It’s been a quieter week on the polling front in the wake of last week’s bonanza, with only the regular weekly Essential Research and fortnightly Morgan added to the mix. The new additions do nothing to halt the momentum to Labor which emerged in the previous result, with shifts of 1.3% shift on the primary vote and 0.5% on two-party preferred. The latter gain is blunted by the fact that the Greens are down 1.2%, having failed of late to replicate a series of stronger results in early to mid-November. The two-party preferred measure is now being calculated with newly available preference flow results from the September 7 election, replacing modelled preference projections used previously. This hasn’t made much difference to the national result, but it’s helped eliminate an anomalous gain for the Liberals on the seat calculation in South Australia. The other change on the seat projection is an extra gain for Labor in New South Wales. It should be noted that the model continues to leave the Coalition well ahead of Labor despite the position of near-parity on two-party preferred, indicating the impact of “sophomore surge” effects on the BludgerTrack model in the seats Labor most needs to win. See the sidebar for full results.
This is the thing about leadership.
Some people have it, and most don’t.
My son’s grandfather was a private in the army, he was 22 years old at the Battle of Milne Bay.
Most of his unit was killed. And he became a colonel overnight. He took on the role of leader. And served with distinction.
He didn’t tell us this. We found out only recently, after his death. Courtesy of the RSL.
Like Keating though, he always knew what he was fighting for. My son’s grandfather was a farmer’s son, and lived through the depression.
Although he was used to hardship, he didn’t want to dine on rabbit for the rest of his life and eagerly signed up with the army at the outset of war. He was born on Armistic Day 1919.
Funny, isn’t it.
Still, he kept the rest of his company alive through skill and possibly luck. Good on him.
He was always a humble man, and it’s because of the courage of men like him, that Australia was saved, despite Japanese records that say they never intended to invade Australia.
He never complained about the accolades received by other Aussie soldiers, but ordinary Australians, us, we need to thank people like my son’s grandfather for the existence of their extraordinary lives today, as well as all the others who lost their lives in their thousands on foreign soil.
Keating was right. Australia came of age in New Guinea, and needed to be recognised as such.
Makes you laugh, doesn’t it, when you think that Hockey and Rudd did the Kokoda trek.
[The Chises Communists have form for this. Back in the 1960s, A Swede working in China was on the phone to his family in Sweden, in Swedish and the call was cut into with a message to speak English only and then cut off.]
I very much doubt it was possible to call Sweden from China in the 1960s.
[When did the incident with you friend happen?]
He’s been living there since 2005, he told me this story when I was there in 2010.
Mandela’s support and respectibility wasn’t always the case
____________________
Prof Cole from Michigan Uni points out that in the UK the Tories and notably Thather… denounced Mandela as a communst and terrorist ,and in the US Reagan talked of dealing with “moderates ” in the apartheid regime..and the Israelis worked in the nucleur field with South Africa and had many other forms of co-operation with them …birds of a feather indeed…and here John Howard in an earlier time…like many c oonservatives here loathed the ANC and Mendela…so the Abbott visit nest week should be treated with contempt
Prof Cole sums this all up
http://www.juancole.com/2013/12/mandela-supported-apartheid.html
[2340
Puff, the Magic Dragon.
Posted Saturday, December 7, 2013 at 7:06 pm | PERMALINK
I think Monsieur Curie was quite sick when he had his accident. They both handled the material unprotected. Mm Curie carried on their work after his death, so any thought that all she did was wash the beakers is misogynist crap.]
It sure is. They don’t award someone TWO Nobel Prizes for dish washing. The French scientific community actually treated her fairly badly, which comes as no surprise.
[Schnappi
Posted Saturday, December 7, 2013 at 11:24 pm | PERMALINK
Kezza2
As you do not know me ,well served 23 years army ,ex SAS as was called, so do not think you can accuse me of diminishing anything to do with my country ,my family]
Oh, please, as if I’m trying to diminish the efforts of folk who fought in any theatre of war, or in defence of country.
It’s not your fault your family, or you, were sent so far away from home.
I was agreeing with Keating that we needed to acknowledge Australia’s identity as forged in New Guinea, not in the bloodbath of Gallipoli, where Australian troops were sacrificed at British whim; where we were expendable, rather than where we actually had victory.
On the other hand, Tobruk was another story. It was a success in another theatre. For a whole lot of different reasons.
That’s all.
If you’re going to take offence, then I’m sorry for even mentioning it.
Although, that must be the reason why Kokoda isn’t the defining moment for Australia’s nationhood. There weren’t enough Aussies there.
My son’s grandfather wasn’t there, either. Yet he felt it epitomised the Australian soldiers’ war effort.
But perhaps that’s because he fought in NG, not in the ME or Europe.
nitey nite…(utterly stuffed tonite)…see y’all
2502
There would already have been some phone links to the outside world before the Communist takeover. It is likely to have been in their interests to have some phone links working. China was only closed to the West and Sweden was more neutral and thus not as restricted. There were phone links around the world in the 1960s.
No polling tonight?
deb
[Another curious accidental death involving a famous peson,was the death of the great Catalan architect Gaudi who died when riding his bike in Barcelona and was hit by a tram]
Gaudi lived very frugally and wasn’t recognised when he was hit. They thought he was a beggar. He was basically left to die and then dumped in a dead beat hospital. By the time he was recognised, it was too late.
2509
An argument as to why rich people should support universal healthcare.
http://www.bloomberg.com/news/2013-12-05/ford-s-sleeker-mustang-with-smaller-engine-targets-global-sales.html
cute
Umm, not bad:
http://www.independentaustralia.net/politics/politics-display/abbott-and-murdoch-all-out-damage-control,5965
6:00am Nett_NEWS Digest Update 8/12 http://bit.ly/1aQcqOy
The comments are intersting
http://www.thejakartapost.com/news/2013/12/06/marty-bishop-meeting-yields-little-progress.html
I think Andrew is no better than Abbott in trying to bring politics into Mandela’s death, but there you are.
http://andrewelder.blogspot.co.uk/
Dolly gets a shellacing
https://newmatilda.com/2013/12/06/intimidation-wont-work-collaery
Operation sovereign border. Seems to be more money down the drain for little result. Wonder why they didn’t use mobile for a pickup when close, as was past practice.
http://www.theguardian.com/world/2013/dec/06/christmas-island-stranding-police-scour-jungle-for-missing-asylum-seekers
Take out the month of November and shooting it is not going to help:
http://www.theguardian.com/world/2013/dec/06/abbott-team-in-government-loses-control-of-conversation
New thread.
Diogenes@2158
[I hate it when teams don’t enforce the follow-on.]
Most of the time, it’s the better option. These days, there’s no rest day in test matches, so even when you win, the cost in human resources is higher than it needs to be.
In this case, there’s a 3-day interval until Perth (4 if they win early) and it makes especial sense to settle the burdens of winning the match more evenly onto the shoulders of your own players than a follow-on would imply, given the amount of time left and the absence of any significant unscheduled breaks in play.
Psychologically and physically, going out into the field is also far more damaging for the side that has been rolled cheaply on a flat deck than sending them back in on a mission against tiring bowlers.
That’s why since 2001 at Kolkata (Calcutta) the Australians have been disinclined to enforce. The decision by SRW to do so was probably the worst blunder by an experience Test captain in Cricket history. I shook my head in disbelief, and the defeat it authored cost Australia the series.
Sidebar: Look across the ditch at our peers the Kiwis who enforced against the Windies. Perhaps they had no choice as time was short, but the Windies did manage to put on 507 batting a second time.