Crikey reports that Essential Research, which looks like the only poll we’re getting this week, is once again unchanged on two-party preferred, with the Coalition leading 51-49. However, both parties are down on the primary vote, the Coalition by two points to 43% and Labor by one point to 37%, while the Greens are up one to 9% and the Palmer United Party is steady on 4%. It should be noted that this result compares a two-week average with last week’s debut figures derived from one week of polling only, so a two-point primary vote change from this notoriously stable series is less striking than it would be normally. Also featured are results on asylum seeker policy (broadly favourable to the government) and climate change (51% caused by human activity, 39% part of a normal fluctuation), on which more shortly.
UPDATE: Full Essential report here. Another figure to emerge is a deterioration in perceptions of the state of the economy, with the total good rating down six points since immediately after the election to 34% and poor up one to 26%. Thirty-eight per cent now believe it heading in the right direction, down six, against 33% for the wrong direction, up seven. Respondents were asked whether things would get better or worse under the Coalition government across a range of measures, with remarkable results – large majorities of respondents expecting pretty much everything to get worse, with the singular exception of company profits. The figures are worse across the board for the government than immediately after the election, most remarkably so in relation to unemployment (from a net rating of minus 10% to minus 23%) and cost of living (minus 13% to minus 35%).
On asylum seekers, only 30% believe most are genuine refugees against 47% who believe most are not, and 22% believe the government too tough versus 25% for too soft and 35% for taking the right approach. Fifty-two per cent think recent extreme temperatures likely to be related to climate change, versus 34% who think otherwise.
Mike
I agree with you about the travesty of a program “at Home with Julia”
[Of course most are genuine. There are around 45,000,000 genuine refugees. Many millions more are being created every year.
]
One of Adam’s less impressive arguments is that the refugee definition everyone agrees on and applies is defective. And therefore being a genuine refugee doesn’t make you a genuine refugee. It is similar to the oh look at how many disability pensioners there are – they can’t all be genuine, therefor let’s assume only a small portion are. A kind of intellectually cheap assault on a class by deeming a portion of the class unworthy.
I am very happy for a lively discussion of weaknesses in definitions, and genuine attempts to fix them but these kinds of arguments fit more into the cockroach and zombie draw of Paul Krugman.
When will Abbott have his first reshuffle? We have early indications that he is going to need to do some serious tending to his Cabinet.
(1) The notion that he can lead on Indigenous issues is rubbish. He needs to relinquish it and put it into a real department.
(2) His speaker is showing signs of senile dementia and must go.
(3) His Education Minister is a flop.
(4) His Foreign Minister keeps edging us to war.
(5) His defence minister is utterly invisible.
etc, etc, etc.
So, when?
Boerwar deserves a medal. I love it when we lean right.
Bwar
If the Nauru Govt is incapable of enforcing its legal system surely Mr Morrison has to relocate the Detention Centre to a Country that can.
Makes you wonder what the average punters idea of what constitutes a genuine refugee actually is, is it:
1/. starvation & deprivation
2/. having your house & community bombed to rubble
3/. having an AK47 stuck up your nose & told to f off.
mikehilliard
2GB definition—- White, christian and fleeing commies , non whites and or Muslims.
[(3) His Education Minister is a flop.]
Heh. I initially read that as
[(3) His Education Minister is a fop.]
Either way works for me. 🙂
[Makes you wonder what the average punters idea of what constitutes a genuine refugee actually is, is it:]
It doesn’t matter if they’re “legitimate” or not – the problem is the way they are self-selecting and arriving in a manner we do not want them to arrive in.
And as for the oft-quoted statistics about how most of them are “genuine” they are experts at gaming the system. They destroy documents and rely on a vast network of already settled refugees to perfect their stories and work the system.
Most of them are economic refugees, not that it matters, since we don’t want anyone who comes by boat. Keep them out.
LSL
Can you actually outline the rationale for keeping them out? What is the reason do you think?
Economic refugees ? Many thousands of pommie bustards who fled Maggie Thatcher. Did all sorts of stuff to the building game and tradieville.
[It doesn’t matter if they’re “legitimate” or not – the problem is the way they are self-selecting and arriving in a manner we do not want them to arrive in.
]
Wrong if they are genuine refugees our duty is to give them refugee however they arrive. There have been a series of lies and half truths all based in racism that have allowed the devolution of Australian practice in this area such that you would make such a stupid declaration.
daretotread@151
And while I am not a noted fan of JG, I was just appalled by that program and cannot understand why it was ever allowed to be made or put to air.
I said at the time heads should roll.
Mikehillard @135: The Essential figures on refugees is disgraceful. 47% think most are not genuine for god’s sake…
The result of 15 years of dogwhistling and disinformation.
Clearly people smugglers should be selling false passports and airline tickets and even LSL will embrace refugees.
Mikehilliard
“The Essential figures on refugees is disgraceful. 47% think most are not genuine for god’s sake. I feel ashamed to be an Australian sometimes.”
That figure surprises me only because I thought it would be much higher. Some people on the left really need to drop the delusion that the average Australian voter is a closet bleeding-heart progressive.
BTW ABC24 has a doco on at the moment about the 71 Springbok Tour.
I have tried not to enter the refugee debate of late, and I’m not doing so now, but I have to point out that there are quite different categories of people being talked about.
Refugees are people who, for whatever reason, have felt the need to flee their home country.
Asylum seekers are quite a different category. Most refugees do not claim to be asylum seekers. Most refugees in the world eke out an existence in refugee camps or as temporary second-class citizens living in slums wherever they end up hoping to one day return to their home.
I think almost by definition that anyone who has felt the need to leave their home country due to whatever pressure is a ‘genuine refugee’, but that’s not the point in contention (and why the survey questions are bogus). Asylum, on the other hand, is a very specific condition that requires certain things – such as genuine fear of persecution by authorities, or other agencies whom the authorities cannot or will not stop. Refugees fleeing economic collapse, war or environmental catastrophe cannot claim asylum; that doesn’t mean they aren’t refugees.
We have a general humanitarian program to accept a certain number of refugees.
We accept asylum seekers who are judged to be genuine, and are then counted as part of the humanitarian program.
They are two distinct categories. The people who arrive on boats cannot just nominate themselves as worthy humanitarian cases – they have to claim asylum in order to get into the system, and so they do.
Journalists and commenters here cannot seem to keep the distinction between refugees and asylum seekers clear, so asking the general public to get it right seems like asking the average person on the street to solve a multi-dimensional differential equation.
[Wrong if they are genuine refugees our duty is to give them refugee however they arrive.]
Duty? Duty to who? Progressive values? The whole human race? Don’t make me laugh.
This is a sovereign country. Our duty is to ourselves. Part of our duty is duty to our collective values (breaching these undermines our collective culture) but Australians have determined that rejecting self-selecting refugees who come in an inappropriate way is not a breach of our collective values but rather a reinforcement of them (it is basic fairness that people should not be able to buy themselves a life in Australia and deprive another of one by paying a criminal syndicate).
Keep them out.
If Kevin Andrews is so worried about the size of the social welfare budget one thing we could do is wind back support and concessions to superannuation back to the point where we compensate superannuants for not receiving the pension but nothing more. We couldn’t do that in one hit but phased in over a period of 5 years would be eminently doable and save a growing number if billions each year.
[Journalists and commenters here cannot seem to keep the distinction between refugees and asylum seekers clear, so asking the general public to get it right seems like asking the average person on the street to solve a multi-dimensional differential equation.]
Very pedantic but clearly you are missing the point here and in the street as well.
LSL
All asylum seekers are self-selecting, it’s impossible, by definition, to not be.
As for the rest of your rant, it’s probably best to cite something if you are going to smear such a large population of people, but I don’t think the studies that exist say what you want them to, so I might have to wait a while for that one.
Also, you misspelt I at the end of your post. It should be ‘I don’t want anyone who comes by boat’.
Well I hope more attempt to get to Australia by boat than ever before under this Abbott government.
The Liberals have been using the issue as a political tool for 13 years.
I hope it buries them.
The people smugglers should go for it in numbers without deterrence or fear.
Nauru and PNG will soon fill, you will get to Australia ultimately.
LSL
How did your family get to Australia?
You could of course be of Aboriginal heritage.
WWP
Lordy, lordy, I wasn’t doubting the bona fides of the 45,000,000 (and counting). There is any amount of barbarity out there that I would want to flee were I subject to it.
The issue is not the size of the issue.
The issue is what, if anything, we can we do about it.
Sending a thousand to Nauru and another thousand to Manus does rather seem to miss the whole point.
To those of you interested in some current, in-depth research into ‘our’ attitudes toward asylum seekers and refugees, I strongly suggest reading the very readable report contained in the link below.
It’s an eye-opener.
http://www.arts.monash.edu.au/mapping-population/social-cohesion-report.php
bemused @ 163
Absolutely agree!
S777
(1) Get rid of negative gearing.
(2) Get rid of capital gains tax free for home.
(3) Introduce modest death duties.
(4) Means test all government transfers.
Problem solved.
[Jackol
……Journalists and commenters here cannot seem to keep the distinction between refugees and asylum seekers clear, so asking the general public to get it right seems like asking the average person on the street to solve a multi-dimensional differential equation.]
Sorry, but your post is completely wrong in fact and in the definitions.
A refugee is someone who has a well founded fear of persecution for a variety of potential reasons (race, religion etc) and who has had this claim assessed and found to be right. This assessment is by the UNHCR.
Asylum seekers are those who are applying for refugee status.
Those who arrive by boats could be asylum seekers or refugees (in other words, it is possible to have been assessed to be a refugee, be in a camp and then come here by boat rather than wait for the UNHCR to find somewhere for you to live- the average duration for which is 17 years).
LSL
“Keep them out.”
Why? What happens if some get in?
Are you afraid of them? I think you’re problem is that you’re a chicken.
When I look around at some of the riff raff on PB I suspect that we tightened the boat-borne asylum seeker noose far too late.
Mod Lib –
Nope.
People who flee from war zones (without being in any specific persecuted group) and people who flee large scale flooding or earthquakes are clearly refugees.
People do not need to be persecuted to be ‘genuine’ refugees.
[“Keep them out.”
Why? What happens if some get in?]
They take the place of others waiting in refugee camps who don’t have the cash to pay the criminal syndicates (who stuff people on unseaworthy boats which kill them).
And the places which currently furnish most of the boat arrivals aren’t top tier when it comes to producing individuals who integrate successfully into our economic and social life either. But that is probably racist so pretend I didn’t say it.
Is boats the only thing Tories can talk about? They get thrashed on every other subject when discussing the Abbott Govt.
[Jackol
Posted Tuesday, January 21, 2014 at 7:02 pm | PERMALINK
Mod Lib –
A refugee is someone who has a well founded fear of persecution for a variety of potential reasons (race, religion etc)
Nope.]
Well, to use your terminology, my answer to your further post would be: nope!
The term refugee is established in the 1951 Refugee Convention:
“a refugee is someone who “owing to a well-founded fear of being persecuted for reasons of race, religion, nationality, membership of a particular social group or political opinion, is outside the country of his nationality, and is unable to, or owing to such fear, is unwilling to avail himself of the protection of that country.”
http://www.unhcr.org/pages/49c3646c125.html
I was doing it from memory, but the words I used are pretty close to the convention wording included above….
LSL
“They take the place of others waiting in refugee camps who don’t have the cash to pay the criminal syndicates (who stuff people on unseaworthy boats which kill them).”
The Govt made that rule up. There’s no reason we can’t accept both. The reason they changed that rule was to use it as an excuse to not accept them.
So what you have there is circular logic.
MTBW @ 173
On the Achille Lauro.
mikehilliard@167
When it gets to the Melbourne demo, look out for me. 😀
I was one of the 300 or so arrested. 😛
Mod Lib –
That may be the definition for the purposes of that convention, but it doesn’t make any sense in terms of what anyone considers a ‘refugee’, nor what Australia includes as a refugee as part of our humanitarian program when taking people from refugee camps.
Refugee camps are called refugee camps for a reason, and the biggest and by far the most common reasons for people being in refugee camps is famine and war, and neither count as ‘persecution’.
That doesn’t make the people in refugee camps not refugees.
They are clearly refugees.
“And the places which currently furnish most of the boat arrivals aren’t top tier when it comes to producing individuals who integrate successfully into our economic and social life either. ”
I don’t know how you know this. You have just made that up. Show me your study.
Truly you have the strangest logic I have seen.
Judges just coming in
http://www.icj-cij.org/presscom/view_vod.php?event=20140120_tla&filename=3079175943001
BB@76
An excellent and actually quite moving post.
Jackol:
You can use whatever words you want in whatever context you want but I am just informing you of the correct use of the term refugee. When you are accepted by the Australian government as a refugee within the Humanitarian intake allocation, then you are someone who has met the definition I included above, not the definition that you use.
I completely agree with you that the community needs to have a much better understanding of these issues…….and I think your confusion, is exactly one of the common confusions that need to be made clear so we are all talking the same language!
LSL
There’s another aspect of your logic that is a bit dumb too.
“Part of our duty is duty to our collective values (breaching these undermines our collective culture) but Australians have determined that rejecting self-selecting refugees who come in an inappropriate way is not a breach of our collective values but rather a reinforcement of them (it is basic fairness that people should not be able to buy themselves a life in Australia and deprive another of one by paying a criminal syndicate).”
What you are saying here is that if we could show you that Australians by and large don’t mind too much people coming here by boat, your opinion would switch to defending that view… Which is just silly.
So, again, why do YOU not want them coming here.
A
One hypothesis is that it is the dog in the manger syndrome.
[The Govt made that rule up. There’s no reason we can’t accept both.]
You are aware that we don’t actually want too many of them I trust? Surely even bleeding heart progressives understand that there is a limit to how many we can take?
Fulvio Sammut
Love it!
Notice LSL didn’t answer my question.
Nor did Sean answer it the other day.
LSL
[Surely even bleeding heart progressives understand that there is a limit to how many we can take?]
How did we get you?
[166
absolutetwaddle
Some people on the left really need to drop the delusion that the average Australian voter is a closet bleeding-heart progressive.]
Sad, but true.
Absolute Twaddle.
That was an interesting read. Interesting how the attitude changes with the media reporting…