It’s been a disappointing week for poll junkies, with the phone pollsters including Newspoll evidently waiting until after the Australia Day long weekend before ending their New Year hibernation. Since this is an off-week in Morgan’s fortnightly cycle, that just leaves Essential Research. All told, there have only been three poll results published so far this year – two from Essential and one from Morgan – so you’re more than welcome to take BludgerTrack with a bigger-than-usual grain of salt for the time being. For what it’s worth though, the one new data point has driven the Coalition to a new low of 39.3% on the primary vote, and pushed Labor’s two-party lead to a new high of 52.5-47.5.
That might seem counter-intuitive given that the one new poll had the Coalition leading 51-49, but there are three factors which have made it otherwise. First, in adjusting the pollsters for their house biases, a unique approach has been adopted for Essential Research to acknowledge that its bias is in favour of stability, rather than one party or the other. For example, Essential overshot on the Labor vote during the election campaign as momentum swung towards the Coalition, but it’s been doing the opposite since the Coalition started heading south in November. So rather than the usual method of determining bias with reference to past performance in late-campaign polls, I’m plotting a trend of Essential’s deviation from BludgerTrack so its bias adjustments change dynamically over time. With Essential stuck at 51-49 to the Coalition while other pollsters are being fairly unanimous in having Labor leading 52-48, you can pretty much work out for yourself what the Essential bias adjustment currently looks like.
The second point is to do with rounding. While Essential’s two-party result was unchanged this week, the primary vote had the Coalition down two points, Labor down one and the Greens up one. Most of the time that would mean a one-point shift to Labor on two-party preferred, but this is one of those occasions where the shift went missing after the remainders were pared away. However, BludgerTrack doesn’t actually use pollsters’ published two-party results, instead determining primary vote totals and deriving a two-party result from them using 2013 election preferences. So the Essential result looks like a slight shift to Labor compared with last week, so far as BludgerTrack is concerned. The third point is that Essential’s numbers are a two-week rolling average (though last week’s result, being the first from the year, was a sample for that week only), so any change that occurs in a given week is a bigger deal than the published numbers suggest.
So it is that BludgerTrack gives Labor a 0.5% gain on the two-party preferred projection and a boost of three on its seat tally. The state relativities haven’t changed much since last week, so the Labor seat gains are evenly spread, with one each provided by Victoria, South Australia and Tasmania. Full results as always on the sidebar.
This would be a good move by Abbott.
[TELEPHONE users would find it easier to stop nuisance sales calls under a plan being considered by the Federal Government.
All landline and mobile numbers would default to marketing “no go zones”, ending the need to register with the Do Not Call list to get rid of pests.
Consumers wanting to receive marketing calls or faxes could consent to specific companies.
The Australian Communications Consumer Action Network is pushing for the change.
Its chief Teresa Corbin said: “Telemarketers should be treated like email spam, where unless you opt in to receive sales pitches you shouldn’t get them.”]
I really hate telemarketers. 👿
Fran
[seriously affected by this she cause operational separation]
Like Santa Claus?
Victorian Health Minister in trouble. Something about being at tennis on night of Grampian fires.
And there you go.
[@BrendanDonohoe7: Police Minister Kim Wells defends going to tennis Friday night during Grampian fires.]
BK,
My point is that there are many likely explanations for the phenomena you describe (where people decide to be married) and so jumping to your rather simplistic conclusion about religious identity is not valid.
Thanks lizzie. I got wrong minister.
CTar agree Indonesia can do what they want and at present have good reasons to pursue this type of strategy. Australia has managed to give them sufficient reasons to act this way. However to see this as anything more than the ongoing diplomatic tensions between Indonesia and Australia is pretty silly really.
From the refugees point of view they are so desperate they will, and often do, do and say anything to try and achieve their goal of a safe place to live. You can’t really blame them for that.
So I understand what both Indonesia and the refugees are doing and it is completly undertandable under all the circumstances. What I struggle with is Australians who find it so easy to accept our military personnel would stoop so low as to to torture innocent people as had been alleged.
Some of the rhetoric here has been biased and lacking any real consideration of all the circumstances involved.
davidwh
The comments have been stop the secrecy if nothing to hide.
Australian personnel have been involved in abuse in the past. Our personnel have bad apples just like any organisation in thw world. So people are jumping to conclusions due to the secrecy of an are that under previous governments was transparent and accountable.
See Michelle Grattan’s article for more on this.
davidwh
The comments have been stop the secrecy if nothing to hide.
Australian personnel have been involved in abuse in the past. Our personnel have bad apples just like any organisation in thw world. So people are jumping to conclusions due to the secrecy of an are that under previous governments was transparent and accountable.
See Michelle Grattan’s article for more on this.
davidwh
[What I struggle with is Australians who find it so easy to accept our military personnel would stoop so low as to to torture innocent people as had been alleged.]
Me too.
So Morrison should be open about what happened and what was done during this particular ‘event’.
Instead he ‘dives’.
Diog
I agree, but the serial pest telemarketers/scammers are from overseas locations.
Gary Adshead on 6PR in Perth is absolutely hammering Serco, Barnett & Morrison about escapes and prison management this morning.
Diogenes
[I’m struggling to see how a $200 subsidy for marital counseling is a bad thing given the horrendous problems caused by divorces etc.]
And similarly, I struggle to see why handing out $200 to owner builders to buy themselves a toolkit wouldn’t be money well spent given the shortage of housing and the weakness of the housing sector.
Perhaps we could apply this principle more generally. We could airlift in wire cutters to people seeking to escape the DPRK who promised never to get onto a boat or give people suffering in the heat $200 to buy themselves fans and adapt to climate change.
We haven’t had an Australian win the Aussie Open in a dog’s age so why not give kiddies $200 to get a good tennis coach (ideally he’d be able to teach them how to pray for victory. Extra $50 for that)
The possibilities are endless and we need never wonder whether the grants made a scrap of difference.
[So Morrison should be open about what happened and what was done during this particular ‘event’.]
CTar I agree however that is a completely different issue.
Thanks CTar1
DYAC!
[The Navy has been seriously affected by this because operational separation between the executive and their leadership has been obliterated by OSB.]
Some of the autocorrects on this mini iPad are truly bizarre.
Fran,
Nice little red herring.
You didn’t address Diogs key point about the horrendous consequences of divorces.
If giving out tool vouchers saved more marriages, I’d be in favour of that too.
DWH
[Scott Morrison is right in declaring that thwarted asylum seekers have a strong motive to advance spurious claims of bad treatment at the hands of the Australian Navy. But he is wrong and politically unwise to treat allegations that have been made with searing contempt.
Morrison could defend the navy’s reputation while saying that the claims – of people getting their hands burned from being made to hold hot engine parts, and other injuries – did need to be properly investigated.
Instead he today resorted to a diatribe.]
http://theconversation.com/australia-should-not-be-cavalier-towards-asylum-seeker-allegations-22320
” I really hate telemarketers ”
I have found that removing my false teeth when speaking is an effective way of confusing them. Moreso when I start to splutter.
Diogenes 291
I am already on the don’t call system already in place but they can’t stop overseas marketers calling you. Doubt if this will either
Davidwh
[CTar I agree however that is a completely different issue.]
No, it’s not. It’s one of the factors, along with legal indemnity and the war footing characterisation and the prior abusive conduct by Navy personnel even to their colleagues predisposing the willingness to entertain suggestions of abusive conduct by the Navy.
Fran,
[Mind you, if I could get a voucher to be entertained by someone like Father Ted and Father Maguire and their housekeeper I might think that worthwhile.]
At a hastily-arranged press conference, Kevin Andrews has just said that the sole contractor for the recently announced marriage guidance counselling service will be Fr Jack Hackett.
Reporters quizzed the Minister on how one person could possibly provide the necessary service demands of the whole of Australia.
In a confident reply, however, the Minister said that a person such as Fr Jack could easily service all of Australia, as the extent of his advice would simply amount to, “Feck off! Next!”, thereby precluding any build-ups of client queues.
And, as for costs, Mr Andrews said there will be massive savings to the government, as Fr Jack has agreed to waive the $200 fee, agreeing to being recompensed in the form of a cheap bottle of whiskey instead.
Upon further questioning form the assembled reporters, however, Mr Andrews admitted that his main concern with the appointment of Fr Jack, is that he will drink all his supplies of Grecian 2000 as well.
Fran
[Some of the autocorrects on this mini iPad are truly bizarre.]
I’m sure you’ll master it. I’ve watched 5 & 7 year olds do it!
GG
[If giving out tool vouchers saved more marriages, I’d be in favour of that too.]
No doubt this government has done a cost, benefit analysis :P.
William, I haven’t been paying close attention recently – could you explain the process which leads you to project Labor winning 13 Coalition seats in Qld?
Psephos
‘Stay away from crowds’ over there.
Things are getting heated.
Psephos if the polling really does have Labor ahead 53/47 in QLD then 13 seats sounds likely. I think I would need to see more polling over a reasonable period before I believed that was in fact the case.
Ian @ 218
The revenge of the toothless. Brilliant!!
GG
[If giving out tool vouchers saved more marriages, I’d be in favour of that too.]
But that’s just the point. There’s absolutely no reason for thinking that post-wedding counselling will ‘save’ a single marriage. This is not based on any body of research at all and there’s no mechanism for evaluating the success of the program. I’m also not sure that the community as a whole has any interest in ‘saving’ marriages in any event. There may well be an interest in devising programs to discourage people from entering into unwise relationships (business, personal etc ) more generally but of course this too would need careful specification and targeting.
One may argue for a program to ensure that when a marriage or partnership breaks down that there is minimal collateral damage to all stakeholders, but again, that’s a quite different thing and you wouldn’t get that for $200 a couple.
What’s telling here is that whereas Abbott claims that pricing carbon explicitly was pointless because Australia was but a minor emitter, here, a token sum with no research evidence to back it is seen as a worthy expense. This is a culture war porkbarrell plainly.
[CTar I agree however that is a completely different issue.
]
It is not separate at all it is the key. If Morrison was open and honest about historical events they could actually say ‘it didn’t happen’ after having investigated it. Attacking the media for dating to report the claims and the attacking those making the claim without providing any information or conducting an investigation is worse than Children Overboard and we all know how well the navy and govt got that don’t we?
david, it’s not the military, it’s the messenger. Morrison has appointed himself spokesperson and people are not inclined to believe anything he says. It’s like entrusting your messages to Wormtongue or <insert some other untrustworthy character from fiction here> :P. People have to overcome their basic instinct before they even begin logical thought processes :P.
Yes, divorce can have horrendous consequences and costs — but so, too, can staying married.
Divorce has been part of the furniture of Australian life since 1975.
Please correct me if I’m wrong, but on most of the measures we’d use to track the ‘horrendous consequences’ of divorce, either nothing much has changed in that time or the stats suggest things have actually improved.
Which suggests that the ‘horrendous consequences’ of divorce are far outweighed by the benefits of being able to get out of a bad marriage (relatively) quickly and easily.
For a party that purports to loathe Government, they sure are fond of excessively centralised control over everything.
Fran
[But that’s just the point. There’s absolutely no reason for thinking that post-wedding counselling will ‘save’ a single marriage. This is not based on any body of research at all and there’s no mechanism for evaluating the success of the program.]
There is plenty of evidence that marriage counselling helps.
[Please correct me if I’m wrong, but on most of the measures we’d use to track the ‘horrendous consequences’ of divorce, either nothing much has changed in that time or the stats suggest things have actually improved.
]
Divorces are more expensive than ever now as the lawyers bleed their clients dry and fight everything.
DN – The ‘sticking your tongue out’ thing doesn’t enhance your generally sensible posts.
Diog
I suppose it all comes down to what is meant by the term “marriage counselling”.
dio
[There is plenty of evidence that marriage counselling helps.]
And is already available Govt funded.
Perhaps a more prudent use of the $200 would be to offer it as preparatory counselling to children who will have to go through, and live with, the dramas of divorce.
Not all marriages are made in heaven. None of their endings should result in a hell for the children affected.
I really don’t see that as an ‘horrendous consequence’. If it is, surely the answer is to address the problems in the legal system.
CT
This is just a way of encouraging people to use a service which has been shown to be effective.
Only on PB would that be a problem.
Ctar, it’s a bad habit.
<placeholder for emoticon that was about to sneak in again>
DN – I wasn’t meaning to be overly critical.
I’m a ‘skip’ reader so it distracts me from what you’re actually saying or alluding to.
Cheers.
mari@219
If they call on behalf of an Australian business then that business is liable. Get the name and dob them in. 😀
If they are not calling on behalf of an Australian business then it is almost certainly a scam – nothing will deter them. 😡
Diog the real problem is not relationship counseling – it is churches all right thinking PB’s hate all religion with a fundamentalists passion and intolerance and narrow mindedness. Failure to do so gets you serious abuse.
Good suggestion Ian at 238. The preparatory counselling could be done as part of the “robust” School curriculum Pyne bleats on about because we certainly cannot trust parents to teach their children basic life skills, like how to get along with other people. And I think our schools need all the money they can get.
If Labor came up with this idea I’m betting people here would be falling over themselves to say its a good thing to do.
I haven’t made up my mind on this one yet (other than thinking that $200 isn’t enough money to do anything significant, whereas investing the money as a pool might be able to do something useful) but I found this link interesting (note the author has a vested interest, but that doesn’t invalidate the info).
http://www.marriageguardian.com/marriage-counseling-statistics.html
Serious marriage counselling – that is, weekly sessions over 26 weeks – appear to have a positive immediate effect, but this is almost negated after a few years (most studies apparently focus on the couple’s experiences immediately following counselling, rather than the long term benefits).
Dio
[This is just a way of encouraging people to use a service]
Then, that the ‘service’ is available should be the advance point of the Govt scheme.
Not some crazy ‘voucher’ that says “you’re getting married so expect deep shit” and here’s something to help you out later.
…a simple rule of thumb — if something is really going to have provable benefits for society, you’ll generally find that there’s a long history of agitation by interested groups for its introduction.
If something is introduced and it’s never been discussed publically before (and never raised in the context of an election campaign, either by an interested group or a political party), then it’s a brainfart and should be treated as such.
In my close circle, I know of both marriage counselling and couple counselling. If one of the couple is reluctant, it will not work, no matter how many sessions are paid for.