Today’s Essential Research result reverts to its position a fortnight ago, with Labor up a point on both the primary vote and two-party preferred. That puts Labor on 34%, the Coalition on 48% and the Greens on 9%, with two-party preferred shifting back to 55-45. Monthly personal ratings show Tony Abbott in his strongest position since late 2011, his approval up three to 40% and disapproval down two to 50%. Julia Gillard has also recovered slightly, up four on approval to 38% with down two on disapproval to 54%, her best figures since January. Abbott maintains a two-point lead as preferred prime minister, which shifts from 39-37 to 41-39. There are also questions on the NDIS (57% approving of the levy increase and 30% disapproving) and paid parental leave (34% support the government’s scheme, 24% the opposition’s), as well as parliamentary majorities (49% would favour a government majority in the House, with an even spread of opinion for the Senate) and the independents (broadly neutral for Oakeshott, Windsor and Wilkie and negative for Katter, oddly enough).
The weekly Morgan multi-mode poll likewise records little change on last week, with the Coalition up half a point to 46.5%, Labor steady on 32% and the Greens up one to 9.5%, leaving both respondent-allocated and previous election preferences unchanged at 56-44.
2184
confessions
[Even in opposition the Liberals waste taxpayers’ money.]
Tweet that. 🙂
[However the morning after a budget is traditionally when opposition members are hitting the airwaves criticising the budget so why would the government late list a key piece of legislation at that time?]
This would be the key piece of legislation that the Opposition demanded be introduced immediately?
Gauss… “…will most probably…” Oh dear..do I detect a touch of doubt in conservative heaven?
Sean,
Sure, sex would be better under a Liberal Government too because they promise to screw everyone.
Labor spent money to save jobs and keep the economy afloat during the GFC. Saved about 200,000 jobs.
As a consequence, they are lauded as superior economic managers throughout the civilised world.
Hockey and Abbott want to go down the same road as they have in Europe. It failed there and will fail here.
Mimhoff I guess there has to be a first for the PM to dance to Abbott’s tune.
joe carli @ 2353
Just for you Joe; just for you!
http://www.abc.net.au/news/2013-05-09/interactive-budget-2013-where-will-your-tax-go/4682404
dio@2339. A bit unfair, I think. I read a biography of Cummings many years ago in which he was described as starting out as a liberal but becoming politicized after a trip to Russia. He became staunchly anti- Communist and a big fan of Joe McCarthy. At the age I was when I read the biography (in my early 20s, I think), I saw his anti-Communism as a big negative. Now, I wouldn’t be anywhere near so judgemental. But is anti-Communism the same thing as fascism?
As for the slur that he was a racist, I have never heard that before now. So of course I googled it. Seems to relate to one poem in which he used the word “nigger” six times. The meaning of the poem is obscure and some critics see it as an “anti-racist” poem.
You are definitely a harsh judge!
Anyway, I’m not going to stop liking his poetry.
[However the morning after a budget is traditionally when opposition members are hitting the airwaves criticising the budget so why would the government late list a key piece of legislation at that time?]
It wasn’t on the notice paper, davidwh.
Abbott demanded that it be put there.
Then he didn’t turn up.
… a really, good look… not.
[Davidwh plus they get only 2 days to write a budget reply and this latest budget is a doozy.]
Ummmmm………..since when has :monkey: actually done a budget reply. If this years is anything like the last its not as if they will have any numbers in it. Besides, i’m sure Rupert has already sent Peta a draft.
BB Labor has been running on stunts all year so I guess one had to work eventually.
Love this profile note on a new follower of mine and a new tweeter
Concerned about Tony Abbott and MSM/ABC bias. I’d rather vote for a red head than a dickhead! I think very well put!
i think labor is 100% right at present. the irrationality of liberal leadership and blind ideology will reproduce queensland nationally and destroy any equilibrium in the economy. its ground zero day. unemployment up for starters. all for sake of delusion surplus … what country in world runs a surplus at present?
GG @ 2254
Then explain this difference between Sweden & Britain, from the link below. This article I saw in last Friday’s AFR but its behind a pay wall. This is the same article.
http://blogs.denverpost.com/opinion/2013/04/24/five-myths-about-global-austerity/37453/
when those who anointed julia did so in 2010 did they have a plan b in case theirs did not work out or were they acting in blind hatred of he-who-was-not-one-of-them. i assume there is no strategy for victory or plan b or c at present now. this must be the most protracted, predictable and lack lustre election in oz history. meanwhile, after the media inquiry and the bill, the telegraph is worse than ever.
http://www.theaustralian.com.au/national-affairs/treasury/surplus-pledge-politically-unwise-but-the-right-policy-admits-wayne-swan/story-fnhi8df6-1226643092499
[Earlier, Julia Gillard admitted the government would not have posted its promised surplus even if revenue had not slumped, as the anticipated deficit this year exceeded the $17 billion revenue write-down.
“That’s mathematically true but let’s gets serious here,” she said.]
Who cares about maths when it comes to the budget?
The Organization for Economic Cooperation and Development (OECD) has warned about a worsening poor-rich gap in Britain due to London’s insistence on its austerity drive.
The thinktank said in a report on the developed countries’ response to the global economic slowdown that the financial crisis is increasing inequality and poverty.
OECD added inequality “remained pretty steady” in Britain between 1995 and 2007, but soared between 2007 and 2010, when the world was grappling with the financial meltdown.
New studies show that back in 2010, the top 10 percent of British families earned an annual £53,600 on the average that was 10 times higher than the lowest 10 percent households.
This is while, the richest earned nine times higher than the poorest in 2005.
@Sean/2366
Yet, Coalition promised Surplus in their first 12 months of office and every year, or do you just ignore that side of the coin ?
More BS from you Sean.
Better economic data in recent weeks will not be enough to prevent the International Monetary Fund from calling on George Osborne to loosen his austerity drive in its annual health check on the British economy, senior officials fear.
IMF staff arrived in the UK on Wednesday to start their annual mission. They are likely to become embroiled in a head-to-head fight with the Treasury over the fund’s tentative recommendation last month that the chancellor should show more flexibility in deficit reduction.
This chart is making the rounds today, so I might as well join in the fun. It shows how well the U.S. economy has recovered from the recession compared to Great Britain. The Tory approach in Great Britain has famously been based on austerity measures, and it sure doesn’t seem to be working all that well. Karl Smith provides the caveats:
The UK has an infamous productivity puzzle, that has allowed it to add jobs even as GDP stalls. The UK is more closely tied to the crumbling Eurozone economy. The UK has seen its energy resources dwindle while the US has seen them explode. The United States has seen a good deal more austerity than its President would have liked.
All true, and these things point in different directions. That said, austerity doesn’t seem to be working in Britain and it’s not working in the rest of Europe either. So why are Republicans so hellbent on emulating them?
The Opposition gives its QUALIFIED support to the NDIS levy legislation.
http://www.abc.net.au/news/2013-05-15/medicare-levy-increase-passes-lower-house/4692240
[to Great Britain]
It’s been called the United Kingdom since the 1956 fiasco.
‘Dave’ seems to have revived the Great Britain tag.
CTar1,
UKIP is Dave’s new best friend. Everyone else has unfriended him.
Sean Tisme @ 2366
Yes I noticed that. On current estimates they overspent by $4 Billion. What’s a few billion between friends. Must be the Australian dollar or resource prices or?
Estimates of : –
$387,299 million est in 2012-13 Budget for Spending 2012-13
$391,198 million set in 2013-14 Budget for Spending 2012-13
Compare Table 1 in each link: –
http://www.budget.gov.au/2012-13/content/bp1/download/bp1_bst10.pdf
http://www.budget.gov.au/2012-13/content/bp1/download/bp1_bst10.pdf
Pitiful. Unbelievable.
Tlbd
[‘Dave’ seems to have revived the Great Britain tag.]
It’s a bit strange as I don’t think even MT used it.
Labor has put up a budget that is optimistic about revenue increases and that supposes very tight spending can be sustained, and that still generates a deficit. Not a big deficit, but still big enough to register with voters.
So the LNP now have a dilemma. If they argue that they would somehow cut taxes, then it follows they will be proposing a bigger deficit. If they say they are going to cut spending – which is already tight – everyone will want to know where and how and by by how much.
They can and will whinge about deficits and debts and credibility. But this will also pose a test of their own credibility.
The public know the fiscal situation is tight. The more the LNP rant about the deficit, the more the public will want to know if the LNP intend to raise taxes or cut spending or both; and the more they will be asked if they are willing to see jobs slashed in (a self-defeating attempt) to drive down the deficit.
To make matters even more problematic for the LNP, in the lead up to the election Treasury will publish their mandatory pre-election outlook statement. There is every chance that by then the budget assumptions will have changed – especially in relation to the terms of trade, the exchange rate and the flow of revenues.
Because there are such high expectations that the LNP will win in September, any claims they make about the budget will likely attract more than the usual degree of scrutiny.
This is a problem for them because they have so many irreconcilable positions. It is just not possible for them to do ALL the things they have mooted – repealing the carbon tax (which raises $8 billion) and replacing it with DAP (which wastes at least $2 billion); repealing part (but not all) of the MRRT; introducing their PPL (which hits business as well as adds $ 2 billion to spending); cutting “waste”, but not cutting social programs; reducing the deficit without increasing taxes; increasing real defence spending by 3% pa at the same time…. and so on.
The background is that the first one-third of Commonwealth revenue is committed to the States, and this includes GST revenue. Can Abbott cut funding to the States, who depend on the Commonwealth for health, education and public capital spending? Not really. The States are already in the red.
Commonwealth spending on its own programs – defense, welfare, social support, Family Tax Benefits, and its own running costs – are not really that high. They are just 16% of GDP.
The up-front deficit implied by the LNP on its OWN PAST PROMISES, together with the Government’s optimistic forecasts, easily exceeds 2% of GDP. If the terms-of-=trade weaken in the next few months, or the currency stays much below the forecast USD1.03, this number could easily run to 3% of GDP, maybe more.
So what are the LNP going to say about their alternative plans?
They have at best 16% of GDP to play with. They are already spending at least 18% of GDP before any revisions come into effect or before the election campaign gets going.
On the face of it, the LNP are promising to make the deficit worse, not better. They cannot point to one single measure they will take to narrow the deficit. Not one. They have no meaningful plans to reform the tax system. On spending, they merely promise looser and not tighter policy.
They will be asking people to believe they can make wine from water.
[BB Labor has been running on stunts all year so I guess one had to work eventually.]
Absolute insane incorrect rubbish, you are clearly competing with the total idiot for stupidest lib bot on PB.
[Five myths about global austerity]
That article refers to fiscal capacity and the now discredited 98% debt ceiling that was based on faulty excel tables.
Sounds like something Hockey would rely on given his history with false audits and using caterers to do his costings.
[But I do find your explanation hard to believe.]
I can’t see why. The federal opps have made NO! their own since the 2010 election.
[I think it’s more likely that, on neither occasion whrn NDIS bills being introduced,, the Libs brains trust failed to twig to the fact that this was going to be perceived in some circles as an important symbolic moment]
Ha. Naive you.
I think, given they installed their own shadow minister into proceedings while keeping EVERY OTHER COALITION MP from being in parliament when the bills were being presented, while at the same time having the LOTO lying in interviews while the PM was speaking, that the rabble knew exactly what they were doing.
As I said before, stop making excuses for this mob. They don’t deserve your excuses or your sympathy.
[WeWantPaul
Posted Wednesday, May 15, 2013 at 9:46 pm | PERMALINK
BB Labor has been running on stunts all year so I guess one had to work eventually.
Absolute insane incorrect rubbish, you are clearly competing with the total idiot for stupidest lib bot on PB.]
You seem to becoming quite the Lib bot hunter there WeWantPaul.
[2374
Gauss
Yes I noticed that. On current estimates they overspent by $4 Billion. What’s a few billion between friends. Must be the Australian dollar or resource prices or..]
This merely demonstrates that even though spending as a share of GDP has been falling, the deficit has been growing.
The fact is the LNP promise to loosen spending, not to tighten it. They in fact promise to do two mutually inconsistent things – to increase spending while reducing the deficit without increasing taxes.
Their is an air of complete unreality about the LNP’s so-called policies. They do not have policies. They have whinges.
Not sure if this has been posted, but I think it’s kind of relevant to the budget discussions:
http://www.nybooks.com/articles/archives/2013/jun/06/how-case-austerity-has-crumbled
[You seem to becoming quite the Lib bot hunter there WeWantPaul.]
No I’d be more of a fool hunter, both the greens and labor have fools too and they make me just as angry, but what kind of dishonest moron could say that a Govt who’d done Gonski and NDIS in the same year was running on stunts. Yeah occasionally Labor tries to sell its message but it is a total disaster pretty much every time and the common theme is usually news corpse and the libs telling outrageous lies. But to say they run on stunts really is a Sean level comment. Like PVO a certain poster here tries occasionally to appear reasonable and rational, but just like PVO you don’t have to watch long until they post something so stupid and so partisan it deserves the ‘Sean’ badge of dishonour.
Silly briefly. Cutting taxes increases revenue.
Which one of Abbott’s 2,000,000 jobs to take up? That is the question.
Abbott will be off to a flier with his 2,000,000 jobs when he starts by destroying 20,000 jobs.
Then he will have 2,020,000 jobs to create to meet his 2,000,000 promise.
[Cutting taxes increases revenue.]
You’d be stunned how many otherwise intelligent people believe this line, for more than 30 years it has proven again and again to be absurdly stupid and wrong but still there are people who should know better who cling to it.
Like the trickle down effect, frankly I’ve seen better arguments for dictatorships (benign of course).
It is quite clear that the Greeks should have doubled their borrowings just to pay the interest on their previous borrowings, because austerity does not work.
They should have known that.
Boerwar,
Tone is using HoJo’s calculator. No probs.
The only thing that would make the LNP budget numbers arithmetically consistent would if real growth were to accelerate to a rate of around 5% pa and nominal growth were to accelerate to at least 7% pa. So the LNP are implicitly saying they can make the economy grow faster than at any time since Bob Hawke came to office. This is a work of fiction.
They are saying they can cut the deficit and expand the economy at the same time and they will do it by increasing spending and hitting business with extra taxes and sacking a few public servants. Since when would that qualify as an economic policy? It is pure fraud.
TLBD
I suppose we should have checked the small print when Abbott promised to create 2,000,000 jobs.
Did he promise not to destroy 2,000,000 jobs before he created 2,000,000 jobs?
Is Whyalla still there?
The Greeks should have done an Argentina and told the IMF and the ECB to get stuffed.
[2384
DisplayName
Silly briefly. Cutting taxes increases revenue.]
Sure, We night suggest that to whoever pays your salary: if your pay were cut you would increase the supply of your labour and your income would rise. Win-win. Your loss becomes the author of your prosperity. Really, what complete f-wittery.
Tlbd – The IMF really stuffed Ghana over.
Yanks.
Stupid touchscreen
[2384
DisplayName
Silly briefly. Cutting taxes increases revenue.]
If this were plausible, then all the income tax cuts put in place by Costello would have resulted in higher revenue by now. But, I kid you not, revenue as a share of the economy has been falling.
This always was and remains a Tory lie.
castle @ 2378
Congratuations. I was wondering whether someone would notice that.
However my question was to GG and the difference between the United Kingdom & Sweden. What’s your opinion?
People on the blog have complained about austerity in the UK, quoting journalists who completely ignore how the UK got into the mess it’s in. Huge government debt by massive, pump priming expenditures in response to the GFC.
The IMF and the WB have some really cosy arrangements.
In the meantime, metal, energy and agricultural commodity prices fall and take the AUD along for the ride, all reflecting the return of the USD as a screaming buy!
Meanwhile in British Columbia, a left wing party in power for 12 years and training in the polls by 20 points have pulled off a remarkable victory, actually increasing their margin.
Can’t the Canadians poll properly? How could the polls get it so wrong? Surely an aberration which couldn’t happen here.
[The Liberals trailed Dix’s New Democrats in public opinion polls by as much as 20 points before the campaign started, but on Tuesday night, the governing party had re-elected incumbents and even stole a few ridings from the NDP in areas they were never expected to win.
The party increased its standings in the legislature, winning in at least 50 ridings. The Liberals had 45 seats before the legislature was dissolved.
The Liberal upset was the second recent Western Canadian election to stump the pollsters. Alberta’s governing Conservatives pulled off a similar comeback in April 2012, when all predictions called for their defeat.
In both cases, it appears the electorate chose an unpopular but safe and middle-of-the-road choice over a more radical opposition — the right wing Wildrose Party in Alberta and the left-wing New Democrats in B.C.]
http://news.nationalpost.com/2013/05/15/christy-clark-wins-the-b-c-election-but-loses-her-seat-to-the-ndp/