With the return of Morgan and Essential Research, the weekly BludgerTrack poll aggregate is also back in business, albeit that it’s on a fairly shaky footing at present given the shallow pool of new data. However, since both polls show little change on the situation as they were recording it before the break, there’s nothing in national figures that should arouse any controversy. Both major parties and the Palmer United Party are down slightly on the primary vote, with the slack taken up by the Greens and others, and there is no change at all on two-party preferred. The seat projection nonetheless ticks a point in the Coalition’s favour owing to the vagaries of the latest state-level data. Full details, as always, on the sidebar (to those wondering why there are three data points after the break rather than two, the Morgan poll has been broken down into two results to account for it having been conducted over two weekends).
The monthly personal ratings from Essential Research also allow for an update to the leadership ratings, but this should be treated with even greater caution given that there’s only one result available from the past month. So while it may be that the air is indeed going out of Bill Shorten’s honeymoon, you would want to see more than one data point from Essential Research before jumping to such a conclusion, which is essentially all the model is reacting to at present. This points to a broader difficulty with the BludgerTrack leadership rating methodology which I aim to address in due course, namely the lack of any adjustment for each pollsters’ idiosyncrasies. There will thus be a tendency for the numbers to move around based purely on which particular pollster happens to have reported most recently. When enough data is available, I will start tracking each pollsters’ variation from the aggregated trend and applying “bias” adjustments accordingly.
I nearly dozed off reading LSL’s sanctimonious whine. Is that the replacement for that Turkey bore?
[I honestly find myself a bit disturbed by it.]
I find you disturbed as well.
tricot
I don’t read Murray either … But he is a full bottle on boats. remember how he “found” HMAS sydney a few years ago off the coast of Shark bay? Turned out be be a sunken barge or something.
[ Whatever it is, it is not a pleasant spectacle. ]
And if thine eye offend thee, pluck it out.
Matthew 18:9
Probably the same reason Australia issues visas and let’s people into the country and then they overstay…
is it time to get the can and give Sean a daily watering
[It comes so naturally to you all to take Indonesia’s side against Australia’s. I honestly find myself a bit disturbed by it.]
I know they just can’t take it Abbott is winning his war against the people smugglers.
They really hate Australia don’t they
[Probably the same reason Australia issues visas and let’s people into the country and then they overstay…]
Yeah it is a really silly argument that somehow they are Indonesia’s problem. Probably explains why it offends them, it is silly, insulting and arrogant.
Re Sean @1667:
I ask then, why do Gay people want to rubbish this sacred religious ceremony with their own version?
I know that there is little point in answering and other posters here may be annoyed at my answering, but I can’t let that pass.
For a start, marriage is not a ‘religious ceremony’ unless the people getting married wish it to be. It is a ceremony in which two people pledge undying love and support for each other in good times and bad, in front of their family and friends and also in front of God and the Church if that is important to them. It is also a legally binding contract.
Many loving gay couples wish to be allowed do the same. They are not ‘rubbishing’ religion, traditional marriage or loving relationships. They are prepared to enter into a legally binding contract like heterosexual couples.
If you don’t like gay people, that’s your problem, not theirs.
P1
[and then they overstay…]
Most of them Poms.
Gillard would have been crucified if she wasn’t prepared to put herself in the firing line regarding this latest diplomatic incident with Indonesia.
Actually, she would have been hung, drawn and quartered if the navy had put so much as a toe over the territorial dividing line.
And that still would not have been good enough for some. In fact, while she was mourning the death of her father, she was told to get back to work that same Christmas/New Year period by Joe Hockey. Himself nowhere to be seen at this time.
Yet, Abbott is MIA as well, and there are no fires in Sydney.
Let’s hope his death is announced soon. There can be no other explanation for his absence at the loss of life and property throughout south-eastern Australia at this time.
[I know they just can’t take it Abbott is winning his war against the people smugglers.
They really hate Australia don’t they]
There is no war (yet), they are giving in and letting the people smugglers go free and Abbott must hate Australia, only explanation for the damage the stupid liar is doing.
Citizen
Maybe Rupert is picking up the vibe that we are looking at one term tony here and that wouldn’t suit his plan for world domination before he retires at 105. Tony could quite easily be replaced by a leader Rupert thinks is more likely to win in a couple of years
Tony want’s a war does he Seaney ?
Tony (and you) should be careful what they wish for.
[ Yet, Abbott is MIA as well, and there are no fires in Sydney. ]
I think you’ve hit the nail on the head there, kezza.
Abbott can’t get a good picture of himself saving the day with his local RFS buddies, so for him the fires simply don’t exist.
Abbott/Morrison and the right wing are so in need of an ego boost because they suffer pneis envy they need a “war” to make them feel like real men
Back in 1986, my then partner asked me if I’d mind harbouring an alien. The alien was a young Welshman of mixed parentage. His mother was Australian.
He was going to be deported for overstaying his visa, yet paradoxically he had six months (of a two-year regulation) to go, before he was officially declared Australian.
We kept him secret for six months. Once the time was up, he was declared as Australian citizen.
At the time tens of thousands were waiting for an amnesty for aliens.
I can’t remember now if that eventually happened, but I was happy to provide succour to a 17 year old individual.
He learned a lot at our place, including the ancient art of smithing.
Temperatures are nudging 40 in Sydney’s outer West. Penrith has hit 40.7. The Blue Mountains further West are baking – Mount Boyce at 1080 metres above sea level is around 34 degrees and about 18% humidity, equivalent to about 41-43 at sea level.
So far no fires and hopefully there will be none.
[Leisure Suit Larry
Posted Saturday, January 18, 2014 at 3:23 pm | Permalink
It comes so naturally to you all to take Indonesia’s side against Australia’s. I honestly find myself a bit disturbed by it.
Do you hate Tony Abbott and the coalition that much? Or is it just general progressive self-hatred and the desire to identify with the apparently virtuous “oppressed” in the Third World at work?
Whatever it is, it is not a pleasant spectacle.]
Nah. Some of take the long view.
It goes something like this:
(1) Indonesia will, some time this century, become a bigger economy and more powerful military than Australia.
(2) Indonesia has a superior geopolitical place in the world than does Australia.
(3) Indonesia is an islamic country.
(4) Once Australia has dug its holes and stuffed its farmlands there will not be a lot left.
It therefore makes sense to at least try to cultivate a cooperative, bilateral and multilateral approach to what is, in the larger scheme of things, a pathetically insubstantial issue.
So, what is happening?
Abbott, Bishop and Morrison have mades serial handling errors with the Indonesian relationship.
(1) They have in their party islam haters and burka baiters. Abbott’s best friends in the MSM are known, vocal and serial islamophobes. Abbott himself is a serial enthusiast for wars in islamic countries. At least some of the Coaltion commentary around boat people is clothed in islamophobia. You might even recall that sexy Liberal candidate who overtly made all the links. Abbott, Bishop and Morrison appear not have spent a nanosecond working out that this was not all duly noted by the Indonesian embassy, the Indonesian foreign policy establishment, various Indonesian institutions, the Indonesia Government across the board and Indonesian business.
(2) In Opposition they serially ignored public and official Indonesian comments about the way in which their policies threatened Indonesian sovereignty. Two policies in particular were clear threats: the plan to purchase Indonesian vessels in Indonesia and the plan to pay Indonesians to spy on Indonesians in Indonesia.
(3) In Opposition Bishop, Abbott and Morrison serially ignored and/or worked vocally against attempts by Indonesia to generate multilateral solutions to asylum seekers.
(4) Shortly after the election, Bishop broadcast egregiously a series of misinterpretations of the contents of meetings she had had with Natalegawa. She ignored Natalegawa’s public comments and kept the misinterpretations up. Natalegawa got jack of her modus operandi. He published the transcripts of the meetings which demonstrated that she had been lying.
(5) Abbott goes to Indonesia and casually insults the entire Indonesian MSM by excluding them from his presser.
(6) Abbott arrives late for TWO public meetings involving SBY as host.
(7) Abbott overdoes the bapak and manages to make himself look both totally insincere and totally silly. Essentially, the Indonesians did not buy his abject and insincere apologies. What the Indonesians call Abbott in private is not very pleasant at all.
(8) When the spying scandal broke, Abbott treated the Indonesians to the explanation that it was for their own good. Arrogant, racist, patronising… the whole white colonialist imperial British thing in one sentence.
(9) The Abbott Government promises repeatedly and publicly that it will respect Indonesian sovereignty while it still has on its books two policies that are both direct threats to Indonesian sovereignty. That’s right. The boats buy back and the payments to Indonesians to spy on other Indonesians in Indonesia are both still in the policy folder.
(10) Despite serial concerns the Australian navy violates Indonesian waters with several ships over several days.
Taking the long view, what 1-10 demonstrate is that Abbott is not fit to be Prime Minister of Australia and the Liberal Party is not fit to form Government of Australia.
Also taking the long view, neocon reactionary garbage such as yours about treachery, loyalty and so on and so forth, just add to the pile of policy garbage, operational stuff ups, and diplomatic stupidity that passes for what the adults do when they get into the bathtub.
And if you still don’t get any of the above, have a chat to some of your business mates doing business in Indonesia.
What they are saying is that standing business is continuing* but that no new business is being done by Australian businesses in Indonesia; this in an economy that is growing at twice the rate of Australias.
*that was, of course, before the latest Coaltion stuff up of serially violating Indonesian sovereignty.
kezza
reminds me of the quote wtte. I do not wish harm to anyone but there are some whose death notice would cause me no concern.
Penis envy? Is Tony wearing his budgies again?
kezza
that was a good thing you did there. Why would they want to deport a 17yrold whose mother was Australian? I can’t fathom these rules.
Boewar
Brilliant explanation. Thank you.
[It’s a bullshit line from a bullshit country filled full of corruption.]
That ‘bullshit country’ is, in Abbott’s view, our most important relationship. According to Abbott we were going to have a ‘Jakarta-focused’ foreign policy. Now Sean you say its a BS country. Shouldn’t you tell TA not to bother?
BW
Brilliant.
So no new business with Indonesia? I think that needs a comment of its own.
Fran
If you think about it, Jakarta-focused doesn’t neccesarily mean friendly :P.
ST
[Abbott is winning his war against the people smugglers.]
Why would one want to wage war against people smugglers (assuming that’s the right term here). Who would benefit from ‘winning’ the war, and in what ways, in your opinion?
DN
[If you think about it, Jakarta-focused doesn’t necessarily mean friendly .]
True, but other claims TA made indicated that TA saw Indonesia as one our besties because there was so much business to be done there and so forth.
Boerwar
Good explanation but I doubt that sean could comprehend a comment of that length.
You are all so blinded by your self-loathing and anti-western, anti-Australian mindsets that you are incapable of looking at the issue from any other perspective than “Australia is wrong, Australia is racist, the people in charge of Australia are embarrassments to me as a virtuous anti-western progressive.”
Any impartial reading of the current conflict says that Indonesia is the party which is causing the problem by allowing its territory to be used as a staging ground for an illegal people smuggling ring targeting Australia.
All of the gunk you spout is just an elaborate facade designed to camouflage the basic facts.
There may come a time in the future where Indonesia is so powerful that we have no choice but to eat shit from them. But they are not there yet, and may never be.
[Puff, the Magic Dragon.
Posted Saturday, January 18, 2014 at 4:00 pm | PERMALINK
kezza
that was a good thing you did there. Why would they want to deport a 17yrold whose mother was Australian? I can’t fathom these rules.]
Yes, it was an interesting situation. Labor was in power, but there was a push from the right about illegal aliens. Some things never change, eh?
I can’t remember the exact details, but at the time there was a proposed amnesty, and some smelt a rat. I.E. it was just to flush out the overstayers.
And they were right. The amnesty didn’t happen.
But, this young kid’s parents had sent him out to Australia to make sure he got Australian citizenship. At the time they thought it was for a year. But it turned out, or the regulation was changed, that he had to stay for two years.
The people he was staying with didn’t feel comfortable about harbouring him. He lived rough for 6 months before meeting my partner.
The rest is history.
So, the shit from the right has always been there. We like to think that Fraser’s Vietnamese largesse was humanitarian writ large, but it would never have happened without bipartisan support.
When it came to Labor offering succour, the stingy, greedy, stinking filth of the right would not agree, not even for people of white heritage.
What hope do coloureds have today from this pestilent government, regardless of their education, ability and overall superiority to the trash that now rules Australia.
MTBW
I never ever read ST’s posts any more and I stop reading anyone else’s posts the nanosecond I realize they are a response to ST’s posts.
Life is far too short. As SBY pointed out, there is always a choice.
Kezza2, I don’t know If anyone has answered your query on negative gearing, but here is my attempt.
It happens when you buy a property that has so much debt on it that the rent (and out goings) doesn’t cover the interest bill on the loan. The difference can be deducted from your salary so that your income tax is reduced.
You are in effect saying, I am prepared to lose money on this (although the pain is somewhat diminished by reduced income tax) because I think it will go up in value and I will recoup my lose when I sell it.
I think you were mentioning that you were looking at a property in Motown. There are two considerations, Motown property does no appreciate much and your son sounds like he can pay cash. Both those things lesson the likelihood that negative gearing is the way to go.
Property is a long term commitment (to cover the stamp duty etc) and may be a pain if he moves away from there. Shares are more flexible (you can sell a few to meet an unexpected event like your fridge needing replacing) and blue chips provide both capital appreciation and yield (which is usually better than bank interest).
Make sure your son makes the decision with what to do with the windfall. If you tell him what to do, it may come back to bite you if it turns sour. As other posters have mentioned, perhaps a financial advisor is a good place to start.
The secretary of the NSW HSU is about to be interviewed on 2UE in the next half hour re the number of alcohol induced incidents in Sydney.
It is there members who have to deal with the trauma. Seems like he is going to stick it up Barry O’Farrell’s government for doing nothing.
LSL, Wow, by the way, whats an “anti-Australian” mind set ?
Boerwar
[(1) Indonesia will, some time this century, become a bigger economy and more powerful military than Australia.]
A recent economic study looking to 2050 saw Australia drop out of the top twenty and predicted Indonesia to enter the top 10 GDP.
LSL
By extension you would have expected Abbott to show some testicles when Abe visited the Yasukunu Shrine recently?
You know, Abbott could have explained to Abe that it is impossible for Japan to be Australia’s ‘best friend’ in Asia when Abe honours the very war criminals executed for murdering Australians and for having C5631 as a star exhibit.
After all, one of the main exhibits is C5631 – the first locomotive to travel the Burma railroad, from end to end and one of the prize exhibits. Apart from all the other deaths of allies and slave labourers, around one Aussie died for every 12 kilometres of the track.
Or are you being a craven treacherous appeasing coward*, a rightist apologist for Abbott not having the guts to confront the Japanese in general and Abe in particular, for continuing to ignore their war history and continuing to honour those who murdered Australians?
*I don’t normally use these terms. I am temporarily borrowing them from the necon warmongering lexicon.
Yesiree Bob
Just more Batshit right wing stuff. Criticize the US government = American Hater , criticize anything the Israeli gov does = anti-Semite , a jew criticizes the Israeli government = self loathing jew.
SNIP: Overheated abuse deleted.
[poroti
Posted Saturday, January 18, 2014 at 4:21 pm | Permalink
Boerwar
(1) Indonesia will, some time this century, become a bigger economy and more powerful military than Australia.
A recent economic study looking to 2050 saw Australia drop out of the top twenty and predicted Indonesia to enter the top 10 GDP.]
Yep. And in those circumstances, and should push come to shove, a gradually weakening US will either side with Indonesians or stay neutral.
PeeBee
Thanks for your advice re negative gearing.
As you’ve advised, I’ve decided to sidestep the whole thing. I don’t know enough about it; and I certainly don’t want to be accused of pointing him in the wrong direction, let alone be responsible for any loss.
Looks like a financial planner is the way to go. With a reputable bank.
Now, who are they again?
[LSL, Wow, by the way, whats an “anti-Australian” mind set ?]
One which views our history (starting from the landing of the first fleet) as little more than a series of racist, imperialist crimes and abuses for which we need to feel constant shame and strive perpetually to atone for in every aspect of our national life.
LSL
Ignoring Abe, are we?
Kezza
Catching up with your post re the heatwave.
I could not wait for the cool change to come through. Now that it has, I feel really weak and nauseous for some reason.
Anyhow, your friends are indeed laughable.
The most anti western group are in fact the fecking right wingers. So much of what they want and are doing looks to pre-enlightenment days.
-One which views our history (starting from the landing of the first fleet)-
Considering that our history began a considerable number of years before the landing of the British first fleet, it’s hard to take you seriously.
Boerwar
I still think LSL resembles resurgent turkey
[LSL
Ignoring Abe, are we?]
Is there any reason he shouldn’t be? The discussion is about Indonesia.
[LSL
Ignoring Abe, are we?]
I could care less what Japanese politicians do or think. I don’t really want the leaders of our government engaging in some sort of international culture war where there is nothing practical as relates to our interests at stake.
Remember last year’s Q&A from Indonesia?
The polite applause from the audience. The sincere questions. And the equally polite but loaded direct answers?
Indonesia gave Australia a lesson that night. All members of the panel had something significant to say. There were no “one liners”, no “gotchas”, no “smart arse slogans” but a whole lot of sincere and thoughtful expositions.
There were respectful differences of opinions, but none of the opinions were expressed in such black-and-white absolutes that nobody on the panel had to lose face.
They discreetly side-stepped the obvious from Tony Jones, with a nod and a querulous look, and they answered succinctly, and fairly honestly, his continual attempts to make headlines.
In the end, they just ignored his attempts at conflict. All the panel was interested in was finding common ground.
I would wish for 2014, that part of the ABC Charter was to find common ground rather than going accentuating the difference tabloid route.
Is that too much to ask.
LSL
[… self-loathing and anti-western, anti-Australian mindsets …]
Why are you folk arguing with him, he’s not talking to anyone here is he? Given that I don’t loathe myself and am not anti-western or anti-Australian, I guess I don’t need to read his comments :P.