GhostWhoVotes relates that the monthly Nielsen poll in tomorrow’s Fairfax papers has Labor leading 52-48, after trailing 51-49 last time. The primary votes are 40% for the Coalition (down four), 34% for Labor (down one) and, remarkably, 17% for the Greens (up five). The latter is three points higher than the Greens have scored in any Nielsen result going back to the 2010 election (UPDATE: It turns out 15% is their previous record in Nielsen, and 16% is their record in Newspoll). Stay tuned for leadership ratings and state breakdowns.
Further results from the poll indicate strong opposition to the government’s policies with respect to the Racial Discrimination Act, with 88% disagreeing with the contention that it should be lawful to offend, insult or humiliate on the basis of race, as per the provisions of 18C of the act, and 59% opposed to George Brandis’s contention that people have the right to be bigots, with 34% supportive. Opinion on knights and dames is more finely balanced than might have been expected, with 35% supportive and 50% opposed.
UPDATE: The poll has Tony Abbott’s lead as preferred prime minister down from 48-43 to 45-44, which equals the Newspoll of February 21-23 as the narrowest lead yet recorded (ReachTEL may or not be an exception, as I don’t track it due to its unusual methodology). Abbott is down two on approval to 43% and up one on disapproval to 50%, while Bill Shorten is up one to 43% and down one to 41%.
UPDATE 2: GhostWhoVotes has full tables. By far the most striking results are from Western Australia, where the Greens lead Labor 27% to 20% – remembering this is from a sample of 150 with a margin of error of 8%. The lesson I would take from this is that static from the WA Senate election is making federal poll results less reliable than usual just at the moment.
Australia’s pension system is world’s most sustainable, study finds http://ow.ly/vMCgA #auspol”
LNP lies yet again!
[ confessions
Posted Tuesday, April 15, 2014 at 8:42 am | Permalink
Will Kenny seek financial redress I wonder? ]
tories normally do and I doubt kenny will be able to resist against the ABC.
Shall soon know.
[Will Kenny seek financial redress I wonder?]
if so, hopefully some dog comes forward and blows his case out of the water a la Wilde suing the marquess of queensbury.
dave
Posted Tuesday, April 15, 2014 at 7:59 am | PERMALINK
White House Admits CIA Director Brennan Was “Secretly” In Kiev
“We don’t normally comment on the CIA director’s travel but given the extraordinary circumstances in this case and the false claims being leveled by the Russians at the CIA we can confirm that the director was in Kiev as part of a trip to Europe,” White House spokesman Jay Carney told reporters.
According to media reports, Russia has urged Washington to explain what Brennan was doing in Ukraine.
——as reluctant as am to say so but i think us and cia is right on track on Ukraine. the cia and europe know putin’s madman intentions for east europe and they called him out in ukraine … things could have been worse – he would have had a fait accompli in ukraine as whole this year. i hope they cripple the little thug and his corrupt economy and militias asap. all sanctions on.
AussieAchmed
Posted Tuesday, April 15, 2014 at 8:52 am | PERMALINK
Australia’s pension system is world’s most sustainable, study finds http://ow.ly/vMCgA #auspol”
LNP lies yet again!
–ditto for health and education on whole … let’s pray the lib dogs dont destroy more of infrastructure of this country in their quest for gold. of course if lnp is teaparty then palmer is old republican fooling public with sentimental causes all the while trying to cut taxes for himself. both pup and lnp resent taxation on “their money”
who was that pup person on q and a last night – she sounded (in voice style and content) perhaps looked like cousin of pauline hanson. her new start demeanour might fool some but how many false political messiahs does this country need?
deblonay
Posted Tuesday, April 15, 2014 at 1:03 am | PERMALINK
Shows On
_____ your the tosser///that $1billion is very old news some weeks ago it was first introduced to Congress
Obviously you only learned of it tonight
my point was that it is seen as a very small piece of aid…which is all Obama is prepared to do
Tonight the Ukr Govt has announced it will accept the Russian call for a referendum in the easern regions to set up autonomous regions for Russian speakers…thus admitting their earlier policies were wrong
—deblonay only comes out at night – he sleeps with putin russian time during the day – he must get tired from bodily excitations at the all the macho energy by russian speaking full armed battle fatigued ordinary citizens in ukraine lately – deblonay is an embarrassment to any future for left in this country, and secretly harbours hopes for the old ussr
Geoffrey
Did you like the question from the audience member about those in receipt of benefits, pensions etc..work for private employers solely for their government benefits?
Pup’s rep did come across as having an underlying ‘hard’ line view.
[ASIC assets sized up for $1bn sell-off
SID MAHER THE AUSTRALIAN APRIL 15, 2014 12:00AM
THE corporate regulator’s register of companies is being sized up for sale by the federal government as part of a plan that could provide a $1 billion cash injection to commonwealth coffers.
The Australianunderstands that the government is considering the privatisation of the Australian Securities & Investments Commission’s corporate register, which has come into sale calculations after the regulator’s chairman, Greg Medcraft, expressed the view that it was not a core function and was a “technology business”.]
[Asia urged to toughen borders
DENNIS SHANAHAN, POLITICAL EDITOR THE AUSTRALIAN APRIL 15, 2014 12:00AM
AUSTRALIA has urged its Asian neighbours to strengthen their border controls in line with the Coalition’s hardline approach to people-smuggling, arguing it is essential to create a regional deterrence to international crime and terror.
Immigration Minister Scott Morrison told a security conference in Malaysia last night that only “collective capability”, including the exchange of information and intelligence, could deliver tangible results, warning “our regional borders are only as strong as our weakest link”.]
Russia using Ukraine tactics back on it –
[ Blowback: Protesters In Kiev Demand Resignation Of Ukraine President
for the first time since the coup that overthrew Ukraine’s president Yanukovich in late February, hours ago a group of protesters assembled in front of the parliament building and on Independence Square in central Kiev, with demands for the resignation of both the interior minister Avakov as well as the acting president Turchinov.
Additionally, VZ.com reports that the protesters have issued a 24 hour ultimatum to the government to suppress protests in the South East where, as is widely known, “pro-Russian separatists” have effectively taken over the bulk of the cities bordering with Russia.
Simply stated, the people are tired of a figurehead government that already folded when it handed over Crimea to Russia on a silver platter and are demanding at least a token resistance before the rest of the cities in the east flip over to Russia effectively splitting the country in two.
…Russian RT reported that “Ukrainian tanks and heavy military equipment are moving towards the eastern town of Slavyansk, ITAR-TASS reported quoting acting mayor Vyacheslav Ponomarev as saying.
On Monday, protesters ignored the ultimatum to leave by 9 am, and a Russian flag continued to fly over the besieged police HQs in Slavyansk. Ponomarev added that they are getting ready and are monitoring the situation. “We don’t want bloodshed, we are committed to negotiations,” he said.”
…Finally, while all this is happening, Obama keeps on talking – agreeing to continue diplomatic efforts.]
http://www.zerohedge.com/news/2014-04-14/blowback-protesters-kiev-demand-resignation-ukraine-president
Good Morning
Mr Taylor reveals some of the lobbying going on avoiding the spotlight
http://www.zdnet.com/film-lobby-emails-detail-persistence-for-copyright-crackdown-7000028324/
Coalition vision for Australia.
Dee
She believes that a stint in the army would solve all our problems. Any other questions on policy: “whatever Clive says”.
[@sortius 5m
#NBN Co will allow customers to order a “100mbps service” even if they can only get 50Mbps, & charge accordingly. Fucking joke.]
[@sortius 5m
#NBN Co will allow customers to order a “100mbps service” even if they can only get 50Mbps, & charge accordingly. Fucking joke.]
Basically what happens now isn’t it?
Although I must admit I *do* get 115mbps on the HFC cable when I use an RJ-45 connector. Wireless modem tops out around 80mbps.
The sting is in the return journey: 2mbps tops for uploads.
When everyone in the street is on it, Christ knows what it’ll be.
[ When everyone in the street is on it, Christ knows what it’ll be. ]
And thats how the future looks as well.
Hi everyone – just read a really interesting article on the rise of neoliberalism in Canada – seems to have a lot of parallels with what’s happening here in Australia. Quite eerie really!
http://nplusonemag.com/what-happened-to-canada
lizzie@912
Very graphic
We are just a bigger version of Nauru, and once known as Pleasant Island – much like us, really.
@MariamVeiszadeh: Tony Abbott standing in front of his giant billboard before the election, making pledges he knew he wouldn’t keep. http://t.co/Wm7LfLwnJV
@GizmodoAU: The Commonwealth Bank Is About To Be Buried By Customers Scared Of Heartbleed [Updated] – http://t.co/gfs7HWhyol
@Dee/908
Tony Abbott is insane, selling ASIC.
Sounds like Shorten is going to give that speech reducing union influence today.
[Bill Shorten will announce sweeping Labor Party reforms that empower rank and file members, rein in powerbrokers’ say over candidates and call for fewer factional bosses to be pre-selected for the Senate…
Drafts of the opposition leader’s speech call for local branches with more than 300 members to be given a 70 per cent say over pre-selection for the House of Representatives.
State-based head office selection committees would have their influence reduced to a 30 per cent weighting.]
Good move.
If Medcraft has a clue what ASIC’s ‘core functions’ are he hasn’t shown it to date.
I was arguing the other night with an old mate who happens to work for Foxtel’s IT (satellite) division.
He came up with every excuse under the sun for why..
(a) Murdoch has no interest in nobbling the Labor version of the NBN,
(b) We really don’t need an NBN at all. There are companies I can upload to and then use their cloud facilities to broadcast any video material I might want to broadcast.
Any other use of the NBN was “vapourware”, according to him. Apparently all people wanted to do was download movies, for which 3mbps was perfectly adequate.
In addition, Conroy “lied and obfuscated”. I pointed out to him that this was a “pub argument”. Whether Conroy gilded the lily on the NBN or not, that didn’t detract from a discussion on whether it would be a good thing for Australia to have.
I also pointed out that Turnbull has broken most, if not all, of his promises, and hidden the fact in a blancmange fog of quips, “Conrovianism” stories in QT, contradictions and outright lack of candour i.e. “commercial confidential” secrecy).
The latest was his abandonment of a Cost/Benefit analysis, when he had called Labor out on not having one itself.
He wouldn’t have a bar of any of it.
Huis solution always involves the use of the facilities of some large corporate, located “where the data is” – in a big city usually, with expensive property prices and other infrastructure like motorways (built by Abbott’s mates) to feed into these areas.
I gave him the example of another mutual friend who “retured” to countrysuide Tasmania agter running a successful film-sound business for many years in Sydney. His old clients pestered him to do “one more job” before he became “Farmer Brown” (his lifelong ambition was to return to his roots as a farmer).
He resisted, until the NBN came along to his area. HE was one of the lucky ones. He now has a fully functional film-sound mixing studio going in the middle of nowhere, with clients connected in to his studio via a 400mbps download link (300mbps up, I think), 16 track live 48khz upload to anywhere as he mixes, and a video feed up and down to match it.
He is now as busy as he ever was, except that he can enjoy the country life, and (because he doesn’t have to waste time getting in a car and driving to the country) can get on with his farming activities as well. He employs three people from the town to help him.
My other mate said this was a one-off.
I asked him how he knew that.
I asked him how anyone could possibly know that.
I asked him what if I didn’t want to upload to a big cloud company in Sydney, but wanted to direct broadcast? What if I had a constant stream of data – say, for example photographic or film data – that I need to service? Why should I pay a middle man?
What if I wanted to work from home as smoothly as I worked in my office, with the same data transfer rates as I would have, as if I was directly hooked up to my server at work? Wouldn’t that take some strain off the motorways, help me with my kids if I wanted to pick them up from the local school on the day I worked from home? Saved on childcare fees? It would only have to be one day a week, or a fortnight to lighten the load on service that are already overstretched and costly, especially if hundreds fo thousands of office workers (or even millions of them) did it.
None of this made any sense. He rabbited on about how Labor’s NBN would cost way more than anticipated and – get this – would be out of date in 10 years anyway.
I asked him why, if an almost infinite bandwidth (at least notionall) link would be out of date in 10 years, what disasters would befall us from re-using the old degraded copper network? It’d be like buying a bomb car with 250,000k on the clock already and expecting it to do another 250,000k without further need for maintenance, wouldn’t it?
He finally agreed that Turnbull’s option WAS worse than Labor’s. Both both were pretty bad. When I asked him what was better, he couldn’t say, stating that “we don’t know what’s coming up in the future.”
I reminded him that this was the perfect argument for the NBN. World’s best practice, the fastest possible speeds. What’s wrong with that? It’s got to be better than using old copper hasn’t it?
He didn’t know.
This is a guy who has a vested interest in big data companies controlling what happens to internet traffic. They get “a drink” out of ever packet of data sent. He can’t conceive of a situation where ordinary people could make use of the extra bandwidth that optical cable would provide, one that didn’t</i< involve him and his ilk, that is, and the companies they work for.
His style of argument reminded me of Turnbull's. They both fill the air with red herrings, gloatings, fairy stories, nit-picking and ad hominem attacks… anything to disguise and distract from the big picture which is that if Australia had the Labor NBN we could write our own ticket.
Unfortunately vested interests have the ear of the Minister and the government. Until we get rid of them, it's only going to get more and ore confused, vague and, ultimately, useless in a modern world.
The Labor NBN is being given the death of a thousand cuts. When Abbott assigned Turnbull to "Destroy" (his word) the NBN, he bloody-well meant that… precisely.
guytaur@919
GT – do you have a working link on the above ?
Ta.
dave
Try this
http://t.co/O6dVxmC1xz
Diogenes@922
Bullock’s ‘selection’ resulting in needed change ?
The final straw…hopefully.
GT – Ta. That fine.
[An autonomous underwater vehicle tasked with scouring the sea floor for missing Malaysian Airlines flight MH370 has hit a hurdle on its first mission and returned to the surface.
The Bluefin-21 was deployed from Australian Defence Vessel Ocean Shield early last night to begin painting a picture of what is at the bottom of the Indian Ocean search zone, off the coast of Western Australia.
But it turned back six hours into its first 16-hour mission because it had reached its maximum operational depth of 4.5km, the Joint Agency Coordination Centre said in a statement on Tuesday.]
Read more: http://www.smh.com.au/national/missing-malaysia-airlines-flight-mh370-seabed-hunt-hits-hurdle-as-bluefin21-resurfaces-20140415-36ofo.html#ixzz2yubIeWXH
[Andrew Leigh @ALeighMP 20m
Public spending on pensions as a % of GDP in OECD countries, via @MattCowgill @GrogsGamut #fauxmergency pic.twitter.com/bq5KIQs9p8 ]
Dave
Yes I think Bullock was the last straw.
guytaur@926
Interesting wording on that billboard –
“No cuts, No Changes etc etc etc….under any Government I Lead”
He has snookered himself. Dumb enough to use the words that haunted Gillard and were used so effectively again her – over and over and over and over again.
Sucker. The Libs can just bone him of course, but then that takes on a life of its own…..
What goes around….comes around.
For those wondering Barry O Farrell is expected at Icac at 2pm
917 – Canada would certainly be an agenda leader for the Abbott government and right wing in Australia generally. We all would do well to be up to speed with the corporate neo-liberal agenda – and build opposition action.
One of the problems of course is to get the right balance between public and private institutions, market and planning etc. Having well funded institutions to assist us with the necessary research and understanding is a key – hence the Abbott Govt attack on CSIRO, Environment Defenders Offices etc.
Take the Bob Carr quiz. Can you distinguish his words from fictional psycho Patrick Bateman? http://t.co/6W6aL1cFRN
It’s understandable that Bill Shorten wants to open up Labor to more members, but a rise from 40k to 100k is a huge task. Voluntary orgs who try to do that generally launch a well-planned campaign with a strong theme – and even then few succeed in meeting their targets.
Where are the top quality PR/sales people who can do this for Labor? Will the ‘theme’ have to be voted on at a conference? Who are the well-known sympathetic public figures who will ‘come out’ for Labor? What can inspire people to become involved?
Fran Barlow@935
18 out of 23.
“@Kate_McClymont: Counsel assisting keeps saying THREE THOUSAND DOLLAR bottle of wine. It is an astoundingly expensive gift that BOF was given. #icac”
If Bullock is the last straw, who is the camel?
“@Kate_McClymont: Nicky Di G forked out $30,000 4 dinner with Barry O’Farrell, $10k for a Hockey dinner, but only $2k for Albo & poor Tony Abbott $1k. #icac”
“@political_alert: Outgoing SBS Chairman Joseph Skrzynski will address the National Press Club in Canberra today from 12.30pm.”
Can anyone please tell me if the attached is genuine or fake, because if it is genuine it should already be enough to crucify Abbott at the next election.
http://t.co/O6dVxmC1xz
[ “No cuts, No Changes etc etc etc….under any Government I Lead” ]
Well, there’s his excuse – Credlin and the IPA lead this government, not Abbott.
@GuardianAus: Bob Carr was right to start a debate on the influence of the Zionist lobby | Antony Loewenstein http://t.co/8fxYgPjkEX
There are hardly any $3000 bottles of wine in the world. Some of the Romanee Conti wines are but not many others.
[ Can anyone please tell me if the attached is genuine or fake, because if it is genuine it should already be enough to crucify Abbott at the next election.
http://t.co/O6dVxmC1xz ]
I don’t know if the photo is genuine, but the pledge certainly is.
But don’t get too exctied – he’s already broken that pledge once: http://www.smh.com.au/federal-politics/political-news/abbott-to-break-abc-no-cuts-promise-20140412-zqty9.html
[922
Diogenes
Sounds like Shorten is going to give that speech reducing union influence today.
Bill Shorten will announce sweeping Labor Party reforms that empower rank and file members, rein in powerbrokers’ say over candidates and call for fewer factional bosses to be pre-selected for the Senate…
Drafts of the opposition leader’s speech call for local branches with more than 300 members to be given a 70 per cent say over pre-selection for the House of Representatives.
State-based head office selection committees would have their influence reduced to a 30 per cent weighting.
Good move.]
I don’t know how many branches in WA have 300 members, but think it would be very few. This is a step in the right direction, no doubt, but by itself will not be enough to rebuild democratic connections between voters and Labor in WA.
briefly
My understanding is Shorten was talking about Victoria. For WA no doubt the numbers would be different.
[Can anyone please tell me if the attached is genuine or fake …]
Its fake.
Photoshopped.
The quote of what Abbott said is accurate, and he has confirmed such in Parliament recently, but there is no actual billboard with those words and with him standing in front of it.
Best not to use that image- the words are sufficient by themselves.
Darn
Here is youtube video of Abbott making his pledge
Check out this video on YouTube:
http://youtu.be/VN-hbWVXsyE