New results from ReachTEL, Essential and Morgan have finally put some meat on BludgerTrack’s New Year bones. However, their entry into the pool has had very little impact on the voting intention numbers, which hopefully means the model was doing its job. Both major parties are up a bit on the primary vote after being down a bit last time, but only Labor has made up the difference, the Coalition still being 0.8% off their starting point. With the ups and downs of the minor parties amounting to minor statistical noise, two-party preferred stays exactly where it was following Labor’s half-point gain a week ago. Things are calm on the surface, but the infusion of new data has helped smooth out the eccentricities of recent state-level projections, most notably the extravagant swing to Labor that was showing up in Queensland for a few weeks there. That shaves three off a still ample tally of Labor gains, suggesting Bill Glasson has his work cut out for him at next Saturday’s Griffith by-election. The seat projection has the Coalition down this week a seat each in New South Wales and Victoria, which taken together with the Queensland adjustment makes a net gain of one seat nationally.
ReachTEL had personal ratings this week which I’ve yet to remark on, and can finally little to say about now that I am because the charges are very slight. The best headline writers could do was talk up a 1.8% increase in Tony Abbott’s “very good” rating and a 2% drop in Bill Shorten’s. The latter might be part of a trend, but there’s little reason yet to think that the former is. ReachTEL doesn’t get included in the BludgerTrack leadership polling aggregates, as its five-point scale and compulsory answering mean it can’t readily be compared with other outfits. Nonetheless, there has been a change in the BludgerTrack ratings this week, not because of new data, but because I’ve implemented a means of standardising the polls to stop the trendline blowing around in response to the house bias of the most recently reporting pollster. This has had the effect of moderating the downward turn in Bill Shorten’s net approval rating, which continues to hang off a single Essential Research result, the only leadership poll rating to emerge so far this year. Presumably that will be changing very shortly as the bigger polling outlets emerge from hibernation.
Fran Barlow @ 2037: People who see politics as all about entitlement and chasing same, rather than looking after the interests of those they purport to represent, obviously have to stick together.
Zoidy Yes i think Retail is the largest employer of people, it is a very diverse industry as well.
DN
Fair enough then. While I’m scarcely innocent of getting snarky, and doing “smart arsery” from time to time, it is better, IMO, to stay substantive, or if you think it pointless, to scroll on.
Latika Bourke tweeted comments made by Glasson, JBishop, and TAbbott at the campaign launch of Glasson.
What arseclowns
https://mobile.twitter.com/latikambourke
Anyway, Fran at 2001 and 2007
I think your 1992 (the part addressed to me) addresses those. You don’t need to be a politician in the specific sense defined by the current system.
Also. Apologies to Diogenes.
For eg this from mesma
[Foreign Minister Julie Bishop says PM Abbott’s first overseas official visit was to Jakarta and OL Bill Shorten’s is to Paris, then London.]
Darren Laver
[How do they keep a straight face when saying this stuff? ]
As you say, it helps when tweeting. It received predictable responses however, none of them supportive. I took a bit of a swing as well.
Just Me@2043
Also they employ people in their own interests, not out of charity.
Those who do pay for “private” education are doing the government a favour in that there will be continued pressure for all parents to “pay” for education.
I am sure some governments would love the market to determine who gets education and who doe not.
The voucher system is the conservatives simple fix of the matter.
I wonder if vouchers came in and I waved one in front of Kings School or wherever it would improve my chances of entry?
Sink Schools are on their way and we will finish up with a many tiered system.
Sadly, I don’t think there will be any change in the near future.
If you are Aboriginal and live in Fitzroy Crossing your chances in life attending the local High School does not match 90% plus of your cohort.
I look at the differences between the LNP and the Labor party. To me it seems the labor party has less discipline over the life time of a government. The present discipline of the LNP must be exceptional to hear not a word about the worst PM for many years. It will happen but it will take a lot longer than it would do with the labor party in office
Fran,
It’s about 1700 now, I believe. Just a secondary school, and quite a few drop out towards year 12. Year level sizes vary greatly from year to year for reasons I’m not sure of. I’ve been told it is the largest single campus school in the state, though. Last year’s intake of year 7s was over 400 again from what I’ve been told. If you mean coordinators when you say “advisors”, they were divided into junior school, middle school and VCE, with I think one or two for each specific year level, plus subject coordinators, a locker coordinator, a bus coordinator, two AP, one VP and one P. There were about 130 teachers and staff.
Well if a business isn’t in business for its own interest then why would it be in business.
The whole point of a business is to make a profit and if it is publicly listed the objective is to deliver a return to its shareholders.
zoidlord@2050
Yes. Then Services I think.
Health is also a significant one – and growing.
Fran
[@Feeney4Batman: As always, Senator Don Farrell of SA handles himself with grace and dignity, and puts the interests of our Party first. He deserved better.]
And Psephos worked for Feeney hence all his comments in support of Farrell this morning.
Pedant
[Fran Barlow @ 2037: People who see politics as all about entitlement and chasing same, rather than looking after the interests of those they purport to represent, obviously have to stick together.]
Very much so. Feeney didn’t like me pointing this out either, and tried some hand-waving defences which made him appear even less credible. He probably should have cut his losses and shut up.
[ It will happen but it will take a lot longer than it would do with the labor party in office ]
From memory – it took a while for Labor as well. A year ? maybe longer for ‘internals’ to surface.
An estimated 6,000 people gathered at Perth’s Cottesloe Beach today amid nationwide protests against Western Australia’s catch-and-kill shark policy.
http://www.abc.net.au/news/2014-02-01/shark-protests-wa-catch-and-kill-perth/5232480?section=wa
dave
Labor had an advantage. Policies good. Even so called inept ones like pink batts. Those in heatwave areas will be appreciating those batts today.
[ mexicanbeemer
Posted Saturday, February 1, 2014 at 5:45 pm | Permalink
Well if a business isn’t in business for its own interest then why would it be in business.]
Thats fine, just as it is fine and valid to point to the self interest in having employees.
Packer is on the record saying he ought to be ‘recognised’ ie with a gong etc for employing people – thats when it goes the step further.
Meh.
The drop out rate must be huge Bugler. A few years ago I gasped hearing that Pennant Hills had 220 year 7s and a school population of 1500 or so.
In NSW the YA has a welfare role with the year group but in practice it’s difficult for one person to do that job effectively for more than about 120 students. You only get 2 periods of relief per week. Normally when it goes above that the executive appoints a second YA. Typically in co-ed this would be divided along sex lines.
guytaur – yes and for many years to come as well.
Fran, your tweeting picture makes you much younger than I’d imagined! You could not possibly have been alive during the Whitlam years…
Any reports of NewsPoll out n about this weekend at all?
So why tf isn’t he running for local council then?
Kill the Presdient a woman says in USA
\______________Repugnant congressman from Oklahome fails to reprimand a woman at a public meeting who called for the killing of Obama on the grounds of his treachery to the USA
from “Right Wing Watch” BTW… a great US site looking at the Tea Party loonies et al
http://www.rightwingwatch.org/content/rep-jim-bridenstine-shrugs-questioner-who-called-obama-be-killed
victoria@2056
I don’t blame him.
After PM Abbott’s trip to Indonesia, and what has happened since, I imagine anyone from Oz turning up on the doorstep of the official Presidential residence would get a very frosty reception.
On SBS a moment ago…the US NPB service looked at the danger to the Republicans at the next elections and all, after that ,of the anti-Repug votes of the huge migrant inflow…mainly hispanics who are changing US politics with their left-wing politics at the nest pres election such voters will numnber 40 million
If Obama can get another 12 million hispaniocs to get citizenship the Reopugs may never win again
http://www.theamericanconservative.com/how-the-gop-sold-out-middle-america-for-corporate-america/
[A dead 2m-long shark was dumped about 15km offshore as hooks were being checked hours before thousands of people rallied at Cottesloe Beach this morning.
The catch was found as Department of Fisheries officers checked the baited hooks off Perth’s beaches.
The shark, believed to be a tiger shark, was pulled aboard about 6.45am off Leighton Beach.
There were no signs of life.]
http://au.news.yahoo.com/thewest/latest/a/21207739/protesters-take-on-shark-kill-policy/
No wonder people are pissed off and protesting.
Of course if Shorten had made Indonesia his ‘first official visit as opposition leader’ (which is apparently now a thing according to Bishop), he would have been accused of playing politics with the asylum seeker issue, and risking our Indonesia relationship to play partisan politics etc etc.
And where did Tony Abbott go on his first trip as opposition leader? Who knows? Who cares? What a crock.
Fran,
Indeed my estimate would… I had a quick search and I have an old figure putting the number at ¬2,000. I was in the Select Entry Accelerated Learning Program, which meant I had all my classes up until year 10 with the same people, one class, so didn’t notice how many dropped out as most would. Figures may not include students who did TAFE through the school or VCAL, as I guess it wasn’t strictly the school providing them so much as providing an avenue.
CH 7 sticking the boot into Abbott about by election. Ended report with Julia Gillard at Labor fundraiser.
Come to think of it I can’t think of an equivalent to the YA… you could go to welfare, which was run by one teacher (mainly) and several counselors. Coordinators are largely organisational, though welfare does come into it a bit. I largely kept out of trouble and was too stubborn to seek help when I needed it in school so didn’t keep track of those services.
I taught for a number of years fairly regularly at a NSW school.
In the early years, it was real Blackboard Jungle stuff (my favorite story of those days was when a group of kids formed a White Supremacist group, and were promptly beaten up by the Aboriginal and Asian kids…)
In came a new principal. The whole air of school changed…largely, I believe, because he spent so much time walking around the school and looking into classrooms. A kid sent out for misbehaviour knew it wasn’t a matter of IF the principal saw them outside of class and asked why….it was a matter of when.
I still don’t understand what the strategy is behind the LNP running a candidate in Griffith is. It just seems all downside to me.
Just found a more recent source. Over 2,000 students and apparently the most portables.
Jackol
Hubris. The decision was made just after the election before polling was clear. Now they are stuck with it.
Could this be true?
Confessions,
Only hearing peripheral info on WA politics I have to say I didn’t quite get Barnett’s “Emperor” tag until I heard about how the shark cull came about. It appears to have little public support, no scientific support, comes at a great expense, just because he couldn’t admit he was wrong.
Victorian schools now employ nurses to provide student support services, rather than tacking this on to a teacher’s allotment (unlike NSW, where it’s a separate position).
(I’m particularly fond of that initiative, as it came from my local school council — ironically, in the first allocation of nurses, they missed out due to lack of numbers!)
guytaur @ 2086, yup, didn’t they also say it was going to be a referendum on the carbon tax? They bought into their own rubbish.
don
One article said France and England were bad choices but then couldn’t find a better one except maybe NZ.
Indonesia is out. Can’t take sides in China v Japan.
Perhaps Korea would have been better given the Asian Century stuff.
I’m sure no one really cares anyway.
Bugler:
The Emperor tag has been with him for a few years now. It is entirely apt as he often appears to have great disdain for voters and the public more generally. I’m not sure if it’s nervousness or some weird personality glitch on his part, but it comes through loud and clear on TV esp.
The shark cull came about because he felt the need to be seen to be doing something about a recent spate of shark-related fatalities. All I can say is that I’m glad there seems to be growing public backlash towards the shark cull.
Bugler
You hit it exactly. Emporer Cull’em Barnett has been showing these traits for quite
Zoomster,
Thanks. I only saw the school nurse once in my time there when my nose decided to start bleeding on a hot December day in the middle of biology.
Bugler
You hit it exactly. Emporer Cull’em Barnett has been showing these traits for quite some time. His problem is that he now has no clothes and is hardly taken seriously by anybody.
Abbotts ABC
Guytaur
I saw Glasson getting caned over Medicare. Especially as he is a former head of the AMA which as strongly opposed the copayment.
[AA @ 2087
Let me see, the Indonesians let a rickety old unseaworthy boat leave, and in return they get one of those little beauties, for no net cost.
Guess that showed them that we really mean business, huh?
I wonder how long the Australian taxpayer is prepared to let that arrangement stand?
DN
Funny part is they are still campaigning on the “carbon tax”. Real confident of getting their repeal legislation through the Senate.
DL
[Fran, your tweeting picture makes you much younger than I’d imagined! You could not possibly have been alive during the Whitlam years…]
Born in 1958. The picture is about 16 years old.