GhostWhoVotes tweets that the Abbott government’s second Newspoll result has the Coalition leading Labor 53-47, down from 56-44 a fortnight ago. The Coalition is down two points on the primary vote to 45%, with Labor up one to 32% and the Greens up two to 12%. Newspoll thereby returns to the pack after its previous result, which was unique out of the 15 polls published since the election in showing a significant rise in support for the Coalition. Tony Abbott’s personal ratings are still much better than any he enjoyed as Opposition Leader, although he is down two on approval to 45% and up four on disapproval to 38%. Bill Shorten has made a handy five-point gain on approval to 37%, with disapproval steady at 24%. Preferred prime minister changes only slightly, Abbott’s lead of 47-28 a fortnight ago narrowing to 46-30.
Stay tuned for the weekly Essential Research, which should be out later today.
UPDATE: Essential Research remains at 53-47, with both Coalition and Labor down a point on the primary vote, to 44% and 35% respectively, and the Greens up one to 9%. Monthly personal ratings find Tony Abbott’s disapproval on the upswing after a post-election improvement, up five points to 40%, while his approval is down one to 45% off his personal best result of a month ago. Bill Shorten’s debut ratings are 31% approval and 27% disapproval, and he trails Abbott as preferred prime minister 42-27. The poll also throws in personal ratings for Joe Hockey as Treasurer, in what looks like it might become a regular series, and it shows him viewed very favourably with 45% approval and 28% disapproval.
Further questions find 48% approving Labor’s position of dumping the carbon tax if it is replaced with an emissions trading scheme versus 26% disapproving; strongly favourable response to dumping fringe benefit tax on cars, weakly favourable response to dumping the mining tax, super tax increase and cap on education expenses, and strongly negative responses to dumping subsidies for low super contributions; and 25% opposition to live sheep and cattle exports, 16% unqualified support, and 52% support for the qualification that the receiving country should guarantee humane treatment.
imacca,
Why do you impute political awareness to those plants? They are given bits of paper with writing in 16 point. What’s so hard?
deblonay,
You are trying to attribute to circumstance what is innate.
[There is zero evidence that he saved any bacon at all.]
There’s plenty of indirect evidence, such as the polls and the fact the Labor Party dumped Gillard for Rudd to save some furniture, despite detesting him.
None whatsoever, Deblonay.
[They are given bits of paper with writing in 16 point. What’s so hard?]
Oh, alright then. But i was thinking, get ST on there as well and even my daughter may get interested.
Plants vs Zombies. 🙂
Firstly there is something a tad sad about seeing Rudd’s resignation.
I have felt it was needed for the healing process after the past few years, i can’t help but to think there were several who walked away that if they had stayed could haev continued to have made a positive contribution.
Regarding Griffith, I would think Glesson would win the seat for the LNP but the history of by-elections highlighted by OC was interesting.
The 1920 one does look interesting, couldn’t image that would result in a modern polly being expelled.
Possible candidates, Kate Jones might be a good prospect of she has any connection with the seat or maybe the former MP for Petrie.
Bill Shorten certainly thinks he made the right decision to dump Gillard to save the furniture.
[ any chance of a reprieve for Bemused.who despite tonight’s tiny lapse of good taste was after all rather provoked by GG who once called him a “piece of excrement”.. ]
Oh please, no!
PB is a much better blog when it is not being spoilt by such acrimonious monomaniacs.
2256
The power for the HoR or the Senate to expel one of their members was legislated away in 1987.
One thing which i notice no one has commented on what Toen basically saying Howard lacked imagination.
Yes the comment related to the Sorry speech but still fancy Tone rubbishing Howard.
Diogenes@2253
Dio genes. You will have to be way more specific. At polling date there was nothing favour of Kevvie. As for Labor caucus, talk about a lot of nervous Nellies about their (failure of) re-election!
Bill Shorten, whose votes were crucial, only rolled Lady Julia because he wanted to be Top Dog.
Australia is now in the position where it can’t go to the rescue of boats that close to Indonesia without obtaining permission from the Indonesian government first. It’s an unacceptable situation but the result of countries undertaking their diplomatic relationships through the media.
Tom
I was wondering if it was still possible to expel a sitting MP.
There is something unsettling about the situation with Indonesia, i appreciate that they don’t have the resources needed to cover their whole coast line but they are an emerging economy. Maybe we need to find a way to share resources
mexicanbeemer@2263
Only through a criminal conviction. Quite proper, too.
MB the military was able to share resources but that changed yesterday.
Time for politicians in both countries to stop playing political roulette with people’s lives.
@MB/2264
And Hockey do have $250 billion set aside, including the $5 billion or so ripped out Foreign Aid.
all the howard era Libs looked so sad to see Rudd go, probably thinking about the cushy jobs he would have given them if they’d lost the election and no worries about being part of this joke of a government
Ducky
I’m not a fan of Shorten but even I think he knifed Gillard to save the furniture.
Her polling was abysmal. I’m sure it would have improved but we will never know what it would have ended up at.
Just as we will never know if Rudd would have easily won in 2010 if he wasn’t dumped.
TLBD
True i know times and attitudes were different in 1920 but being expelled for insulting the head of state does seem extreme although earlier monarchs would have responded with an invite to the tower
@davidwh/2266
It’s too late to crawl out from the mess that Morrison, Bishop, Abbott created in the first place.
They didn’t like to negotiate, so they try to shoot first, ask questions later approach.
2263
Only if the legislation is changed. Probably will not happen.
[Maybe we need to find a way to share resources]
The Gillard government was working on it.
Tony Abbott, Scott Morrison, Julie Bishop and David Johnston have fucked it all up through their incompetence.
Nice if Rudd had something to spill on Murdoch and his journos, but even doubt that,if not best to go and never heard of again
2265
Had the ALP Senators withdrawn the supply bill, after Whitlam was dismissed, and the non-restoration of Whitlam not happened then expelling Fraser an his HoR ministers would have been quite reasonable.
2260 Yes, I did notice it and mentioned it briefly in my previous comment. If Abbott gets into trouble in the next few years Johnnie may not be as wholehearted in his endorsement of Tony over, say, Malcolm Turnbull or Julie Bishop, than he was before today. Even when qualified it was a gaffe on Abbott’s part to insult the former PM like that
ThisLittleBlackDuck We can only go on polling evidence to compare how Rudd and Gillard would have performed, but it is now a matter for historians to debate over
Diogenes@2257
Bill Shorten thinks Bill Shorten made the right decision to dump Julia Gillard for his own advancement. The alternative is that Bill Shorten would have been a “lesser” minister in Julia Gillard’s next government.
It is not that hard!
Anyone could have polled better than Gillard after what Rudd did to her.
Rudd’scampaign went on too long, probably by a year. My opinionis that even he didn’t have his heart in it after the No-Show. But the fanboyz urged him to continue on, for their own careers’ sake.
Sure, some of them got to be ministers at last, but at what price?
Rudd was an unmitigated disaster after 2010, and I for one will never wish him the best. I wish him the worst.
Good riddance.
Try as anyone might, it’s utterly impossible to separate Gillard’s fate and performance in office without taking the Termite’s constant gnawing into account.
He wrecked the party, wrecked Gillard and now just pisses off to Chatham House (or wherever).
So typical of the man. Bat. Ball. Go home. Don’t come back.
Just reflect on the damage Bill Shorten has done to the Labor Party. He has got rid of Julia Gillard, Greg Combet, Peter Garrett and others. He has had to endure the promotion of wuckfits like Kim Carr and Joel Fitzgibbon. He has had to give nods to the likes of Chris Bowen and Ed Husic and leave such as Andrew Leigh as an “Assistant”.
The man has done Labor zero good.
@2270, Mahon’s expulsion was a blatantly political move. I’ve just looked up Gavin Souter’s account again, and it’s fascinating stuff. Mahon was absent when the motion to expel him was put, and Hughes essentially said he had committed treason and was therefore unfit to be an MP. Only one other government MP (George Maxwell, later one of Hughes’ rebels in 1929) spoke in support. Fourteen Labor members spoke against, with great vigour. Souter suggests:
And so it proved. I find it interesting that the even fierier Mick Considine, who represented the staunchly Labor NSW mining seat of Barrier, was instead sent to jail (for three weeks!) and fined for publicly declaring “Bugger the king, he is a bloody German bastard” in 1919. There was, of course, no prospect of Labor losing Barrier in a by-election.
Oh, FFS…
[JOE Hockey has raised the prospect of a US-style government shutdown, warning that commonwealth services could start closing after December 12 if the Coalition’s legislation to raise the debt ceiling to $500 billion is blocked in the Senate by Labor and the Greens. –
See more at: http://www.theaustralian.com.au/national-affairs/policy/joe-hockey-warns-of-debt-deal-gridlock/story-fn59nsif-1226759381271#sthash.klOcJCTC.dpuf ]
On MPs being expelled by parliament – I kind of have the suspicion that parliament never actually had the power to do it – I don’t believe the Constitution gives parliament this power – and exercising the power they didn’t have was improper and wouldn’t/shouldn’t have survived a High Court challenge.
The Constitution spells out only a couple of ways that Senators or Reps can lose their seats, and otherwise the general idea is spelled out that:
and
ie the Senators and members of the House of Reps are clearly supposed to consist of those people elected, and the parliament itself can’t just arbitrarily decide that one of their member can’t sit and vote etc.
[JOE Hockey has raised the prospect of a US-style government shutdown, warning that commonwealth services could start closing after December 12 if the Coalition’s legislation to raise the debt ceiling to $500 billion is blocked in the Senate by Labor and the Greens]
Go for it, Joe!
Hard to know where to start but Stephen Koukoulas certainly might be.
This is head-shakingly ridiculous. HoJo obviously is not aware of the appropriations and expenditures in the last budget.
Funny how no one seems to mention Rudd’s Leadership of the Liberation of Libya.
You cannot expel a member of our federal parliament unless he is found guilty of a criminal offence carrying a certain jail sentence. Check Thomson’s case.
Jackol, I am not a constitutional lawyer but the relevant section of the constitution was s49, to wit:
The House of Commons had been expelling members (rarely) since the 1600s, and it retains the ability to do so. This is not explicitly codified but is seen as a consequence of parliamentary privilege – that is, that parliament is entitled to rule on matters of its own membership. There is no requirement that any criminal act be conducted – in fact reason for expulsion is left entirely to the House’s discretion. It is surprising that this hasn’t been abused more often.
Section 8 of the Parliamentary Privileges Act 1987 specified that neither House of the Australian Parliament was permitted to expel any of its members.
@BB/2282
Is Obama doing well in the polls RE: after shutdown ?
errm, Hockey might want to check his counterparts in USA.
“Obama approval ratings hit record lows”.
It’s a jail sentence of a year or more that results in “expulsion” (although really it’s more disqualification). Unless the conviction was for treason, they are permitted to run again after the sentence is concluded as long as it’s at least two years later.
http://www.usatoday.com/story/theoval/2013/11/13/obama-quinnipiac-university-poll-health-care/3514103/
“As with similar polls in recent days, most of Obama’s problems can be traced to criticism of the new health care plan, including website problems and cancellation notices on existing policies.”
Frickeg – obviously I am not a constitutional lawyer either, but I’m pretty sure that any implied powers or conventions from the House of Commons are extinguished by anything explicitly described in the Constitution itself, and that the Constitution itself explicitly says that the Senate and HoR shall be made up of those members elected seems pretty clear to me.
But anyway, you may well be right, and people obviously felt the treatment of Mahon had some basis at the time, and subsequently people felt that there was a need to spell it out in the 1987 act, so better minds than mind felt there was a basis.
[ commonwealth services could start closing after December 12 if the Coalition’s legislation to raise the debt ceiling to $500 billion is blocked in the Senate ]
Why??
@Imacca/2292
Because Labor only let Joe take debt to $400 billion.
[Because Labor only let Joe take debt to $400 billion.]
OK, so if its get to 300 by December 12, and they let JoHo have another 100 before then like they have pretty much said they will, all is well and if he needs more he comes and asks nicely.
JoHo must think we are idiot Tea Baggers or something.
Jackol – my entirely untutored expectation would be that, since Mahon was not prohibited from running for re-election (as he did), it would have survived a challenge since the seat was going to a by-election and thus fulfilled the requirement that the members be chosen directly. Essentially it functioned like a normal vacancy caused by death, resignation or absence. The passages you mention are also qualified later on; in the Senate, for example, appointed senators are not chosen “directly” by the people.
Reading the relevant parts of the Constitution, Hughes also made implied reference to sections 44 and 45, and specifically that Mahon was supporting a “foreign power” (the Irish Free State – clearly a generous interpretation) and that he had thus not only declared allegiance to such (voiding his membership), but also broken the oath of allegiance.
@imacca/2294
Yup, and Hockey claims that Labor’s own advise say this is true.
http://www.skynews.com.au/politics/article.aspx?id=924173
On top of this, Abbott accused Labor of doing USA style blocking, when Coalition Party started this in the first place.
Labor is of course is correct that Coalition Party need to explain the use of the increase debt, of which they will need to tell the public.
Hockey continues to throw dirt at Labor by blaming Labor of the debt, but it wants to increase the debt without the public knowledge? Of what it wants to do with the debt, where it is sent, why, who will benefit it etc.
All in all, I rate this gov on this type of game-play as newbies.
Yes the Thompson case is a clear case in point.
On other news CNN Weather revealed that research into weather patterns and their link to climate change.
The evidence shows strongest evidence has been found with several places having heat waves either where they have not previously occurred or outside of the summer season
The research showed the amount of evidence connected to each difference weather event.
I image they haev further on their website.
Frickeg – as I said, I understand the Constitution itself spells out exceptions, and that is kind of the basis of my argument. Because it does spell out the few exceptions, that seems to me to mean that the exceptions, as spelled out, are the only ones that should be legitimate.
To my mind the fact that Hughes attempted to justify the decision in terms of trying to get coverage from sections 44 and 45 tell me the whole exercise was dodgy. If an MP is disqualified by any of the categories spelled out there, it is not something that the parliament itself is in a position to determine. They can’t (or at least in my mind they shouldn’t) just be able to say “We don’t like you, we say you fail criteria X”. If an MP fails to meet the criteria, that seems to me to be something the High Court should assess, and what parliament has to say about it should be irrelevant.
But maybe I’m just being naive.
Jackol – this is either something constitutional lawyers argue a lot about, or one or both of us is completely misreading the whole thing. I’ve been putting off an essay for way too long, so I’ll simply say that I don’t really get the implication that the spelled out exceptions are the only ones, especially since the powers of the House of Commons are granted specifically and without exception. Who knows, though? Certainly you’ll get no argument from me that the whole thing with Hughes was incredibly grubby. In what I was reading it seemed to me that the House of Commons is empowered to expel people for any reason they feel like, which makes me think that I simply must be missing something because otherwise I can’t understand why that House has never abused the power in the way that Hughes did.
For reference, the most recent House of Commons expulsion was in 1954 when Peter Barker was expelled after being convicted of forgery (John Stonehouse would certainly have been expelled but, well, history – and insanity – intervened). From what I can see all the expulsions have been precipitated by either criminal convictions or serious breaches of parliamentary privilege.
Gillard’s installation was monumental stupidity from beginning to end. And at least 12 months in the intention and planning. This little power play to restore factional power and have her as their front was supposed to be easy with no backlash. Such was her and the power brokers arrogance toward Australians and democracy.
Well the public weren’t duped and quickly released it for what it was.. a senseless coup for internal politics.
She spent most of her time as PM being hated by the public, who were loud and clear in their desire for her to be dumped and Rudd restored. The fact that the warlords kept her in the chair for so long just pissed off the public more and saw them abandon labor altogether.
She fumbled policy implementation consistently and also gave the Coalition free kicks and the chance to take credit for things that were not theirs. As a national leader she was a complete disaster. Her forte was as an administrator…a public serve CEO probably.
The result with her remaining was looking to be Labor with 30 seats… a masacre…and even with some softening…still a wipe out for Labor. Rudd’s return saved her arse and her ‘legacy’ as Aust first female PM….rather than her being remembered as the total destroyer of Labor as she would have been.
It is telling that her supporters are unable to make anything of her without have slag Rudd. You always have to keep justifying her by attacking Rudd…which tells you that she was much less than your imagination.
Looking forward to some Rudd books, and interviews in the future..that will out all these rats.