GhostWhoVotes reports that a Galaxy poll in tomorrow’s News Limited tabloids has two-party preferred at 50-50, from primary votes of 40% for Labor and 44% for the Coalition. This compares with a 51-49 lead for the Coalition at the last such poll four weeks ago, with Labor up two on the primary vote and the Coalition steady. More to follow.
UPDATE: James J fills the blanks: “Greens Primary for this poll is 9. Who do you think will be better, Kevin Rudd and the Labor Party or Tony Abbott and the Coalition, in handling the issue of asylum seekers? Rudd Labor 40, Abbott Coalition 38. Who do you think will be better, Kevin Rudd and the Labor Party or Tony Abbott and the Coalition, in tackling climate change? Rudd Labor 45, Abbott Coalition 31 Which of the two party leaders do you believe has the best vision for the future? Rudd 46, Abbott 36. July 23-25. 1015 sample.
We also have the Launceston Examiner reporting ReachTEL polls of 600 respondents in each of Bass, Braddon and Lyons show the Liberals continuing to lead in all three, although details provided in the article are sketchy.
UPDATE 2: Kevin Bonham has kindly passed on results of the ReachTEL poll of Bass, Braddon and Lyons. The polls were conducted on Thursday from respective sample sizes are 626, 659 and 617, for margins of error of around 4%. The results unusually feature personal ratings for both the Labor incumbents and Liberal candidates, which show a) implausibly high recognition ratings for all concerned (only 1.5% of Braddon respondents had never heard of their Liberal candidate, former state MP Brett Whiteley), b) surprisingly weak results for the incumbents, and c) remarkable uniformity from electorate to the next.
Bass (Labor 6.7%): Geoff Lyons (Labor) 34.7%, Andrew Nikolic (Liberal) 48.9%, Greens 9.4%. Two party preferred: 54.0%-46.0% to Liberal. Preferred PM: Rudd 50.6%, Abbott 49.4%. Geoff Lyons: 25.6%-39.8%-30.3% (favourable-neutral-unfavourable). Andrew Nikolic: 43.3%-24.0%-24.6%.
Braddon (Labor 7.5%): Sid Sidebottom (Labor) 34.6%, Brett Whiteley (Liberal) 51.3%, Greens 7.4%. Two party preferred: 56.8%-43.2% to Liberal. Preferred PM: Rudd 51.2%, Abbott 48.8%. Sid Sidebottom: 27.4%-37.8%-33.1%. Brett Whiteley: 42.7%-30.5%-25.3%.
Lyons (Labor 12.3%): Dick Adams (Labor) 32.3%, Eric Hutchison (Liberal) 46.8%, Greens 10.2%. Two party preferred: 54.4%-45.6% to Liberal. Rudd 50.7%, Abbott 49.3%. Dick Adams: 26.8%-34.3%-35.7%. Eric Hutchison: 36.8%-29.3%-18.2%.
UPDATE 3: More numbers from last night’s Galaxy poll. Kevin Rudd’s lead over Tony Abbott as preferred prime minister is unchanged at 51-34, but Malcolm Turnbull holds a 46-38 lead over Rudd.
UPDATE 4: Essential Research has the Coalition down a point for the second week in a row to 44%, Labor steady on 39% and the Greens up two to 9%. After shifting a point in Labor’s favour on the basis of little change in the published primary votes last week, two-party preferred remains at 51-49 despite more substantial change this week, suggesting the result has moved from the cusp of 52-48 to the cusp of 50-50. The poll finds 61% approval for the government’s new asylum seekers policy against 28% disapproval and concurs with Galaxy in having the two parties almost equal as best party to handle the issue, with Labor on 25% (up eight on mid-June), the Coalition on 26% (down 12) and the Greens on 6% (down one). The issue is rated the most important election issue by 7%, one of the most by 28%, quite important by 35%, not very important by 16% and not at all important by 8%. Malcolm Turnbull is rated best person to lead the Liberal Party by 37% against 17% for Tony Abbott and 10% for Joe Hockey, and there are further questions on workplace productivity.
…. and Goal Post Transportation, don’t you forget, Fran.
adrian@1894
Exactly.
Why should anyone be bothered commenting on events that only happened in the delusions of the bore?
Let’s see. Rudd’s 180 degrees on AGW.
Rudd went from AGW being the greatest moral challenge of our generation to doing nothing, de nada, collapso. He wouldn’t even go to a DD on it.
Rudd gets the heave ho. Gillard fixes up Rudd’s policy paralysis on AGW, introduces a carbon price and an ETS. She does so through all the troubles and travails of a minority government.
Rudd comes in: the very first thing he does is to reduce the price of carbon to polluters.
‘Rudd’s commitment to winning at all cost is 100%.’
About time Labor had a leader who was 100% committed to winning. This is supposed to be some kind of failure?
Boer,
Sometimes you are so full of shit.
CTar1
[Shellbell – I assume you’ve got Brumby’s colours ready to go]
I watched the second half against the Bulls – I cant recall a better performance than Smith’s in his position for some time
[‘Rudd’s commitment to winning at all cost is 100%.’
About time Labor had a leader who was 100% committed to winning. This is supposed to be some kind of failure?]
No failure, Labor are just Liberals now. It’s a big win for those on the right side of the fence with both party’s singing the right tune.
JV, you seem to have worked closely with asylum seakers so could I ask you this questIon? It is my persception that asylum seakers arriving by boat do not have identification papers. I don’t know if that is true. Could you please correct me if I am wrong?
rummel@1907
I’m calling bullshit on that.
There are vast differences in policy. e.g.
NBN v Fraudband
Emissions Trading v Direct Inaction
Economic Management – Stimulus v Austerity and recession
Asylum Seekers
Gonski
NDIS (Libs don’t really support)
These are ‘things worth fighting for’ to quote Ben Chifley.
Rudd is fighting 100% on these and other policies.
bemused
You have a strong opinion of Rudd. If scoring one-ten is a bit difficult, you could try a simple yes/no. For example if you think that Rudd has been a loyal supporter of his prime minister and of his party over the past three years you could assess Rudd as being ‘loyal’.
In this way you could come up with your own assessment of Rudd as: honest, loyal, having integrity, respectful of others and committed to values, principles and policies.
If you have doubts about givng Rudd a simple yes/no assessement for any of these criteria you could explain why, of course:
(1) honesty
(2) integrity
(3) loyalty
(4) respect for others
(5) committment to values
(6) committment to principles
(7) committment to policies.
Boerwar
At various times all politicians can earn a yes/no for all those things
Politics is not black or white and a good politician is one that is able to judge an issue on its merits rather than a narrow set of ideals.
cud chewer
Perhaps you would like to give Rudd a 0-10 score against the following criteria. For example, a 0 score for honesty would mean that you think that Rudd is always completely dishonest and a 10 score would mean that you assess him as always tell the complete truth. A 5 score might mean that he tells the truth if it does not matter to him whether he tells the truth. I recognize that there would be some elements of personal judgement involved, but that is what we do when we cast a vote for a person like Rudd, so that should be fair enough.
(1) honesty
(2) integrity
(3) loyalty
(4) respect for others
(5) committment to values
(6) committment to principles
(7) committment to policies.
To be fair and balanced you might like to do the same for Abbott.
Of course, no system of governance that is broadly inclusive, pluralistic and that preserves important frontiers between the state and civil society can ever be configures to as to be impermeable to those with anti-social objectives. Privilege and power, which are the key tradeables in governance, especially in communities where there are large aggregations of assets and significant numbers of people living a marginal existence.
One could however, configure the system to select much more consistently for both merit and commitment to the interests of humanity in general and their sections of it in particular.
The problem would be of course that any system setting that threatened an outcome like that would be seen as jeopardising the welfare of the most privileged, who, unsurprisingly, much prefer the settings that have allowed them to become privileged and stay that way, whatever its drawbacks and overheads. Indeed, even many of those who are not privileged fancy their chances of becoming so under current arrangements, and so like the inveterate gamblers who hear of big wins in the Lotto or at the horses or on the pokies, defend the continued rule of the privileged on the strength of the hope or fantasy that at some point, they too will enjoy their place amongst them.
bemused goes …..
“Exactly.
Why should anyone be bothered commenting on events that only happened in the delusions of the bore?”
….. goes bemused, bothering to comment.
Uhuh.
From Essential
PNG asylum seeker policy: Approve 61%, Disapprove 28%
mb
‘Boerwar
At various times all politicians can earn a yes/no for all those things’
I agree, which is why I proposed a rather more subtle set of options.
‘Politics is not black or white and a good politician is one that is able to judge an issue on its merits rather than a narrow set of ideals.’
I agree that we should expect a certain degree of pragmatism and compromise in terms of policy development.
The question here is whether we should expect regular 180 policy reversals based on the general principle of ‘whatever it takes’.
Why, for example, would we ever believe Abbott ever again after he (a) says paid parental leave will be introduced over my dead body and (b) announces a Rolls Royce PPL policy.)
Shellbell – I watched too.
It’s an uphill but a chance!
Puerile games from a puerile bore.
We get you hate Rudd, and we get it’s irrational.
I think your obsession is rather sick, but not being a psychiatrist, not sure of the diagnosis.
fran
I did ask you a question in a post above… did you happen to notice it? Having seen numerous posts between yourself and others, including myself, I thought I might have come close to why the posts routinely fly past each other without touching in flight.
sortius @sortius 11m
.@CameronWatt page 31: http://www.malcolmturnbull.com.au/wp-content/uploads/2013/04/Background.pdf … all Mal’s calculations start from 2014, NOT from when #NBN started.
sortius @sortius 10m
.@CameronWatt so yeh, as I stated, LNP plan should be $30b + $11b (or so). In essence more expensive than FTTP. $41b vs $37.4b
See:
http://sortius-is-a-geek.com/?p=3195
For more information.
adrian
Why don’t you leap at the opportunity to give Rudd a positive score? Here’s a chance for you to stand up for your man. 0-10 on each of the following criteria:
(1) honesty
(2) integrity
(3) loyalty
(4) respect for others
(5) committment to values
(6) committment to principles
(7) committment to policies.
You could start with the easy one and give Rudd 10/10 for loyalty. Assessing the other criteria might be a bit more tricky but I am sure that that would be a personal thing.
shellbell
Do you think it is possible that the AFL finals will not happen this year as a consequence of litigation arising from the ASADA investigation, and any possible behaviour of the AFL during the investigation, and/or any possible response of the AFL to the ASADA report?
Well, if bemused and adrian are unwilling to man up and give Rudd a rousingly positive character assessment who will?
Boerwar
Even thou a politician needs some flexibility there is a difference between judging a matter on its merits and another just for poll stake.
Has Rudd done a 180 for polling stake, yes it looks that way but this will be judged by the voters come polling day.
You ask why would we believe Tone, for a start he hasn’t done anything to earn believability, this is confirmed by the lack of hard policy detail, yes i accept they want to avoid a scare campaign but thus far we have a series of commencements that are little more than requests for reviews.
mexicanbeemer
‘Even thou a politician needs some flexibility there is a difference between judging a matter on its merits and another just for poll stake.’
Yep.
In case it hasn’t been mentioned: Essential unchanged at 51-49 to Coalition, ALP 39 (steady), L-NP 44 (-1), GRN 9 (+2).
boerwar
Do you ever get sick of talking to yourself?
On unauthorised boat arrivals who arrive without documents. This Crikey article sets out to prove that Morrison’s figure of 90% undocumented is rubbish, but in fact she establishes that Morrison has only exaggerated slightly:
http://www.crikey.com.au/2013/07/11/get-fact-how-many-asylum-seekers-turn-up-without-id/
The most important quote is: “In 2011-2012, 87% of those that flew in to Indonesia arrived in Australia undocumented. Between June 30, 2012 and October 31, 2012 (the most recent time period available), 78% were undocumented.”
So of those who acknowledged that they flew into Indonesia in 2011-12, between 78% and 87% arrived without documents. Since they must have had documents to fly to Indonesia, they must have either:
* used false IDs supplied to them by smugglers to enter Indonesia, and then returned them to the smugglers
* destroyed their papers while in Indonesia
In either case, this shows that about three-quarters of our boat arrivals are undocumented and of unknown origin.
Newspoll is looking like a statistical error poll with all the indications there is still a very small trend to Labor. Personally I think the Coalition are toast while Abbott remains LOTO. A majority of people like Rudd.
William
Might that possibly mean that the Greens preferences are not breaking to the ALP at around 80%?
Thanks William
rummel
Liberal ain’t Labor ain’t Liberal point is well made.
I noted a day or two ago that the thinking conservative should be well pleased, that despite Rudd’s swansong words in 2010, Labor has indeed moved itself to the right on many issues.
Whether this makes the conservatives any happier is another matter because all Rudd is doing is starving Abbott of oxygen of which there is more in the middle ground – to the right – than to the left.
Rudd paid Howard a huge compliment by offering himself as the younger “lite” version of Howard in 2007.
At that election it was notable he always addressed Howard as “Prime Minister” or “Mr Howard”. This was well thought out. I don’t think he will be anywhere as charitable to Abbott – and neither should he.
I suspect he is offering himself as this model again but with Tony Abbott in mind, the assassin with the smile rather than the glum and miserable assassin that Abbott looks like with his undertaker demeanour.
[PNG asylum seeker policy: Approve 61%, Disapprove 28%]
Can’t argue with that. 🙂
Centre centre are you there? Still waiting for that drop in the Greens vote you keep promising us!
Thanks P, I suppose I should have known it was all or nothing. As 90% of boat arrivals are assessed as refugees, how is that assessment made when 75% don’t have documentation?
Psephos
From the same article:
‘Most asylum seekers arrive with birth certificates, drivers licences, school certificates, letters from local priests, photocopies of identity cards, etc, however they are officially classified as “undocumented” if they can’t produce reputable state-issued photo identification upon arrival. The other forms of ID are used to help identify them and process their claims at a later stage.’
I would assume that it would be relatively straightforward to buy a fake passport for the trip – or even to borrow one for the trip from smugglers.
That aside, assuming that refugees are actively or passively under the hammer, it would hardly be surprising that gaining passports might be dangerous, difficult or impossible.
This would apply, presumably, to all boat passengers – from those who are persecution refugees, to those who are intent on becoming Australian citizens through the back door and to those who are both.
Socrates @1831. Thanks for the links!
1881!
BW
I did briefly catch one of your questions. IIRC, you wanted to know whether ‘numbers’ formed part of principles. In context, I assume you wanted to know whether the framework I proposed for dealing with burden sharing took account of the numbers entailed in dealing with the entirety of those arguably in need of one form of protection or other from any state paying lip service to the idea of human solidarity. Is that a fair summary of your question?
Essential must be very close to 50-50 on those numbers, rough estimate L-NP 50.6% ALP 49.4%
fran
Keane’s article in today’s Crikey covers it pretty well, if you have access to it.
Rummel,
ever notice when an election rolls round, Labor turns into a conservative party?
“You’d Turn back the boats”
“I’m a fiscal conservative”
“There will be no Carbon Tax under the government I lead” “We will be sending boatpeople to East Timor”
Leftwing parties are unelectable at elections, Labor has to do a mirage act before every election to look like the Coalition. Will the punters be fooled again by these Labor con-artists?
is that because ess, do a fortnight thing or something or other
something about rolling,
“@CastanCentre: Hearty congratulations to Dr Tim Soutphommasane (@timsout) on his appointment as Australia’s new Race Discrimination Commissioner.”
fran
Yes, but going much further to all things that might reasonably be measured and that might be impacted by implementation of the policies.
@Sean/1942
Except:
* They still have NBN, School and Health Funding.
* Rudd wanted ETS in 2007.
[‘Most asylum seekers arrive with birth certificates, drivers licences, school certificates, letters from local priests, photocopies of identity cards, etc, however they are officially classified as “undocumented” if they can’t produce reputable state-issued photo identification upon arrival. The other forms of ID are used to help identify them and process their claims at a later stage.’]
Yes I did read that. But they can’t have used any of those documents to fly to Indonesia. To do that you need a passport. Even in Pakistan you won’t find an international airline which will board passengers without passports. Yet somehow 75% of them manage to mislay their passports between Jakarta airport and the boat jetty. Why might this be so? Possible explanations:
* The used a fake passport to fly and the suppliers of fake passport take them back again on arrival.
* Their passports show they are actually Pakistanis and not Afghans as they intend claiming.
BW
[shellbell
Do you think it is possible that the AFL finals will not happen this year as a consequence of litigation arising from the ASADA investigation, and any possible behaviour of the AFL during the investigation, and/or any possible response of the AFL to the ASADA report?]
I doubt any club would seek to stop the finals from proceeding in the usual way.
The only like position in recent times was when the Canterbury Bulldogs were stripped of all their points, while leading the comp, in 2002 near finals time for salary cap breaches. They accepted their punishment.
If, perchance, the Bombers were similarly punished, they could seek an injunction preventing their punishment taking effect (ie they get to play in the finals) but the ramifications are pretty staggering:
(1) they would be deeply unpopular (I am not from Melbourne so this may be more of the same – didn’t they cheat Adelaide out of a preliminary final win in 1993?);
(2) they would have to give an undertaking as to damages which they would have to pay if the punishment is found to be justified down the line.
The damages would presumably be payable to the 9th placed team and anyone they beat in the finals plus costs of replayed matches if that occurred.
I suspect the powers of the AFL concerning suspension and other punishments are carefully crafted and broad that any appeal would be difficult.
The one proviso is the extent to which Essendon officials feel a challenge is necessary to save their own careers.
PeeBee and others
Before the demonisation begins on another standard line of attack on refugees, the lack of papers is the same all over the world. Unless forged papers can be paid for, which can be in Pakistan for example, and used to arrive by air, it is difficult for people to obtain or travel with real documents:
[The UNHCR emphasises that a person who has a well‐founded fear of persecution should be viewed as a refugee and not be labelled an ‘illegal immigrant’ as the very nature of persecution means that their only means of escape may be via illegal entry and/or the use of false documentation.8 The Refugee Council of Australia similarly notes the practical difficulties encountered by asylum seekers in obtaining the requisite documentation prior to departure:
“Applying for a passport and/or an exit visa can be far too dangerous for some refugees; so too can be an approach to an Australian Embassy for a visa. These actions can put their lives, and those of their families, at risk. In such cases refugees may have to travel on forged documents or bypass regular migration channels and arrive without papers.9”]
http://www.aph.gov.au/binaries/library/pubs/bn/sp/asylumfacts.pdf
Crikeys Australian election indicator roughly 70% LNP, 30% ALP. Seems a bit out of whack with the current polling.