Morgan has released what it describes as the “first major public opinion poll of 2014”, though it could just as easily have dropped the “major”. It provides no indication of festive cheer softening attitudes towards the new government, showing the Coalition down 1.5% on the primary vote to 39% with Labor also down half a point to 38%, the Greens up half a point to 10.5% and the Palmer United Party steady on 3.5%. That translates to a 53-47 lead to Labor on 2013 preference flows and 52.5-47.5 on the headline respondent-allocated figure. As has been Morgan’s form for a while now, this poll combines its regular weekend face-to-face polling with SMS component, in this case encompassing 2527 respondents from the two weekends past. The first Essential Research result for the year should be with us tomorrow.
UPDATE: Little change also from Essential Research, which opens it account for the year with a result from the polling period of Friday to Monday only, rather than its two-week rolling average. This has the Coalition leading 51-49, with the Coalition, Labor and the Greens each up a point on the primary vote to 45%, 38% and 8% respectively, with the Palmer United Party steady on 4% and others down two to 6%. Also featured are the monthly personal ratings, showing a slight improvement for Tony Abbott – up two on approval to 47% and down three on disapproval to 43% – and a softening for Bill Shorten, down four to 35% and up one to 32%. Preferred prime minister is little changed, Abbott’s lead shifting from 43-33 to 42-31. The poll also finds strong opposition to fees for GP visits, with 28% approving and 64% disapproving, and 47% support for Australia becoming a republic at the end of the Queen’s reign against 32% opposed.
Think Big even firing shots in the air is inappropriate, severely so, if it in fact did happen. Perhaps it did but I would be very disillusioned if we had done something like that.
But surely they would be better to encourage research after all it would be a far better option to encourage research and who knows maybe one day evidence will emerge that says earlier models were incorrect.
It would be far better to find any such evidence than too just sit in ignorance and hope it will all go away.
If the science is right it would be better to see and react to it rather than do nothing.
Pretty One.
I hope you are because your brain is not going to get you anywhere.
Prettyone 1499 – you obviously have no idea about treason so best to avoid showing more ignorance – on your definition Abbott would have be guilty of treason for threatening Australian security
Boats or no boats, the day-to-day story for Australians hasn’t changed. Incomes are under pressure, business investment and jobs growth are feeble, the budget is deteriorating, industry policy has been abolished, the cuts to health, education and social income support are coming…and the Abbotteurs remain determined to undo every single positive energy/environmental policy we have.
I’ve said it before – the big danger (for the Government) of Morrison’s approach is that it will create a perception (which may well be true, of course) that the government isn’t being open and honest.
Given that, people will tend to believe sources other than the government, even where these sources are dubious.
The problem Morrison will face is that once these rumours take hold, it’s very hard to refute them.
I don’t know whether the Navy fired on asylum seekers or not. It’s quite possible we’ll never know either way. But many people who hear it will take it as gospel truth, and will thus be more ready to believe similar rumours — and Morrison will have a nice little snowball built on rumour and innuendo which he won’t be able to unroll easily…partly because he’s encouraged people to distrust him.
What the left is in desperate need of is another Children Overboard moment.
Sure you stopped the boats like you said, and extremely effectively, but you did XXX(which was of no real importance like children overboard which was just pollies stretching the truth) and we will crap on about it for 10+ Years to make up for our morale loss.
Whose species – us humans or Abbott and co?
Sean
The only way there could be another overboard situation is if Morrison mishandles the communications and thus far he is leaving himself open.
1507
Sean Tisme
You wouldn’t know left or right from upside down.
[Incomes are under pressure, business investment and jobs growth are feeble, the budget is deteriorating, industry policy has been abolished, the cuts to health, education and social income support are coming…and the Abbotteurs remain determined to undo every single positive energy/environmental policy we have.]
And this begs the question as to why the govt is making such a big issue out of boats.
Actually did Sean ever answer the question i saw posted the other day as to what is a lefty.
Worst still its supporters can’t bring themselves to discuss the economy.
[What the left is in desperate need of ]
Desperate? Have you looked at the polls?
Methinks you’re a tad on the delusional side.
(And before you point out that polls could change, that is true but the left side of politics are not in a desperate position right now)
DavidWH
I really wouldn’t put it past them, and they likely get away with it too.
The majority of Australians are dumb, racist, insular, shitheads, and this reptilian Government feeds of that.
If Sean’s IQ was any lower he would need watering twice a day
[1511
confessions
….this begs the question as to why the govt is making such a big issue out of boats.]
Precisely. Soon enough, boats will fade from view. Voters will regard the likes of ST as a public nuisance, and they will focus on the rising cost of fuel, negligible income growth, the (absurd) cost of housing, the weakness in the labour market and the loss of jobs in manufacturing, the threat to those on low-middle incomes of higher taxes….and the most frequently discussed subject of all: the weather.
[Worst still its supporters can’t bring themselves to discuss the economy.]
That frightful budget emergency simply died overnight.
Whatever happened to that?
Has the shooting on AS boats been verified? I think/sicerely hope it is unlikely.
Which may flow though to the ASX which will see weaker returns as grow in earnings decline so it will soon become difficult to find anyone financially better off under this government.
briefly:
And interest rates.
I’m still trying to find one policy introduced by Abbott that hasn’t benefitted the wealthy at the expense of low income workers, disabled or real working poor.
AA, you really think a reptilian shit like Abbott cares about us ?
The direction of Interest Rates will be interesting, we have had the yearly o rates will rise this year talk but i am not so sure, there may be an inflation risk from rising petrol prices as they head towards $2 dollars.
Housing prices appear to be rising although i have not noticed it on the ground as strongly as the data would indicate.
The federal budget will depress economic activity which will increase upward pressure on unemployment.
I’m not quite ready to predict a recession this year but we may go close to at least one negative quarter.
I really wouldn’t put it past them, and they likely get away with it too.
The majority of Australians are dumb, racist, insular, shitheads, and this reptilian Government feeds of that.
——————————————————-
I disagree, I don’t think the “majority of Australians are dumb, racist, insular, shitheads”.
I think we have very vocal minority of moronic, red neck, rusted-on right wing xenophobes who have an IQ equivalent to a child’s shoe size that the unethical media spend their time pandering to and quoting.
The current mainstream media lacks any ethics or professional integrity and that is well reflected in their failure to challenge the inept hypocritical pathetic Abbott lead government.
Journalists have sold their “souls” in pursuit of the dollar. They have betrayed their profession and the Australian people
As Briefly says the voter will focus’… “on the weather
____________________________
They will an we will see the end of Napthine…..tomorrow all over Melb we face…officially…power cuts due to the overloading of the system…and suburbs will be blacked out at different times to spread the load..today Weribee/Mornington/….tomorrow who knows no waqrning or examptions.. …but in 44deg heat it will be a nightmare,and life threating for some…elderly/new born- bavies’disabled and thosee cronic invalided
no warning…the powers gone that all….
we had 4 hours tonight after a power- sub-station”blew” in the heat as did most of our street….My son is angery over the terrible delay on overcrowded delayed train a new problem indeed for Napthine…and worse still the next election in Nov may well be held in bad hot weather days
so the conservatives must see that CC has political effects…the voters can be very “hot and bothered”
[Precisely. Soon enough, boats will fade from view.]
If Boats “begin to fade from view” i think you can be pretty confident that the Libs will bring them back into sharp focus again.
And face it, we will always have idiot kool aid addict personas like ST and Petty One around who will recycle their stupidity ad infinitum. While their contributions here do seem to indicate they are too stupid to be functioning human beings, there are actually some brainless twerps out there with similar attitudes.
Questioning the word of a General is somehow treasonous?? Not uncritically accepting the word of a politician (from a party led by a self admitted liar) is in some way acting to impair Australia’s “Security”??
This is seriously delusional Petty One.
Aussie Achmed @ 1516
There’s a good chance his IQ would improve if he was watered twice a day.
[Hence the need for plant neurobiology, a new field “aimed at understanding how plants perceive their circumstances and respond to environmental input in an integrated fashion.” The article argued that plants exhibit intelligence, defined by the authors as “an intrinsic ability to process information from both abiotic and biotic stimuli that allows optimal decisions about future activities in a given environment.”]
This makes a link.
To the article. About plants being smarter than some.
Yesiree Bob
Posted Wednesday, January 15, 2014 at 11:32 pm | Permalink
AA, you really think a reptilian shit like Abbott cares about us ?
———————————————-
I don’t think Abbott, his Party or supporters give a shit about any Australian who can’t afford to drive a Mercedes, live on the water front in Sydeney and have a multi-million dollar holiday home in nearly every country that is dominated by a right wing tea party type party.
And those that never pay tax on their income while screwing workers for their pittance of an income and wanting to reduce it even further by taking away things like penalty rates.
Boats
Global Warming
Cost of Living
Economy
May Abbott be foisted on his own petard.
To the article. About plants being smarter than some.
So there are plants smarter than Sean?
Why am I not surprised?
[1521
confessions
briefly:
And interest rates.]
They will be seen to have bottomed during the term of the Labor Government…now on the rise everywhere.
AA, I know it’s schardenfreud (sp?) but, in a way it would be good if we did go into recession. The “average Australian” probably needs the reality check.
And the sooner the ALP capitalise on it, the better.
The fruits there for the picking
Re Climate Change – the science is in.
Climate Change is happening. Human activity has increased the concentration of CO2 in our atmosphere by about 30% since the Industrial Revolution. That CO2 is a greenhouse gas and that the greenhouse effect is real is as well established as the law of gravity. Without the Greenhouse effect from natural concentrations of greenhouse gases, the Earth would be about 30 degrees cooler (the average temperature on the Moon).
The climate system is not well enough understood to make detailed predictions as to timelines and detailed impacts of increasing concentrations of greenhouse gases, but they are unlikely to be benign. Nor are natural climate cycles appealed to by Deniers fully understood, least of all by the psuedoscientists, clowns and shills for fossil fuel interests pushing Denialism. In any case, global warming will happen on top of any natural variation that does occur.
The only ‘debate’ we should be having is what, if anything, we should be doing about warming. Adapt? Try to mitigate? If yes, what’s the best strategy? As for those pushing denial, they deserve no more respect than the Flat Earth Society.
Taking the blame for Iraq War
_____________________
The Atlantic Monthly sees both major parties culpable in raking the US into a disasterous and financially ruininous war in Irag…”the greatest stategic error in a generation”
Now they see,,,but at the time many…democrats and repuiblicans supported Bush…as did sycophants like Blair and Howard…do they yet own up to their criminal part in the debacle..and the huge death-roll
No sign of Howard showing any contrition…and Blair was in Israeli today praising that old gangster-murdered Charon at the funeral…perhaps Blair and some of the British Labour Party leaders all ought be tried for war crimes…as Sharon deserved to be
http://www.theatlantic.com/politics/archive/2014/01/the-gop-isnt-the-only-party-with-an-iraq-war-prob
Rossmore@1519
WHAT???
These things just get a life of their own on PB.
The allegation was that shots had been fired in the air.
A stupid and totally unnecessary action if it happened, but certainly not in the league of firing on boats.
The trouble we have in Australia is that our super rich, Gina/Twiggy/Palmer, are really not really that clever.
No offence meant but you don’t have to be clever to keep digging holes.
Really smart types would see the money to be made by investing in renewable energy. Those holes can only be dug so deep before there is nothing left to dig
Re 1402. A friend of fathers reckoned he was ordered fire off the loaded torpedo tubes on the Canberra as the expected to sink and when he followed their tracks he realised one had hit the USS Chicago. So who knows but would be sweet revenge if the woz da Bagley wat hit the Canberra.
Fran,
[PO
Those kind of assertions would be treason, in my books.
Which books would they be?]
Her books of nursery rhymes. Still at that stage unfortunately.
http://www.powerfulwords.info/nursery_rhymes/remember_remember_the_5th_november.htm
The Power/Heat crisis in Victoria tomorror_________
http://www.theage.com.au/victoria/meltdown-as-heatwave-cripples-states-power-supply-20140115-30uth.html
night all.
I’ve put on some music for the plants in the hope it will increase their intelligence. Sean should try the same for himself
[They will be seen to have bottomed during the term of the Labor Government…now on the rise everywhere.]
Yep.
My own view is the govt will talk about boats early in its term and switch to more substantive matters in the coming years.
I just hope that the impressions being formed on the new govt and the PM are lasting, and that people hold their views as the years march on.
I heard they torpedoed the boats and released flying piranhas to mop up the survivors.
AA @ 1531 if plants have “an intrinsic ability to process information … that allows optimal decisions about future activities in a given environment.” That would certainly indicate that Sean could benefit from their skills. Tho he could be someone having a laugh and illustrating Poe’s Law.
Bemused, where in that article posted by Victoria does it say shots were fired in the air?
It is, indeed an unsourced allegation, but until it is refuted by the government there is nothing else to go by.
What has the Government got to hide?
The navy has fired on an unarmed asylum seeker boat before – in October 2001. The boat was the SIEV4, the boat involved in the infamous chlidren overboard affair.
Abbott copies everything Howard did. Howard was happy for the navy to fire warning shots into the water near an unarmed asylum seeker boat with women and children on board.If Howard thought it was fine to fire on an unarmed boat then Abbott will do the same.
[After telephone conversations with, and approval from, Commander Joint Task Force 639, I commenced action to compel the SIEV to heave-to to allow my boarding party to embark and eventually commenced firing aimed small arms-5.56 mm Steyr-and 12.5 mm .50 cal machine gun warning shots ahead of the vessel at 0359G on 7 October, and again at 0409G, 0416G and 0420G. The SIEV was, at this stage, well inside the Australian contiguous zone, approximately two to three miles from the Australian territorial waters of Christmas Island, and proceeding directly towards Christmas Island at about seven knots. I need to emphasise that only aimed shots were fired directly into the water, an area 50 feet to 75 feet ahead of the vessel. A searchlight was used to illuminate both the weapon firer and the area in the water ahead of the vessel where the rounds were to land. This ad hoc process was introduced by me to clearly show my intent.
Statement to Senate Select Committee on A Certain Maritime Incident
Commander Norman Banks
25 March 2002]
http://sievx.com/testimony/individuals/CommanderNormanBanks.html
AA, you really think a reptilian shit like Abbott cares about us ?
Now guys, I’m self employed making at most $50,000 pa. Conservative values. There are a lot of people around on lowish incomes like me who vote conservative and admire Tony Abbott.
Yes, and they are often the idiot children of wealthy over-indulgent parents who have bought them the job.
Fulvio Sammut@1544
Right here:
[A local police commissioner from southern Java, who did not want his name or his district published, has told Fairfax Media that villagers plucked a number of asylum seekers from the water a week ago, on January 8, after their boat was turned back by Australia.
The officer, quoting one of those on board, Snilul, 25, from Bangladesh, said the navy had “shot into the air just to scare them”.
“The boat hadn’t reached Australia – they were still at sea but they said they could already see Christmas Island,” the officer said.
“But they said the Australian navy then drove them away and escorted them until they entered Indonesian waters again.”]
“Yes, and they are often the idiot children of wealthy over-indulgent parents who have bought them the job”
I don’t think you understand the concept of working for yourself. It’s not easy and there’s ups and downs, no sick leave, no 4 week ARL, and Christmas time often brings dow time.
It’s harder than you might think.
Yes, you are quite right, I didn’t see that on my initial reading.
That at least is something to be grateful for.