ReachTEL has published results of an automated phone poll of 2922 respondents across the country which has the Coalition leading 51-49, down from 52-48 in the immediate aftermath of the leadership change, from primary votes of 39.3% for Labor (up 0.5%, 45.4% for the Coalition (up 0.3%) and 8.3% for the Greens (down 0.4%). ReachTEL shows Kevin Rudd with an unusually narrow 52.4-47.6 lead over Tony Abbott as preferred prime minister, but the knife is nonetheless turned on Abbott by a result on voting intention under a Malcolm Turnbull leadership which has the Coalition lead at 58-42. Turnbull is also favoured 65-35 over Rudd as preferred prime minister.
The Greens, strategically, are back where they were in 2006. Comfortable and at ease in their complete and encompassing Cone of Perpetual Opposition, thoroughly ignored by the electorate at large and certainly by anyone in power.
The whole ‘having influence on policy’ thing didn’t appear to be to their liking. Oh well, gotta try it to knock it!
I heard Professor Ben Saul??????? on ABC RN during the week describing that the Convention talks about avery general commitment to look after refugees.
He said that the method/manner in which a nation honours that obligation is not at all prescribed by the Convention.
In fact he said that it’s always fair enough for a nation to review and revise on a continuing basis how it’ll implement its responsibility.
I have been wondering why the PNG solution wasn’t tried instead of the Malaysian solution in May 2011. Because I’m sure the idea of a PNG solution would have been around the bureaucracy for a while. Perhaps at the time they proposed the Malaysian solution, politics in PNG was too unstable to make a PNG solution viable.
johncanb@2333
I think you are right with that.
Attitudes have hardened as may be seen on PB where Psephos has had considerable success in convincing others who previously disagreed with his views.
It is only in comparatively recent times that opinion has shifted enough to allow Labor to come up with this solution. JG may have been able to try something like this in the last few months, but it just seems that to some extent Rudd was lucky with the offer from Peter O’Neill.
Given Peter Hartcher’s closeness to Rudd it wouldn’t surprise me if this statement is informed by some internal Labor polling:
[Just now, Rudd isn’t likely to win. And he has time. Labor is at 50:50 on the election-deciding two-party share of the vote. That’s close to being in winning territory, but Labor’s 50 per cent vote is not distributed in the seats it needs to win to hold power.]
http://www.smh.com.au/federal-politics/political-opinion/rudds-threepoint-turn-20130719-2q9ud.html?utm_source=buffer&utm_campaign=Buffer&utm_content=buffera7c20&utm_medium=twitter
Jaundiced View, I am very interested to know what you ACTUALLY thought Rudd would do about asylum seekers. Obviously you’re rather annoyed he didn’t live up to your pie in the sky expectations so I’m wondering exactly what they were.
Did you really believe that ‘lurch to the right’ claptrap? Did you really think that Western Sydney was only Gillard’s problem?
Just checked on political stability in PNG in mid 2010, and Somare was having difficulty in holding his coalition together at that time. The quote from Bill Standish below shows how they routinely use millions of kinas of bribes to government MPs to hold coalitions together.
‘From 2004 the Somare-led governments have presided over a minerals boom providing 80 per cent of exports and 40 per cent of government revenue, and used what they call ‘windfall’ gains to supply MPs (especially government MPs) with electoral development funds of up to 17 million Kina (AU$ 7 million) each. That turns these legislators into part of the executive government but allows very scant transparency or monitoring of the expenditure. In August 2009 Somare avoided a vote of no confidence when the government paid its MPs K2 million each. In late July 2010 it is already alleged that at least K60 million has been dispersed from ‘trust’ funds to hold the government together, along with five new ministries. This tactic may work; ten of the rebels had returned to the government by the end of July’.
jV2350 sorry to upset you. I’ve made a number of points tonight about the undue influence of the Oz legal frat on Immigration policy in recent years. Their business model looks like being smashed by the PNG solution and I am happy about that. Happy too that, according to reports tonight, many refugees in Indonesia, now recognise that that their best prospect of getting to Oz is through the normal refugee protocols and assessments rather than via the people smugglers, who did nothing more than trade in human misery and line their own pockets. Your mates in the legal frat were bottom feeders in this whole process.
ShowsOn
I imagine a large percentage of the true swinging voters were waiting to see what Rudd would do when given power before shifting their vote back to the ALP.
If on say… Monday week the polls aren’t even slightly in Labor’s favour TPP, Rudd’ll have an uphill battle. But at this stage I think Rudd’s a very solid chance of winning quite a few of those crucial votes over.
So long as Abbott remains, anyway.
thank you zoomster
I wonder why ,, ? but glad she has, I hope she doesn’t get nasty messages.
gosh I miss her,,
if I think to much I get so sad,
sigh
And yes in mid 2011 when the Malaysia solution was proposed, PNG was unstable. It was resolved for a while in August 2011, when ‘Peter O’Neill replaced Sir Michael Somare as Prime Minister and there were controversial court rulings and animosity between the supporters of each side’.
johncanb@2353
John – I think Peter O’Neill’s, inclination / willingly to assist rudd/ australia in all this is pivotal.
Maybe him and rudd go way back? I don’t know.
But be became PNG PM in early August 2011.
Very very doubtful if the prior PM, Somare, or other PNG PM’s would have agreed to this.
But the facts will come out in time hopefully anyway.
Put it this way – will PNG get the inducement over a nominated time frame whether or not any AS / or significant AS’s ever go to Manus or stay there for a significant period?
Was this all about flushing out and destroying the AS model ? Again we might know in time and the extent that the Gillard Government may or may not got the ball rolling.
adrian
Posted Saturday, July 20, 2013 at 11:32 pm | Permalink
‘For the benefit of confessions
-=========================================
and U leave JG alone Adrian,, she is still the best humanatrian PRIME MINISTER WE EVER HAD
\as I said to u the other day ,, there are policies that all of us may need one day,,
we are only voting for rudd to save her policies, and save us from abbott
so please do not say things about our Julia
we leave rudd alone in conversation respect JG please
of course JG got the ball rolling she was in PNG but it did not suit the press to discuss it,
yes we will see when she writes her book but JUlia will wait till after the election, not like someone else who could not help but say things.
I will leave it there
My Say
Have no doubt, when the true story of JG is written in a few years it will be very praising, and she will feel very proud of what she did.
History will record that our first lady PM was a great one, as well as brave and resilient.
My Say
Have no doubt, when the true story of JG is written in a few years it will be very praising, and she will feel very proud of what she did.
History will record that our first lady PM was a great one, as well as brave and resilient.
its too late to be pondering the nation’s fate … both in the night and in electoral cycle …
I’ve been reading stacks of comments here in the last couple of days, and the common element in nearly all of them is crowing over someone else’s misery or unhappiness: Mr Abbott’s; Ms Gillard’s; asylum seekers (generally tainted by Psephos, in a cheap shot even by his standards, of opium dealing and daughter selling); enemy journalists; and of course other contributors to incestuous little group that this blog has become. What a filthy game Australian politics has become. As usual, the players are bad enough, but the supporters and hangers on are worse.
Rudd comes to power.
That night Carr talks about boat persons being mostly economic migrants.
Rudd states Abbott’s policy could lead to diplomatic conflict and raise the specter of military confrontation. Some say that was going to far…but had the effect of having Abbott’s policy under examination and puts Abbott on back foot.
Rudd goes to Indonesia and gets agreement 1.for a regional solution to be worked 2. Indonesia rebuff Abbott’s policy (and rebuffed it again later in case clothe ears didn’t hear properly)
3. Indonesia cancels policy of giving visas to all ‘fleeing’ muslims coming to Indonesia. At request of Rudd.
Rudd announces huge expansion of Manos facility.
Rudd announces all boat persons will not/never be settled in Aust.
This was a very well planned and organised project using those very Foreign Affair abilities that Rudd is known for.
Gillard and most there lack this type of strategic thinking and the ability to actually get it organised on the foreign scene.
To intervene in the Rudd/ Gillared debate, I would make the following observations:
1. Rudd is a former diplomat and FM, where Gillard is perhaps curiously distinguished by her lack of engagement with foreign affairs
2. However, Indonesia doesnt move that quickly. Im guessing some of these annoncements were indeed first cooked up under Gillard for electoral season.
3. However again, PNG does move quick, especially where AU is concerned. It wouldnt surprise me if this one was all Rudd.
Its become a footy match.
There would have been no harm in Indonesia agreeing a forum to nut out a regional solution when Gillard was in the job. That they didn’t was either because it wasn’t put to them, or put to them they way Rudd may have. Or they were not interested in helping a Gillard govt.
The Indonesia change of policy on visas I doubt had anything to do with Gillard, they did it at the request of Rudd.
The willingness of Indonesia to confirm its opposition to Abbott’s policy when the Lib’s tried to twist it, and going on TV. All these things seem to indicate some sort of closer relationship between Rudd and SBY/Indonesia.
Or maybe Gillard Labor never had the nouse or intellect to pursue these ideas, or Indonesia simply wasn’t interested dealing with them on them.
Thomas.
Got it in one.
Few could call the events coincidental.
pedant
Yeah, the good old’ days when schadenfreude didn’t exist and everyone was friends and disagreements were resolved by the exchange of rainbows and puppies and people weren’t jerks on the internet.
Wait when was this again?
Could be right TP & CW. Im just guessing, like all of us.
Absolutetwaddle
Mmmh.
Reminded me of the words I posted the other night.
Oh, I want to be a punk rocker, with flowers in my hair…
Dave
Think we need a Snowden.
Or maybe this is Assange’s motive for office.
absolutetwaddle @ 2374: Some time back, probably too long ago for you to remember. Back in the days when (a) civility was more common in society than it is now; and (b) when it wasn’t simply assumed that the normal rules of decent behaviour didn’t apply to political discourse.
I wonder how many of you here realise just how much you have in common with Alan Jones and Howard Sattler?
Little wonder we are whatever we are.
Civility and normal decent behaviour? Oh, for the good old days.
Pine Gap drives US drone kills
July 21, 2013 Philip Dorling
Central Australia’s Pine Gap.
Central Australia’s Pine Gap spy base has played a key role in the United States’ controversial drone strikes involving the ”targeted killing” of al-Qaeda and Taliban chiefs, Fairfax Media can reveal.
Read more: http://www.theage.com.au/national/pine-gap-drives-us-drone-kills-20130720-2qbsa.html#ixzz2ZbTLS4MR
New thread.
[bemused
Posted Sunday, July 21, 2013 at 12:14 am | Permalink
johncanb@2333
…
I think you are right with that.
Attitudes have hardened as may be seen on PB where Psephos has had considerable success in convincing others who previously disagreed with his views.
]
Psephos is one screwed up puppy; hopfully no-one takes him seriously.
Suggesting that there be no Visas policy makes no sense if your only option is to drown them, create an underclass in Australia because they can’t can’t work or lock them up forever.
Rudds brillance in this case is to come up with a forth option.
AbsoluteTwaddle:
[The whole ‘having influence on policy’ thing didn’t appear to be to their liking. Oh well, gotta try it to knock it!]
Having ‘influence’ on policy is only useful if the influence you get approaches ends you regard as worthy. If you become a mere appendage of policies you abhor, then having no ‘influence’ is at worst, no worse and arguably better, since you can disavow responsibility for bad things.
The Malaysia ‘solution’ — a policy of coercive and punitive rendition on a smaller scale than PNG — is a good example of this. The Greens could not have been party to such a policy without forfeiting a key value of our party — humanitarian treatment of those who are vulnerable. No Green MP or party member who endorsed this policy could have hoped to retain or gain endorsement — and rightly so. At branch level, the disgust and condemnation amongst those who troubled to comment on the policy was universal. To be fair, I don’t imagine it ever occurred to any of them to do so.
Our vote may fluctuate. That’s not something we can actively control, but unlike the major parties, we are in control of our party’s politics, and IMO, we are, most of the time, broadly correct in what we advocate, and certainly, never fundamentally wrong.
Psyclaw:
[He said that the method/manner in which a nation honours that obligation is not at all prescribed by the Convention.]
That’s true, but there are some exclusions, namely, not considering the manner in which arrivals present for protection in the claim. There are a bunch of others about ‘free movement’ within the jurisdiction, supply of travel documents, employment and education and housing and public relief, ‘the liberal professions’ and accreditation, not treating them worse than aliens in the territory who aren’t protected and so forth.
Scott Morrision has a face that just begs to be punched repeatedly.
[1996
crikey whitey
Posted Saturday, July 20, 2013 at 6:28 pm | PERMALINK
AA
‘I really do wonder about these High Court challenges.
They seem to happen when Labor tries to do something’.
Put’s one in mind of the police, State and Fed.
Albeit pursuing only the non LNP suspects.]
Not hard to debunk a myth. TryCommunist Party challenge under the Menzies govt or Patricks under Howard where the High Court resisted or blocked Federal Govt action.
Next time someone cheers a HC result, that person may pause to consider cliched assertions about elites etc which passed for debate last night.
People sometimes ask if the ALP will ever become the party of the left-of-centre imagination, or at least, no longer a party ethically and politically indistinguishable from its major centre-right rival.
The short answer is no. This is because those who favour such a course are willing to vote ALP despite the lack of interest in the ALP in doing so, or, these days, even winking at the left. As an old and repurposed aphorism runs: why buy the cow when you can have the milk for free?
Until the ALP needs left|sts to support it in order to defeat its rival centre right party, it will happily accept free and unconditional left-of-centre support in defeating that party.
The problem lies with us left-of-centre folk. We say we want progress, but what are we willing to live with to get it? Are we willing to withhold our effective preferences and see the ALP defeated until the ALP is forced to deal with us? Will we continue to do that until the ALP sees that being a progressive party is a necessary (though perhaps not a sufficient) condition of success? Do our principles imply anything substantive at all? Do they bind us to act?
It seems to me that there is only one adequate warrant for advocating that someone exercise authority and discretion over public policy — and that is that in some measurable way, the triumph of that person will approach, at optimum speed in all of the constraints, a condition in which policies that best serve the common good will be realised.
Anything else makes one an accomplice to the very things one claims to oppose. Anything else is thus mere hypocrisy of one form or another.
DisplayName
I think you are misinterpreting the situation.
Australia is still accepting refugees
Rudd’s plan if successful may be the best thing to ever happen for refugees.
Howard was able to run a high migration rate yet there was little to no opposition, why because the Government was seen as being in control.
This brings me back to the Rudd plan.
If nothing had changed and the number of boat arrivals kept increasing it would have started to undermine the whole immigration program.
If the number had reached lets say 100,000 boat arrivals, how would the voters have reacted.
Would they have swung to the ALP/Greens or would they have swung to the Hanson’s and Katters.
Lets ask ourselves do we want to undermine a highly successful immigration program and fill the parliament with Hanson’s and Katters.
If we want a real world example lets look at the U.K which has seen in recent times a large increase in the UKIP vote, driven in part by a large number of AS combined by the weak economy.
Put those two together and you are asking for a Hanson/Katter parliament.
The economy is not booming, Rudd knows this
People want job security and end of boats, Rudd knows this
I cannot see how anyone can oppose this policy.
It gives the Government control which enables them to continue with the important work or resettling people that are in need.
People that want to move to Australia need to be encouraged to find the mainstream approach.
Our termite too his wife to Afghanistan?
Hey Boerwar, if you are around, Tick Tock.