GhostWhoVotes reports Newspoll’s third entry in the life of the new government has Labor hitting a 52-48 lead on two-party preferred, after leads of 56-44 and 52-48 for the Coalition in the first and second polls. This is Labor’s first two-party lead in Newspoll since the poll of March 18-20, 2011, which was itself an aberrant Labor-friendly result that emerged a month after Julia Gillard announced plans to introduce a carbon tax. Primary votes are 38% for Labor, up three on a fortnight ago, with the Coalition down three to 40% and the Greens down one to 9%.
UPDATE: James J in comments relates that Tony Abbott’s approval rating has maintained its downward trend across the three polls, going from 45% to 42% and now to 40%, while his disapproval has progressed upwards from 38% to 42% to 45%. Bill Shorten’s approval has gone from 37% to 39% to 44%, while his disapproval was 24% in the first poll to 27% in the second and third. Tony Abbott’s lead as preferred prime minister is also narrowing, going from 46-30 in the first poll to 44-33 in the second to 41-34 in the third.
UPDATE 2: The Australian’s report is here. Stay tuned for more polling action courtesy of Essential Research at around 2pm EST tomorrow – I believe we’re due for Essential’s monthly leadership ratings, which should be interesting.
UPDATE 3 (Essential Research): The Essential Research fortnightly average reflects the move to Labor in its characteristic slow and steady way, moving one point to Labor on two-party preferred for the second week in a row to reduce the Coalition lead to 51-49. Labor is up a point on the primary vote to 37%, the Coalition and the Greens steady on 44% and 8%, and the Palmer United Party is up one to 5%. Tony Abbott’s approval rating is unchanged on last month at 45%, but his disapproval rating is up six to 46%. Bill Shorten on the other hand finds things going his way as the undecided jump off the fence, his approval up eight to 39% and disapproval up four to 31%. Similarly to Newspoll, Abbott holds a 43-33 lead as preferred prime minister, narrowing from 42-27 last time.
Questions on education provide the government with better results than it might have feared: its handling of education has 35% approval and 50% disapproval, while Labor’s lead as better party to handle the issue is only 36-33, although there’s also a 7% Greens component in the mix. Only 26% believe all schools will be better off under the new government, 26% believe only private schools will and 22% believe no schools will, with 2% signing on to the unlikely proposition that only public schools will. Also canvassed are the importance of unions “for Australian working people today” (57% important, 34% not important), and the importance of politicians keeping their promises.
The ASX has been increasing recently due in part to the mass money printing which is flooding the global equity market.
2450
I would have thought that that statement means that the most unproductive is removed first.
silmaj
If Holden had been thinking like Ford then you would be right but this situation appears different with Holden putting forward a business case to build two models until 2022.
It is the government that said no to that deal so Holden made its level headed business decision.
@silmaj/2452
So what do you do with an unproductive workforce, after they been forced out of their jobs?
Where is the plan to retrain them?
You see, it’s not just a matter of force closure of Holden & Co, but you need a PLAN, the current PLAN is to blame Unions for pay conditions.
zoid:
The leader of the Nationals went to the backbench, meaning a reshuffle was inevitable.
2453
We make Holden parts. If you want to blame Abbott go for it however it is just more partisan garbage that manufacturers have to put up with.
@silmaj/2456
Well, Abbott was the one said to get out? and he is the PM, so I don’t see the problem of blaming Holden.
2454
I said previously that equipment that was unaffordable will soon be cheap. This equipment may be able to be used in other industries.
@silmaj/2458
The only industries that Abbott & Co is interested in is Mining, so “industries” is just “industry”.
I think there is a fair amount of “partisan garbage” here that emanates from sources other than the ALP side.
As far as blaming Abbott goes – the government wasn’t a passive player in this. It was a choice on the government’s part to reduce industry assistance.
There may well be legitimate reasons for refusing to increase assistance, but the LNP aren’t arguing that case, they just said “no more”, then made a whole bunch of public argy-bargy about GMH needing to “come clean”, and then say “oh isn’t it sad there’s nothing we could have done”.
Abbott and the LNP were in the driver’s seat. They made a deliberate choice. They should take responsibility for that choice and make the case to the Australian public.
Exhibiting bizarre passive aggressive behaviour and blaming everyone and everything else for the consequences of their own decision making – that’s just pathetic.
silmaj
My position has nothing to do with partisan politics, i I don’t particularly like government spending without a return on investment.
I am looking at this from a financial perceptive and if Holden have outlined a plan to build two models and as you might know a business needs cash flow to conduct its business.
If a deal as been put forward and the government has said no then that is the government’s decision.
I hope the government has weighted up the economic and opportunity cost of knocking back this deal.
Holden have a responsible to their shareholders and with the loss of up to $500 million which will leave an impact on the statement of cash flow.
Holden are under considerable pressure both in the states and globally therefore they are faced with many difficult chooses.
2457
More partisan spinning and garbage. The current Govt wanted the speculation of an already made decision to no longer be speculation. People in the game have known for a long time. As I said b4 blame Abbott. Why not blame him for Ford? . Let’s blame Abbott for everything.
Ford’s decision was made under the previous government and it made a business decision to leave, it didn’t seek a new package.
@silmaj/2462
Sounds like everything you disagree with is “spinning and garbage”.
I’m sure you can do better than that, when you trying to have a serious discussion.
Abbott is PM, Abbott said no.
Abbott has been trying to reverse what Labor has done since winning election.
LMAO. In case you hadn’t noticed, the current government created the speculation. The major stories of the last week saying that GMH had already made the decision to stop manufacturing came from government sources – leaking against Macfarlane who was still, apparently, negotiating in good faith.
Either GMH hadn’t made a decision, as they said, until yesterday, and the LNP sources that leaked were lying or exaggerating, or GMH were lying in their public statements.
As far as I’m concerned, GMH have no particular reason to lie. The LNP have obvious reasons to lie. Occam’s razor solves that one for me.
And exactly when a decision gets made is not a binary black/white thing. GMH may well have made the decision to pull out under certain circumstances – eg, they’d already said in their pre-election statements that their ongoing manufacturing investment would depend on the government industry assistance package. It makes perfect sense that they had already made a decision that if the government didn’t come to the table they would pull out. Is that a final decision? Does the government deciding they won’t go back on their election commitment to cut industry assistance count as implicitly making GMH’s decision for it, and therefore the “decision was already made”?
The government was not a passive player. They made a deliberate decision on what level of industry assistance they would provide. They need to own the consequences of that decision and argue their case to the Australian public, not hide behind bluster, nonsense and denial.
From zoidlord at #2454
This is the key.
[Where is the plan to retrain them [retrenched workers]?
You see, it’s not just a matter of forced closure of Holden & Co, but you need a PLAN] – for the future.
We need to be thinking ahead. Not merely reacting to that which is best for Holden or Toyota et al, as to how we fit into their global plan, but instead to fit the future of Oz manufacturing into our plan for our future and bugger what the guys in Detroit or Tokyo want.
Subsidies have always been an series of temporary fixes, ad hoc responses to blackmail by the auto companies.
Time for the dog to wag the tail.
Manufacturing is under major pressure. However it will not die. Uncompetitive industries will go and new ones will rise. The new industries will be nimbler and will learn from past mistakes. This is now a world economy and we are a minuscule part of it.
Govts getting in there and saying you must pay co2 tax, you must employ someone from the union, you must fill out more forms than it takes time to make the product, you must pay this wage because we say that it is appropriate, you must buy this product because we say so, just to name some is over. The new business will be many owner operators who have the rights to determine there own future and charge and pay themselves what ever they need to to continue operating.
@fredex/2466
Unfortunately, both parties have fallen into this trap of not retraining.
1. Retrain the lost workers into other sectors that require boosting.
2. Offer packages to the sacked workers.
3. For continuation of said sacked workers, licenses which are the killer for retraining, need to be included in the retraining.
@silmaj/2467
Gov is not saying any of those things, gov is doing the Opposite of that.
They want to get rid of Carbon, they want less pay.
That’s why the Spat with Children workers.
silmaj
Yes industry does change and if the government had wanted too it could have created such flexibility into the deal that Holden were open to discussing.
The government could have assisted in the refitting of the factory technology or the car technology, it could have undertaken a serious of steps to achieve certain targets or benchmarks as part of its ROI.
Government had a range of options including the course that it choose to take.
Holden have made little to no mention of Labour issues and with a Liberal government it could have expected a positive hearing on Labour issues.
[They want to get rid of Carbon, they want less pay.]
They definitively want lower pay. Good example is their “policy” on child care.
They seem to expect that people will be so grateful for “professional development” that they will then be happy to put that enhanced training to use and not expect better remuneration, in a field where the remuneration is already acknowledged to be broadly too low.
So, under the Fiberal plan, any Govt spend is all to the advantage of the providers and customers, not the workers.
That stands in stark contrast to the ALP’s plan where any Govt spend was to the advantage of the workers, customers, and indirectly to the providers as well.
Zoid
Your idols the labor govt put these practices into the market. Just one small example that I mentioned on here once b4 was the fbt announcement out of thin air. The glorious labor Govt said that they would save 1.8 billion over the forward estimates and put this into their budget. 5 days later one company McMillan Shakespeare lost 1 billion in market capitilisation. So labors magical decision caused one company and it’s shareholders to take that hit in six days. Let’s not forget what this would have done to car sales of locally made cars and what other losses would flow thru the economy of the other businesses involved in similar structural enterprise. But the clever labor gurus put things like this down as a budget positive. Labors mining tax which raised no money and spent bucketloads is another example. We are now on labors trajectory and until some of their stupidity is reversed then things will get worse. But as I said b4 blame Abbott, get labor back in and let the good times roll
@silmaj/2472
Can you knock it off with your petty attacks on who think I idolize?
Quiet frankly it’s pathetic attacks is why I am not a member of any party.
Abbott is PM, don’t like it, don’t vote for him then.
Tell us what McMillan Shakespeare do.
What is their business model?
Why should the Australian government support what amounts to a rort of the FBT system just to support spivs like McMillan Shakespeare?
And yes, Abbott “saved” the car companies from Labor’s FBT tax changes – but none of those car companies are going to have any Australian content to speak of, so why are we trying to save foreign car companies from the implications of closing a tax loophole?
where will this country be in a year? where is it going? this is a nightmare. we don’t like or approve of these sleezebags. hyopcrites, seeking to control freedom of media where it affects them. liberals destroying manufacturing industries, investments and assets. the list just goes on .
Macmillan Shakespeare is an australian co in Australians superannuation funds. The next time labor is in Govt they should subtract the negatives from their so-called budget savings and announce the tru saving. But I would suggest with all labors decisions over the lst 5 years is that they just thought that govt decisions wouldn’t effect govt revenue. They put their hands in the air and say govt revs down but that’s not our fault. They had no idea that govt would force money to move, close or totally disappear.
http://www.forbes.com/sites/emmawoollacott/2013/12/10/us-fails-to-close-tpp-deal-as-wikileaks-exposes-discord/
http://wikileaks.org/IMG/pdf/tpp-salt-lake-positions.pdf
“The failure of the talks to reach agreement is a major blow for the US, which hoped to see the deal largely wrapped up by now. The ministers say they’ll meet again next month, but haven’t set any new timeline for completion. And with many of the outstanding issues having been aired for months, it’s hard to see how full agreement will be reached any time soon.”
Pretty scary with the included spreadsheet, no wonder Coalition in a hurry.
@silmaj/2476
And Peta Credlin is the source of most of the problems for the current Coalition debacle.
LOL. What a cop-out.
The Australian government has every right to act to ensure the integrity of the Australian taxation system.
Companies whose business model basically relies on a loophole of the tax system are not worth protecting.
What is the leading feature of the Abbott government so far..
surprises, excuses or broken promises?
Oh and regarding the taxation, wasn’t at the G20 was also trying to fix the taxation loopholes ?
http://www.ft.com/intl/cms/s/0/949428de-1580-11e3-950a-00144feabdc0.html
Example.
Zoid
I must confess to laughing when people think that economic settings happen quickly. We are on labors settings and until one piece of coalition tax repeal policy is passed that is where we will stay. I may have to study up because of june30 2014 transport is subject to the co2 tax. Don’t really know what the cost will be but who cares let’s just pass it on thru price rises.
silmaj seems to be going for the ‘excuses’ angle
2479
Your premise is fine. However if it means that the so called budget gain is wiped out by losses to revenue, due to these consequences, does that not mean that the budget is stuffed.
@silmaj/2482
Once again, it is nothing to do with repealing of Carbon Tax.
Evidence shows that Electricity prices will continue to rise, until such stage, because both parties have sold goverment assets.
2483
Siimaj manufactures, transports, provides health services, provides charity and other things in spare time. It is based on the weekly events of doing these things that I comment.
@silmaj/2486
You claim you mean?
There are 2 separate issues there.
The budget may be “stuffed” regardless given that expenditure to GDP has remained stable while revenue to GDP has fallen substantially.
That is nothing to do with FBT loopholes and the closing thereof (or rather the other way around – closing the FBT loophole was a step towards fixing the revenue problems, now scrapped).
You are suggesting that there is greater economic benefit from companies exploiting the loophole leading to greater taxation for the government than the loophole itself causes losses. While economics doesn’t follow the laws of thermodynamics, that does seem more than a touch perpetual-motion-machine to me (akin to Clive Palmer’s magic-puddingnomics of cutting company tax that will magically be more than recovered through the GST, because surely, surely all the money saved will be passed on more than 10 times thus recouping the lost income for the government. The Laffer curve nonsense is an equivalent argument.
Whatever.
Those criticizing the closing of this loophole need to explain why/how it is a good thing for the nation or the economy to be providing tax concessions for dodgy cars packaged in lieu of salary, used mainly for private use but allowed to be classified as “company use” because there are no bookkeeping requirements.
And, of course, the LNP claimed the FBT changes would kill off the local car manufacturing industry. Well, the local car industry is indeed dead, but the FBT changes were already scrapped – what happened? Could the LNP have been lying about the impact of the FBT changes? Well goodness gracious me.
And, of course, now that the FBT changes are scrapped, all those foreign car companies get a bit of dodgy tax relief. What an excellent outcome for Australia.
2485
When you finance a 70k CNC bender that’s primarily purchased to make something in Aus and it’s major expense is 3 phase electricity, when the product you are trying to make is being made overseas with no such impost, when you are willing to talk to the operator and explain that the machine cannot operate because it’s to expensive to run, when you explain how this machine can be run by solar or wind then perhaps I will concede to your argument that I know nothing.
@silmaj/2489
What has Solar/Wind got to do with Electricity pricing?
The costs are directly related the the companies controlling the networks.
Nothing to do with either Carbon or Solar/Wind.
Evidence is there.
2488
How much revenue did labor expect to get out of the 1 billion drop in micmillans value of shares which occurred over a 6 day period?
if someone buys a CNC press and can’t pay the power bill they have bigger problems than a carbon price or GSt
@silmajc/2491
And the decision to keep Graincorp did well for it’s shareholders?
http://www.theguardian.com/environment/2013/dec/11/murray-darling-taken-off-endangered-listing-to-cut-green-tape
Dog help us, the AGW denialists have their hands on the government.
The Murray needs more protection, not less.
2492
I said bender. Your obviously a manufacturing expert. Just incase you aren’t a bender draws power heavily for the entire time it is on. So do die casting machines, so does a CNC mill. Business electricity prices have gone up more than domestic. But once again who cares let’s close and our emissions will go down.
Still ducking and weaving.
Even if the government should care about what the punters on the share market risk in betting on a particular business (and this shouldn’t be a consideration in developing public policy), any share price hits are one off effects.
The FBT loophole will continue to be exploited for as long as it exists. The integrity of the taxation system is how it performs over the sustainable long term, not what happens in the first year or whatever.
@silmaj/2495
Obviously 3 phase is going to use more electricity, but the blame on Carbon is just a pathetic excuse.
I’ve done a fair bit of research, and know a family business who uses the type of equipment your talking about.
The blame before Carbon “Tax” and after Carbon “Tax” is outstanding.
There is companies and other people who have done research into this area as well (including Rob Oakshott, Choice Australia for example).
2496
I would suggest that 30% to 50% of that 1 billion loss would come off Govt revenue in the first year. That company had 100s employees. Ducking and weaving is closing your eyes and saying that our budget savings would not be affected by these consequences. This was only one company. The losses created by this decision would have wiped out the budgeted savings over many years. But that’s what happens when you are desperate. But hey let Labor as suggested on here try the capital gains tax change. Can’t wait for that, hold on to your hats your house value will halve and builders will be bust. But labor will predict a budget winfall.
@silmaj/2498
How would you know that? or you just peddling someone’s lines?
hell I didn’t even realise there was such a thing as a CNC pipe bender. How lazy is that. That would use a lot less power than a CNC Brake Press