The first Newspoll of the year has caused Labor to take a knock on the BludgerTrack poll aggregate, helped along a little by a softer result from Morgan. Newspoll has also driven up the Greens, whose breakthrough into double figures softens a shift from Labor to Coalition on the primary vote to a 0.8% movement on two-party preferred. That translates into a solid six-point change on the seat projection, which is now back to hung parliament territory. Taking into account Labor’s still solid lead on the two-party result, this demonstrates the height of the bar the BludgerTrack model sets for Labor in making it to an absolute majority, mostly on account of sophomore surge effects in the decisive marginal seats. On the state breakdowns, the Coalition recovers one seat each in Victoria and Tasmania and four in Queensland. The latter is down to the publication of a Galaxy poll of federal voting intention in Queensland from yesterday’s Courier-Mail, which I have thus far failed to comment on. The poll of 800 respondents showed the Coalition with a 52-48 lead – a swing of 5% to Labor from the election, and 4% on the previous such poll in November – from primary votes of 41% for the Coalition (down five on the November poll), 33% for Labor (up three), 7% for the Greens (steady), 4% for Katter’s Australian Party (up one) and 11% for the Palmer United Party (up three). It was evident that BludgerTrack had wandered off the reservation for a while there so far as its Queensland projection was concerned, and the addition of this substantial new data point from a high-quality pollster has returned it to where it probably should have been all along.
There are also two new results to feed into the leadership ratings, one being the regular findings from Newspoll and the other the monthly result from Essential Research. Both have landed in exactly the same place after bias adjustments were added, and the effect has been to maintain the downward momentum for Bill Shorten that emerged when the last numbers were added from Essential Research a month ago. Tony Abbott on the other hand has been in a gentler pattern of decline after the steep fall that followed the Coalition’s polling slip in November, and has a stable lead of slightly below double figures as preferred prime minister. Some good analysis of the leadership ratings is available at the bottom of this post by Kevin Bonham, who previously noted that Shorten’s early ratings were on the mediocre side for a leader new to the job, and now finds similarities with Brendan Nelson and Simon Crean at comparable stages of the game.
As always, full results on the sidebar.
[Ancient coral off Western Australia’s Pilbara coast has been decimated and bleached by marine heatwaves, scientists say.
CSIRO and University of Western Australia researchers have been studying the area, which contains both World Heritage-listed reef and resources industry development.
The results from the first part of a five-year, $12 million study of the coastline are due to be released today.
CSIRO lead scientist Dr Russ Babcock says they were expecting to find some coral bleaching on the expedition but were surprised at the extent of it.]
http://www.abc.net.au/news/2014-02-13/ancient-coral-off-wa-coast-decimated-by-marine-heatwave/5255804?section=wa
The evidence continues to mount up, yet still we have people saying there is no such thing as AGW.
Could be bye bye coal
@KathViner: Nuclear fusion breakthrough raises hopes for ultimate green energy source http://t.co/HZhPsiPD5O
Just like Howard & Costello, Abbott & Hockey are going to flog off all the public assets to balance the books. Now why didn’t Labor do that, something about social capital I recall? No room for any of those soft furry lefty sentiments with this lot.
guytaur:
Well that’s good to hear re Uhlmann.
@WhiteHouse: Today, President Obama raised the minimum wage to $10.10/hour for federal contract workers. #RaiseTheWage, http://t.co/FtZqcgMgGI
Even the Richest 1% in the US are left for dead wealth wise by the 0.1% Richest –
The bottom 90% – meh.
mikehilliard – Fees, fees, fees.
dave:
That is a revolting statistic and something I’m sure the Liberals and their backers would love to replicate here.
fredex – if how much your computer costs is all that matters to you then feel free to advocate a high dollar.
The real issue is Australian wages.
The AUD went up – Australian wages automatically went up compared to the rest of the world (and through no fault of Australian workers or unions) – lots of pressure to stop employing Australians and shift as much work as possible offshore.
If you want a high AUD you basically have to argue for forcing Australian wages down to compensate, but this is very hard to do and potentially results in great inequity – the vulnerable are the ones who lose the most in that sort of environment.
Engineering a lower AUD is a much less painful way, and much fairer way, of balancing things out. Up until recently there was nothing we could do about our currency because most countries were trying to devalue their currencies at the same time as a stimulus/debt reduction measure in the aftermath of the GFC (and why we really couldn’t do anything about the high AUD) – the situation is now changing with the US (and therefore China) moving away from actively devaluing their currency, so there is at least an opportunity to jawbone or have the RBA intervene to bring the AUD down for the first time in 5 years or so.
[The AUD went up – Australian wages automatically went up compared to the rest of the world (and through no fault of Australian workers or unions) – lots of pressure to stop employing Australians and shift as much work as possible offshore.
If you want a high AUD you basically have to argue for forcing Australian wages down to compensate, but this is very hard to do and potentially results in great inequity – the vulnerable are the ones who lose the most in that sort of environment.]
Really has Gina helped you with this?
WWP – care to make a good argument – or any argument – against what I wrote?
KEVIN-ONE-SEVEN
Posted Thursday, February 13, 2014 at 8:25 am | PERMALINK
Am seriously considering giving the SMH the boot and sticking to the guardian australia. It’s not as if I’ll miss anything (except Peter Reith, Paul Sheehan, etc etc).
I went back on smh trial weekend papers subscription 3 months ago, after 3 years of non subscribing, after 25 year of subscribing, I won’t be renewing and have told them why
“@JoanneRyanLalor: In Nov 2012, Abbott said his Govt would “create 1 million jobs in 5 years”. Now he says “Govts do not create jobs”. #anotherbrokenpromise”
It is great to see that Joyce has gone to the Abbott Government and announced that henceforth he will be doing the robust individual thing and not personally mooching tens of millions of dollars from an airline that is plummeting to earth.
In a press release today, Joyce announced that the age of moocherments is over and that personal accountability for bringing a billion dollar business to its knees will finally be sheeted home to the bosses who mooch tens of millions of dollars from dying corporate carcases on their way to begging for taxpayer handouts.
Joyce asserted that it was high time that government subsidies ended and that, with QANTAS, IR reform would start in the boardroom. The CEO rewards would be fixed at five times the wage of the lowest paid worker in the airline, or in contractors for the airline. Joyce shrugged when confronted with the information that this was a Philippines cleaner being paid $2 a day to swab QANTAS planes. ‘If I am worth $10 a day, that is what I should be paid,’ he announced.
Joyce also announced that QANTAS will be seeking to get back some of the tens of millions of QANTAS funds paid to former QANTAS directors. He reckoned that it was unfair that they still had all that money while taxpayers were being screwed to fix their mess.
‘fess – I’m sure thats the aim.
Wages and conditions first targets, no assistance to industries with strong unions, although I don’t think SPCA was particularly dominated by unions.
mari@62
Mari – Just open your browser in a new private/ incognito window (Right click on a SMH link – will show you the options) – you get full SMH/ AGE access for free.
Decided to listen to BCassidy with Jon Faine.
Basically what Alan joyce wants the Qantas act changed to allow more foreign investment. The current make up the senate wont allow that, so in meantime, he wants bank guarantee of funds.
Cassidy also mentioned the bleeding obvious. The govt cannot introduce workchoices, but with the excuse of no longer subsidizing the manufacturing sector, they can proceed with the narrative that IR changes are required, and of course demonise fhe unions.
Lynchpin
Posted Thursday, February 13, 2014 at 9:04 am | PERMALINK
Nicole Flint…any relation to that ponsing princess David Flint?
I have just been asked that on Twitter may google and try to find out
Dave
Thank you will do when trial sub runs out on 25th this month
LynchPin
https://www.facebook.com/PerpetuallyEnraged/posts/569005979817826
an’t find any personal stuff ie relations but a lot of this sort of thing
Another study in the BMJ showing breast screening doesn’t reduce mortality.
I bet no politician has the cuts to look at the cost benefit analysis of screening mammography.
Actually Jackol wages haven’t gone up much at all.
Average [note that word] wages have gone up very slightly above inflation.
Profits and dividends have outstripped wages share of the economy by lots in recent years.* [see below]
The high $ has benefitted exporters not workers and what workers may have benefitted are in small %s and specific areas [eg …. well, mining for one].
And within the misleading concept of average there are hidden many devilish details.
Most households earn less than the average household a number which is inflated by a high growth rate of salaries at the top end of the scale [6 figure plus].
Which is why poverty has increased dramatically in Australia in recent years, from one person in about 12 a few years ago to about 1 person in 9 currently.
That’s more than 2 million Australians living in poverty many of them working.
Here check this article out.
http://mattcowgill.wordpress.com/2013/05/13/what-is-the-typical-australians-income-in-2013/
And for the poverty stuff here is ACOSS [our premier conservative social service group mainly run by the churches] who, among lots of nasty stats state in November 2013:
[2,265,000 people (12.8%) were living below the poverty line]
where the poverty line is calculated as:
[The poverty line is calculated as a proportion of the disposable income of a ‘middle income’ (median) household. The report uses the austere 50% measure]’
That’s half of what most earn which is less than the average.
Complex ain’t it?
Nope, sorry, I reject your thesis.
*From Cowgill’s 2011 [I think, it may have been updated to 2013 article
[The median gives a more accurate sense of the typical worker’s wages. If you earn the median salary, your wage is in the middle of the distribution – it’s higher than 50% of workers and lower than the other 50%. Among full-time workers, the median was $57 400 in August 2011, which is the most recent figure.
Even this figure, though, is a little higher than the typical worker’s wage. That’s because it doesn’t include the 3.5 million people who work part time. When you bring them into the fold, the average wage drops to $56 300, and the median drops to $46 900.]
To view SMH/Age you can only use Firefox (Private window) or Chrome (Incognito) by right clicking any link on the front page. After that you can navigate to as many articles as you like within the new browser window. That way you can view as many Fairfax articles as you like with coughing up, which probably isn’t that many.
[That way you can view as many Fairfax articles as you like with coughing up, which probably isn’t that many.]
25 is the limit I think without using private browsing.
Whenever I think of David Flint, I think of this Ackland story, and Flint jumping out of a cupboard.
http://www.smh.com.au/articles/2004/04/29/1083224515095.html?from=storyrhs
Sorry missed the ACOSS report.
Here it is.
http://www.acoss.org.au/policy/poverty/
And this is who ACOSS are:
http://www.acoss.org.au/our_members/member_listing/
I shall avoid QT again today, but from the brief look I had yesterday, it seemed that Bronnie insisted the Opposition keep stumm at all times. but I didn’t hear her admonish the Coal when they all chanted repeatedly in unison at Hockey’s invitation.
Am I right, or did I miss something? 😉
sohar
Users of Safari have the same option as Firefox and Chrome. Just thought worth adding to the list.
lizzie
You can always watch the Senate. Senator Faulkner and Senator Carr both seem to be doing some damage to the LNP at the moment.
Has Furnival been sacked or shifted aside yet?
ABC1 is covering Senate today if you want to give HOR QT a miss
diog
No news on that front today so far as I know.
guytaur
I’ll be on the road so can’t watch, but I look forward to bludgers’ reports. Always enjoyable!
[One of the challenges faced by politicians in the digital age is that it’s just not as easy to lie as it used be. Before the advent of pesky internet search engines and inconvenient fact-checking units, politicians could generally rely on minimal scrutiny from overworked or lazy journalists to get away with audacious claims or surreptitious backflips.
But not these days: now anyone with a keyboard and access to the uber-database that is the internet can pin a lie on a pollie. And it’s ghoulishly fascinating to observe the strategies our elected representatives have developed to cope when they’re caught telling porkies.]
http://www.abc.net.au/news/2014-02-13/matthewson-lying-pollies/5256836
fredex –
Wages in AUD haven’t gone up much at all.
Wages relative to the rest of the world changed significantly, and that is the point I was making.
A very important distinction.
How is this relevant to the discussion of the AUD level?
Perhaps you could explain how the high AUD has affected this, or how a devaluation would affect this?
Again, we were talking about whether a high AUD was “good” or a low AUD was “good” – how is this stat (or any of the stats you’ve dug up) directly relevant to that discussion? And where they are indirectly relevant, perhaps you could explain the relationship (hint: I suspect the relationship is not a positive one for the point you think you are making).
Totally irrelevant to the discussion.
People see “Australian wages” in a post and they jump to wild conclusions.
If you read what I wrote, I was arguing against pushing nominal wages down. I was arguing for a lower AUD to prevent there being any need to reduce wages.
And the AUD has no direct bearing on relative wage rates (proportion above/below poverty lines, medians, averages etc).
Jonathon Green writes this as if the media had no role at all in the framing of debate during last year’s election.
[But a more vigorous, a more testing debate might have been of benefit to the incoming government. You could argue, too, it was the debate we probably deserved, and that as a consequence we might now have a series of policy proposals that might extend beyond this encapsulation of the government’s current thinking on industry policy offered by the prime minister to AM’s Chris Uhlmann: “If you ask me, Chris, can I say what individual Toyota workers will be doing in four years’ time, I can’t give you that answer, but Chris, none of us know the answers to those questions. What we’ve got to do is remember that we are creative people in a capable country who have always faced the future with confidence and have always made the most of it.”
Our 2013 discussions on the economy could also have been partnered by a more than rhetorical musing over the state of federal fiscal affairs; unless repeated exhortations to “stop the waste” will be sufficient to resolve the sort of structural imbalances that, if left unattended, seem certain to leave the federal budget in a state of spiralling decline.
As the Grattan Institute put it last year: “Australian government budgets are under pressure. In the next 10 years, they are at significant risk of posting deficits of around 4 per cent of GDP. That means finding savings and tax increases of $60 billion a year.”
Cutting the waste may not cut it.]
http://www.abc.net.au/news/2014-02-13/green-slogans-stifled-debate-and-we-let-it/5255452
Abbott had given us slogans for 4 years, yet with very, very few exceptions was never challenged by the press gallery for something more substantial.
Green’s use of the royal ‘we’ as if voters were somehow complicit in all of this is galling. Some of us were demanding the media man up more. It’s a bit late to be crying about how it all fell in a heap now.
Jackol
There is no point in Australians lowering wages to compete. Australians will not accept the slave wages needed to so compete with Bangladesh and China.
Right Wing people just think they can bully people into lower wages. Something they cannot do with other costs of doing business.
“@latikambourke: PM making a statement to the Parliament at 1100.”
“@sspencer_63: PM making “major statement” to House at 11, followed by Shorten. We’re assured it’s big.”
24 has crossed to Parliament already
“@Pollytics: Finally invading New Zealand RT @sspencer_63: PM making “major statement” to House at 11, followed by Shorten. We’re assured it’s big.”
24 stuffed up I think
guytaur –
Do you think I was arguing for this? I was arguing that when the AUD rose strongly and stayed strong that it made Australian workers less competitive through no fault of their own, and that to restore the balance a lower AUD is preferable in my opinion.
I was arguing against lower AUD wages for Australian workers.
Jackol
I was agreeing with you. Sorry for not being clear on that.
Kevin One Seven
I saw Flint in full flight at Corowa’s republic debate.
Talk about an inferiority complex writ large – he was basically bending over backwards to identify himself with the Establishment and the Empire.
I’ve noticed the same phenomena since with people of migrant backgrounds who obviously, fervently want to belong, and believe that the best way to do that is to identify themselves with the ‘ruling classes’.
Mirabella and her pro monarchism is an obvious example (her engagement ring was a Union Jack in sapphires, diamonds and rubies), as is Converanti-Wells and her ‘speak English’ message. (Mirabella in her student days allegedly wore a badge ‘Speak English or Die’), but I’ve seen the same behaviour out of politics as well.
Fierravanti-Wells (oh dear. I do so like to get names right…)
[“@latikambourke: PM making a statement to the Parliament at 1100.”]
Hopefully to offer his resignation.
“@latingle: Lots of military dress uniforms about”
“@latikambourke: Here we go. RT @CroweDM: Defence chiefs outside chamber. Hands being shaken. It’s a military operation job well done.”
Today Christopher Pyne will move an amendment to Standing Order 47. This involves changing just one word – from ‘member’ to ‘Minister’. This amendment will mean members of the opposition can no longer move the suspension of standing orders. More of this government’s cowardly rewriting of the rules so they cannot be held to account.
Pyne’s amendment – on page 4
http://parlinfo.aph.gov.au/parlInfo/download/chamber/noticer/20140213_RNP017/toc_pdf/RNP017.pdf;fileType=application%2Fpdf#search=%22chamber/noticer/20140213_RNP017/0000%22
The current standing order 47 – page 32
http://www.aph.gov.au/~/media/05%20About%20Parliament/53%20HoR/532%20PPP/StandingOrders/Chapter6.ashx
Abbott on now
Its a Victoria Cross award