per cent.]
WOW!
The ALP on 32 seats…..impossible? I would have thought so until Qld, NSW and NT and WA
http://www.afr.com/p/national/labor_faces_annihilation_in_marginal_MRqll2ldnEA2yvStbw4IMM
This would leave only Mr Rudd’s seat of Griffith intact but this, too, would be at risk if the swing were extrapolated to seats with margins higher than 6 per cent.
There you go, continued leadership bs mean party annihilation, including risking Rudd’s own seat.
I am enjoying your line of questioning ML.
Mod Lib
I can’t see the difference in principle. Medicare for all; public education for all. If you want something else, fine, but pay for it yourself.
Mod, the government should discourage people from the scam that is private education. Private education costs the taxpayer far more money than public education for very little (if any!) benefit.
alias@2751
*hug*
There there, you’ll feel better when you leave the country if Tony Abbott gets in and if he doesn’t, you’ll be pleasantly surprised!
JV -would you consider means testing for private school public contributions?
I think that the difference in costs would cause a reduction in the number of private schools by a factor of at least 10 if no public funding were provided.
[I can’t see the difference in principle. Medicare for all; public education for all. If you want something else, fine, but pay for it yourself.]
But that is the whole point. Private patients can access Medicare benefits, while you are arguing that private schoolkids shouldn’t.
If you think that private patients should not be able to access Medicare benefits and only poor people should be able to access Medicare benefits and private patients should fully fund their own healthcare then you are supporting the Republican healthcare model.
I am just not sure whether you realise that you are a Republican at heart :devil: (just kidding, don’t get offended!).
2770
The ALP retained the Darwin seats. They only lost because of a campaign of “the ALP candidates are not real Aborigines” in the local languages swung remote seats. Then the CLP messed around with the leadership within a year of the election. They may win the NT back at the next election.
[Radguy
Posted Thursday, March 28, 2013 at 12:29 am | PERMALINK
I am enjoying your line of questioning ML.]
I am enjoying the honest discussion too, hence staying up when my body is advising otherwise….
davidwh@2762
Define “private industries”.
JV we all collectivally fund education, public and independent, through our taxes. Capitalists fund future union leaders and union leaders fund future capitalists. So what? Who cares? The important issue is to ensure all children get access to quality education.
Meh, election now stuff is irrelevant.
Let the dust settle for a month or two and see how things are then.
The poll by JWS Research also finds that, despite the bleak outlook for Labor, most marginal seat voters would prefer it to win the election than Tony Abbott’s Coalition.
Well that’s interesting.
So perhaps many people are protesting rather than anything else.
Mod Lib
Huh? I am a private patient and I access Medicare benefits.
Besides if you are at a private school I guess you don’t aspire to the benefits of a public one. How does that affect the principle at all?
JV:
If you have no problem with the public purse funding private healthcare why do you have a problem with the public purse funding private education?
Private healthcare is not a scam.
I agree, my friend does Private Healthcare, really good job.
atm he not getting much money, so he is on a basic plan for the time being.
Anyway, the body can wait no longer…..sleep…..sleep……
We can reconvene when I have recovered from seeing that JWS poll. What a shocker!
Henry !!
Election stuff irrelevant?!!
Dust settle in next couple of months??!
Rigor mortis set in, more like it.
Radguy
[JV -would you consider means testing for private school public contributions?
I think that the difference in costs would cause a reduction in the number of private schools by a factor of at least 10 if no public funding were provided.]
No I wouldn’t. Every government dollar that goes to private schools comes from the public sector – over the past 13 years at least, since Howard got in and his idealogical wife got her hatred of public education enacted. Labor has made that horror worse.
Every child should have access to the best education funded by govt – free, secular and universal. We have the best state systems in the world, even now. Let’s not let these awful convergent old parties fail our kids for the usual cheap sellout to the loudest minority interest groups.
BTW: Antony Green’s calculator doesn’t even let you register the swings seen in that JWS poll!
That is how bad it is!!!! :devil:
DisplayName.. Thanks for kind, comforting words. They’re not really comforting though.
Mod Lib does make a good point about how can you support private health getting taxpayers money yet at the same time oppose funding to private schools.
[Mind you the way FitzG was talking you have to think that he is planning a showdown]
Yeh he looks like he is agitating for a fight with her backers, maybe trying to provoke a response from them, and knowing there propensity for spite and bile he will probably get one.
I think Qld would most certainly keep Rudd safe in order to stick it to Gillard.
Thanks for the Bludgertrack update William!
With Oaky and Windsor and Katter that makes the century! 🙂
Private health insurance is a thought load worth avoiding.
Well no private school funding coming from Canberra doesn’t come from public schools
Public schools are known as state schools for a reason, i am yet to see a federal school
[There you go, continued leadership bs mean party annihilation, including risking Rudd’s own seat.]
LoL Linda Lovelack wouldn’t eve swallow that one.
Err no, sticking with somebody thoroughly disliked by the Australian people will give you annihilation, or haven’t you been paying attention.
Mod, let me put it this way. Public health care provides some minimum level of healthcare. Private health care improves on that for those who wish to pay for it. Public education provides some minimum level of education. Private education … does bugger all even if you pay extra for it.
Well, perhaps it’s their money to waste :P.
Anyway, sweet dreams.
alias@2792
How about this, if Tony Abbott wins, I’ll come with you. We can agitate for a revolution and support insurgents together from the safety of another country.