The big story in polling this week was no story at all, with Newspoll still yet to resume after its summer break. This has inevitably excited the attention of conspiracy theorists, but if Newspoll takes the field this weekend it will be acting just as it did after the 2010 election, when its first post-New Year poll was conducted in the first weekend in February. In an off week for the fortnightly Morgan series, that just leaves an Essential Research to add to the mix for BludgerTrack, which accordingly records next to no change on last week. Labor does at least reach a new high of 39.5% on the primary vote, putting it within a hair’s breadth of the Coalition. The seat projection is entirely unchanged, with nothing significant happening on the state breakdowns for voting intention. It should be noted that there is still no data from any of the big live-interview phone pollsters this year, all observations this year coming from Essential, Morgan and ReachTEL.
Chainsaw sure got a hospital pass.
With typcal Coalition ignorance McFarlane referred to Mr Toyoda as Mr Toyota.
[ Perhaps we’ll just be a nation of mining? Is that what the coalition want? ]
It’s what Gina the Hutt wants … ergo …
Steve Clements 2823
Who is going to be the most sozzled I wonder
Toyota looked at the fact that they would have to carry the Aust car component industry by themselves, they decided no thanks too hard.
All because Joe Hockey needed to flex his muscle in Cabinet.
Mr Denmore is on fire today
[Mr Denmore @MrDenmore 1m
Royal commissioners, audit commissioners, curriculum reviewers, mute 3-star generals & 50-something curmudgeons #jobsoffuture]
ru
Hockey et al are happy to see the back of the car industry. This is what they wanted
Bemused
[It is a psychoactive drug that will cause schizophrenia in vulnerable individuals. That will cause a significant number to take their lives. Trivial for a clueless green I suppose. ]
It’s rarely a good thing to argue when you can’t keep your emotions under control.
FTR while there’s some evidence suggesting that schizophrenics ought to stay clear of it there’s no evidence that it causes schizophrenia. You will also note that I qualified my observation by saying that it was comparatively innocuous rather than completely so. By way of comparison, it’s a lot less harmful than tobacco leaf in its standard form, which remains legal. It does far less harm than alcohol which is also legal.
You might be aware that peanuts, a comparatively innocuous legume, are widely sold, notwithstanding that anaphylaxis is a serious hazard for some. We encourage bees, even though some are allergic. It’s legal to drive cars and trucks, even though we can be certain that somewhere tomorrow in this country someone will die as a consequence — not necessarily the driver.
We humans trade in risk all the time. Even a clueless social conservative ought to grasp that.
victoria
Yep .Shed loads of union members wiped out in one fell swoop. Another Labor battalion lost in the class war.
poroti
Precisely
No matter what is the truth the punters will lay this fair & square on the Abbott governments door step. The age of entitlement is over & so is the car manufacturing industry.
Fran Barlow@2858
Heroin is also far less harmful than Tobacco or alcohol, should we therefore legalise smack ?
Psephos @2849
Indeed. It would be unwise to break the law but unjust for you to be punished, even if you went ahead and broke it. The law and justice aren’t necessarily the same thing, much as they should be.
bemused
[It is a psychoactive drug that will cause schizophrenia in vulnerable individuals.]
Unproven. There is a high incidence of people developing schizophrenia after taking up marijuana smoking, but it’s not clear whether the marijuana caused the schizophrenia or whether it was being used to stave off the early signs of the illness.
Just called in at the local convenience store and caught a glimpse of the headline in today’s Austalian:
“I’ll expose the dark secrets of the unions: PM”
What a shitrag and what a wanker of a PM we have.
In the meantime Toyota has given Australia the thumbs down and according to some reports fifty thousand jobs will go with them. Well done Tone.
[Possum Comitatus @Pollytics 3m
Remember this from Abbott? (from article http://www.theguardian.com/world/2014/feb/06/coalition-arbitrary-line-drawing-corporate-handouts-benefits-no-one … HT @PSyvret ) pic.twitter.com/oCu7MDMbbk ]
Bemused @2798
Re cannabis and schizophrenia, a recent study ruled out a causal link (see http://psychcentral.com/news/2013/12/10/harvard-marijuana-doesnt-cause-schizophrenia/63148.html)
Nearly 50 years of frantic effort by the combined wowser and alcohol lobbies have failed to demonstrate any significant harm from the use of cannabis by adults.
Victoria –
I remember seeing this on ABC 7pm news here last week, and went on a searching expedition for an ABC reference.
I couldn’t find a thing. Farking hopeless ABC search, and even google was being particularly unhelpful.
I’m sure the ABC reported it, and I’m sure they must have it online somewhere, I simply cannot for the life of me find it. This is happening more and more often for me, and I can’t work out if it’s me getting less and less capable, or the ABC and/or the search engines being less and less able to keep track of the web.
Anyway, the daily telegraph reported on the collapse in question of Steve Nolan Constructions:
http://www.dailytelegraph.com.au/newslocal/north-shore/unpaid-workers-down-tools/story-fngr8h9d-1226818601223
But didn’t connect the donations.
Google eventually gave me a link to a tweep who had made the connection, and his refs seem legit:
https://twitter.com/thewetmale/status/431345539347529728
Based on disclosed donations:
http://periodicdisclosures.aec.gov.au/Donor.aspx?SubmissionID=51&ClientID=32934
Still frustrated that I simply cannot find the ABC report on this.
I suppose it’s one way to get rid of the unions – get rid of the jobs.
Took them less than 200 days, the Liberals have managed to destroy the Australian car industry and SPC.
Zoomster
Yep. The problem is that the age when schizophrenia really manifests is the same age that people are most likely to first try dope.
[Heroin is also far less harmful than Tobacco or alcohol, should we therefore legalise smack ?]
There’s a very good argument to do so.
Make it legal, obtainable by prescription from the chemist, and most of the problems with heroin are solved.
My father died of lung cancer. We’ve known that there’s an absolute link between tobacco and lung cancer for over fifty years. Every single death from lung cancer in that period of time basically shouldn’t have happened.
Yet tobacco’s still a legal drug.
Rubbish .It was case closed years ago 😆
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=sbjHOBJzhb0
poroti
the other problem is that you can’t (because of the legal situation) do the kind of testing you can with other drugs.
For Victoria and MTBW. 2760 and 2766
Evidence that Steve Nolan constructions P/L has administrator appointed.
http://recoup.com.au/steve-nolan-constructions-pty-ltd-administrators-appointed/
Evidence they donated 200K to the Liberal Party 2012-2013. ($150K + $50K)
http://www.abc.net.au/news/interactives/tables/aec-political-donations-table/
If you’re Bill Shorten right now, you should be saying two words over and over and over again: Job Security.
You hammer that in in the same way Abbott hammered in Carbon Tax.
Again and again and again!
One thing is for sure cannabis gets more people singing kum ba lar my friend than ice. And people singing kum ba lar tend to do less damage to others and I suspect a lot less damage to themselves.
My recollection (based on something I read about 30 years ago!) is that heroin, although highly addictive, is actually a harmless drug – provided you can control the purity and the dosage, which of course illegal users cannot, and provided someone can restrain you from doing risky things, like trying to fly, while you’re under its influence.
spur
Sopt on!!
spur:
Yep, agree.
I remember that soon after the Rudd Government saved us from the GFC recession, via a stimulus package, the Libs bought an electronic Bill Board (in Melbourne’s CBD) that detailed, on a daily basis, the amount of debt that the then Government has accumulated. I reckon that the ALP should use the same tactics against the Abbott Government.
Have an electronic Bill board that displays days in Government and Jobs Lost. Display it where the Fibs displayed theirs, over Young and Jacksons, so commuters can be informed of the sterling effort of the Abbott Government, as they pour out to work (?) each morning.
jackol – I think the story didn’t mention the name of the company but I faintly remember the phrase ‘a building site in St Leonards’.
Afternoon all. Sorry to hear about Toyota, but not surprised. As others have said, the load on them was too much. It is a shame though – of all the local manufacturers they were the one that invested most in new technology and local models. At least their CEO actually came over and spoke to workers directly first, which earns some respect.
Te really is a serious need for a talk bout industry policy, but I will not old my breath. For that matter, we have to get more serious about education, and stop deluding ourselves that we can find secure paying jobs for low skilled people n a high wage economy. Those jobs do not exist.
On the good news front, this will banish Schapelle Corby from front pages. No, she is not Nelson Mandella.
[frednk
Posted Monday, February 10, 2014 at 6:39 pm | Permalink
Took them less than 200 days, the Liberals have managed to destroy the Australian car industry and SPC.]
Another great line for Shorten Fred. I’m certain Abbott would be out there using it if the situations were reversed. But I’m still not convinced Shorten’s advisers have the same killer instinct as the scumbags in the Liberal party.
Psephos@2878
Heroin is not Pshychoactive, it might give you a great sense of comfort, and you may fall asleeep, but you don’t “trip”
@mumbletwits
[So far everyone interviewed by ABC 24 seems to believe unemployment is undesirable. Where’s the balance?]
Bob 2881
Agreed. The count should start at minus two million, since that was the Abbott promise, and it ain’t happening.
The rate of job creation will always be lower under a Liberal government.
The USA is busy spending a lot of money trying to rebuild manufacturing, Abbott is doing his best to destroy ours.
Zoomster
[Make it legal, obtainable by prescription from the chemist]
In the 80’s I worked for a pharmaceutical company. It was a real eye opener to read the reality of such drugs. In the UK addicts could get their heroin from doctors. Most operated normally in society. Then along came the bullshit Americans and their law which forced the UK to stop it. Come on down all the shit and huge increase in addict numbers. Most of the health problems were caused by the shit used to cut it. And the theft and stealing ? Come on down price mark ups. In 1986 our company would buy a kilo of pure pharmaceutical grade Tasmanian morphine for $1300, sold at a good profit no doubt. Worth a couple of million on the street at the time and by then full of horrible muck to cut down the pure stuff.
Jackol@2868
Put these two links together and you have the nitty gritty at least, but it looks like $150 000 not $200k
http://www.dailytelegraph.com.au/newslocal/north-shore/unpaid-workers-down-tools/story-fngr8h9d-1226818601223
Steve Nolan Constructions P/L Liberal Party of Australia, NSW Division 150000
from:
http://www.abc.net.au/news/interactives/tables/aec-political-donations-table/
[At its first sitting for 2014 the senate was scheduled to immediately restart debate on the carbon tax repeal. But now the leader of the government in the senate, Eric Abetz, is intending to move that it instead debate two committee reports that haven’t even been written yet.
What unwritten report from a yet-to-be-completed inquiry could possibly be more important to this government than repealing the carbon tax, which was elevated to national bogey status and used by then opposition leader Tony Abbott as a potent tool of political attack? The next, and possibly even more potent tool of political attack, that’s what.]
theguardian.com/world/2014/feb/10/coalitions-tricky-dance-trips-up-labor-over-spotlight-on-unions?CMP=twt_gu
[Heroin is not Pshychoactive, it might give you a great sense of comfort, and you may fall asleeep, but you don’t “trip”]
Maybe it was LSD then. But I don’t think anyone has ever claimed that LSD is harmless.
[
Darn
Posted Monday, February 10, 2014 at 6:53 pm | Permalink
frednk
Posted Monday, February 10, 2014 at 6:39 pm | Permalink
Took them less than 200 days, the Liberals have managed to destroy the Australian car industry and SPC.
Another great line for Shorten Fred. I’m certain Abbott would be out there using it if the situations were reversed. But I’m still not convinced Shorten’s advisers have the same killer instinct as the scumbags in the Liberal party
]
Probable to many advisers like Psephos who believe the way back to power is to kick boat people harder, to ignore our neighbours borders, and give away free lifeboats.
[Probable to many advisers like Psephos who believe the way back to power is to kick boat people harder, to ignore our neighbours borders, and give away free lifeboats.
Parrot-features, your comments aren’t usually as cretinous as that, so I’ll forgive you this once.
Fark, just saw Abbott being interviewed over Toyota. To describe his response as a train wreck is being far too kind.
Psephos: I just want to say I agree with your treatment of the socialist consensus here at PB. You’d never realise that socialism lost the Cold War and that at the first free elections in 1990, Eastern Europe overwhelmingly rejected socialism.
Oh Dear
Abbott has chosen one of his to head his Star Chamber.
[Heydon is known to be a conservative judge and has spoken out against judges who assume a law making role. His publicly expressed views, made while a New South Wales judge, were described by contemporaneous commentators as a “job application” for appointment to the High Court by the government of Prime Minister John Howard]
Dyson will do a fine job for Tony.
don –
From the link to the AEC:
http://periodicdisclosures.aec.gov.au/Donor.aspx?SubmissionID=51&ClientID=32934
That looks like $150k to the NSW Libs, and $50k to the Federal Libs to me, for a total of $200k.
Psephos
The story of the chemist who accidentally discovered it and his description of the bicycle ride home is hilarious. Anyway it does have potential uses. For instance it was found to be very effective in treating alcoholism.
Well, if ever there was a moment for true leadership and an engagement of the fair-minded, it is now.
Bill Shorten, show us what you’ve got.