Morgan has released its regular fortnightly face-to-face plus SMS poll covering 2955 respondents over the past two weekends. On the primary vote, Labor is down half a point to 34%, the Coalition steady on 38.5%, Palmer United steady on 5% and the Greens up a point to 13% – which, while well short of Nielsen, makes it a third pollster showing the Greens vote at its highest for at least this term, or in this case since July 2012. Labor leads 52-48 on both measures of two-party preferred, compared with 51.5-48.5 on respondent-allocated and 52-48 on previous-election preferences last time. Essential Research will be with us tomorrow.
UPDATE: Essential is with us sooner than I thought, the report having been published on their website. This shows the Coalition down a point to 41%, Labor steady on 37%, the Greens at their highest for the current term with a gain of one point to 11%, and Palmer United also up one to 5%. Labor has recovered the 51-49 lead on two-party preferred it had lost with last week’s shift to 50-50. Also featured are “most important election issues”, showing economic management and health policy have gained in salience since before the election while “political leadership” has declined; a finding that 61% oppose funding cuts to the ABC, with 21% supportive; 45% expecting the government’s motivation to reduce ABC funding would be overall spending reduction rather its dislike of ABC news coverage (45% to 28%); 71% disapproving of raising the pension age with 20% supportive; 58% favouring 65 as the pension age; 64% disapproving of including the value of the family home in asset testing for pension eligibility, with 26% supportive.
lizzie@790
BBC something or other. I didn’t catch exactly what.
Boerwar.
Timbo :
22 Mar 2012 1:29:50pm
The very important folk in Defence should think about drawing up role reversal design modifications in taking the wings and landing gear off the JSF and attach them to our sub’s.
While they are at it draw up designs to attach the conning towers off our sub’s to the JSF, and we might fix two problems at once.
Air superiority will be gained if airborne Joint Collins Class Fighters are letting loose fly by wire torpedoes at 15 kilometres. Might not need as many air crew in a sub either, bound to be a few savings there.
Scenario is only slightly less ridiculous than the JSF.
Boerwar
You are sounding like Abe Simpson. Good evening all.
Astrobleme
Que?
Where in all that does Ludlam state that he supports us having modern fighter jets and submarines?
Andrew Neil Wiki
Andrew Neil FT 2011.jpg
Born Andrew Ferguson Neil
21 May 1949 (age 64)
Paisley, Renfrewshire, Scotland, UK
Alma mater University of Glasgow
Occupation BBC journalist
Author
Television presenter
Notable credit(s) This Week
Daily Politics
The Sunday Politics
Andrew Ferguson Neil (born 21 May 1949) is a British journalist and broadcaster.
Neil currently works for the BBC, presenting the live political programmes, Daily Politics on BBC Two, The Sunday Politics on BBC One, and This Week on BBC One. He also anchors BBC’s Straight Talk With Andrew Neil and makes documentaries.[1][2][3]
Neil is Chairman of Spectator Magazines, Chairman of ITP Magazines (Dubai), and Chairman of World Media Rights (London).[4]
@MissBaileyWoof: Twitter of the Day. http://t.co/6pcIE55c7y
[Socrates
Posted Wednesday, April 23, 2014 at 7:05 pm | Permalink
Boerwar
You are sounding like Abe Simpson. Good evening all.]
As soon as the Greens are questioned about the substance of their so-called defence policies they start with the personal abuse.
They don’t even get their hypocrisy: so much for peace and goodwill sorting it all out, eh?
Rossmore@710
http://blogs.crikey.com.au/pollbludger/2014/04/22/morgan-52-48-to-labor-2/?comment_page=15/#comment-1960963“>Rossmore@710
Then you obviously have no experience with Coroners.
It seems at times they would have difficulty tracking a bleeding elephant through snow.
Bw
[not good]
Type 42’s and 22’s kept evaporating.
There was a cunning Plan “B” – Just beach the Canberra in the sound and let the Army climb over the side.
I had a set of 24 directions for the fleet but they have gone gone missing and never published.
Read the rest of Wiki.
Andrew Neil.
Gasp!
Still waiting for a single, just ONE, statement of outright support from a Greens representative on ANY Defence capability spending at all.
There’s none. The Greens defence policy is all scented candles, aromatherapy, marijuana and group hugs.
Boerwar
Read it and stop peddling FUD.
Use your brain.
http://scott-ludlam.greensmps.org.au/content/estimates/future-submarine-capability
Obviously he is interested in the Submarines…
It’s obvious you made some shit up and have set some arbitrary bar as to what constitutes proof.
Remember your claim was that The Greens wanted to disarm.
Prove it.
Stop being a Lazy FUD peddler.
CTaR1
One of the bits of footage that sticks with me is that of the well deck of one of the ships after a bomb hit… and listening to the commander.
It was awful stuff.
Boerwar,
[As soon as the Greens are questioned about the substance of their so-called defence policies they start with the personal abuse.]
Show me one post of mine where I hurled personal abuse at you.
When you are called out to provide proof and can not deliver, it is you who resorts to making general smears.
Astrobleme
I note that you are keeping up the personal abuse.
Peace, brother!
Ludlam asking questions about anything at all having to do with Defence is nothing like an open, firm and definitive statement supporting massive expenditure on fighters and submarines.
You keep looking and you keep not finding it.
It does not exist.
Next Thursday, 1 May is the date for release of the 4 volume Commission of Audit.
[The JSF program has been hindered by massive cost overruns, and project delays, all of which are part of the public record. In a detailed analysis, Air Power Australia (an independent defence think tank) has questioned whether the JSF F-35 is even really a 5th generation fighter at all when compared to other modern and planned fighters.
The cautionary words of the Pentagon’s Lieutenant-General Chris Bogdan ( “pieces and parts … coming off the airplane way too regularly because they are breaking”) are but confetti blown away by the wind of the Prime Minister’s hubris.]
Read more: http://www.smh.com.au/comment/smh-letters/abbott-jet-purchase-throws-caution-to-the-wind-20140423-zqy6x.html#ixzz2zhP7nJ2T
Anyway, dinner to eat 🙂
P
[Astrobleme
Posted Wednesday, April 23, 2014 at 7:03 pm | Permalink
You are a tard Boerwar
Do you own research before making stupid allegations]
Now over to you, Pegasus.
Where has any Greens representative EVER supported ANY specific defence expenditure AT ALL?
[782
Pegasus
The Greens believe that Australia’s foreign policy should be independent and nonaligned, benefitting both the Australian people and the people of the countries with which we engage. We believe our defence policy should not be reliant on the US nuclear umbrella and that our military forces should be geared for defensive rather than offensive operations.]
The Greens want to join the non-aligned? This is not a viable policy based on our national interests, which should be unequivocally aimed at contributing to regional strategic stability. Ludlam’s rhetoric is not based on the contemporary balance of power in East Asia and is simply a relic of 1970’s sentimentalism. In any case it explicitly confuses military capability with foreign policy – with diplomatic positioning.
The distinction between “defensive” and “offensive” capability is also an illusion. This is a completely false distinction for all practical purposes.
Lordy, as soon as battle is joined on the facts of the matter, the Greens run for cover.
[David Johnston: “This plane (F-35) is peerless!”.]
Yeah, there’s nothing like it!
Dee. I refer you to my post at 706.
crikey whitey
Posted Wednesday, April 23, 2014 at 6:06 pm | Permalink
Could anyone tell me why this plane stuff reminded me of this?
Sea King down
Sunday, April 2, 2006
It was a terrible mistake, a terrible, terrible waste. And only now can the true story be told. It began as a mercy mission. An Australian Navy team overseas, saving lives after the tsunami.
Excerpt. Sea King Down.
RAY MARTIN: Now, this was the same crew that showed the PM where Australia’s billion dollars in aid money needed to be spent.
Just hours after Mr Howard’s safe return, Shark 02 went in for routine repairs. The mechanics stripped down the flight control system. Believe it or not, this is what caused the terrible tragedy. This tiny spit pin, at the end of a bolt to keep that nut on. The bolt goes in there.
It’s a bit like the steering column of a car. What we now know is that the mechanic made a mistake. Either he didn’t put the spit pin in, or else he put it in incorrectly.
Either way, the bolt fell out of there and the chopper fell out of the sky, out of control.
US: Hey Aussies, give our corporations all your money !
Australia: Ok no probs cobber
US: Cool… and yeah we’re gonna use your country to spy on everyone !
Australia: no worries matey !
[Lordy, as soon as battle is joined on the facts of the matter, the Greens run for cover.]
There’s only so much lipstick that can be applied before that pig starts looking absolutely hideous.
CTaR1
It was either Ardent or Antelope.
[822
BK
David Johnston: “This plane (F-35) is peerless!”.
Yeah, there’s nothing like it!]
Lockheed Martin have hooked the Senator. The creeping reality is that ever since Howard decided to buy them, the JSF will have been designed into the fabric of defence planning. Whether the ADF and the Government would like to change their minds or not, this decision was made many years ago.
Re defence: it’s hard to envisage what a future war might look like. Nothing like WW2 I would expect. Australia’s involvements since WW2 have mostly been as a junior partner in someone else’s war. Plus peacekeeping efforts, of course.
So what are we preparing for? Getting caught up in a regional conflict? Say between China and Japan? Conflict with an Indonesia turned aggressive or expansionist? It’s hard to envisage problems caused by others of our current neighbours. Maybe still the loyal ally of the USA, caught up in future Iraqs and Afghanistans or possibly a new Cold awar turned hot in places, involving Russia or China? Any direct threat to Australia or it’s trade routes? Non state actors like a bigger, scarier Al Qaida or James Bond style super villains?
Details aren’t much discussed although our defence gurus must be looking into scenarios.
And what happens when we lose a large fraction of our fighter jets? Order more from the USA, assuming they’re willing and able to supply them within weeks or months rather than years or decades. Build byplanes? How, given we’ll have little I. The way of a manufacturing industry?
So what’s the plan?
S777
Excellent questions, IMHO.
The first and most notable issue with the fighter decision is that it was made before the White Paper was completed.
Apparently federal police are headed to Busselton because a plane part has washed up on a SW WA beach. The missing MH plane is the one they’re talking about.
Someone get Tony! There’s a stunt with his name on it.
[Gillard’s ‘problems’ were that she was constantly whiteanted by her own partyroom, in particular one MP.
]
Hard to support the military after hearing that clown, is it Neil James? Apparently the military have a right to multibillion dollar toys just because – there doesn’t have to be a need or a reason.
364 Socrates
Posted Wednesday, April 23, 2014 at 8:09 am | Permalink
Morning all. BK thanks for the links. I know I can be too negative at times, so I will try to put a positive spin on the F35 decision.
US president Barack Obama hailed Australia’s decision to buy 58 F35 JSZf planes as great news for the US economy.
“This is $12 billion in Australian economic aid being pumped straight into the American job market” he said.
“This will help Australia too, by keeping its border safe from heavily armed boats full of asylum seekers coming from Indonesia, Sri Lanka and New Guinea”.
PM Tony Abbott said “The JSF wil not actually be able to stop or turn back the boats, but its stealth capabilities will be invaluable in sneaking up on them. It will be Shock and Awe II”.
Treasurer Joe Hockey highlighted the job creation aspects
“For $12 billion we will get to employ dozens of PR flacks and defence analysts associated with this program in Canberra for years. And a bloke in Wagga will be the official chamoi cleaning cloth supplier to the entire F35 program.”
Treasury analysts say the F35 program has already created 32,500 jobs in USA and would create “hundreds more” in Australia. At $50 million per Aussie job it was “fantastic value”.
http://www.defensenews.com/article/20140122/DEFREG02/301220015/New-Report-Questions-F-35-Job-Creation-Claims
Apparently the Greens are going to introduce bomb-laden boomerang throwing on the basis that it is the only purely defensive weapon that they know about.
The Defence Plan is that you light the fuse, throw the boomerang, and duck for cover.
Boerwar you can’t admit you were wrong about Ludlum, so you changed your argument. That’s cowardly.
If your comprehension is poor that’s not our fault. Keep trying you will get there.
If you start telling people the Greens want to allow the Indonesians to invade that is spreading FUD another cowardly behaviour. It’s not abuse to call a coward a coward.
The Military and the Church. Untouchables, the both of them!
Steve777@829
Interesting facts:
At the end of WWII, Australia operated the 4th largest air force in the world.
During WWII Australia geared up to build a number of different aircraft types including Beaufighters and Beaufort bombers. Parts were made in places like railway workshops and Hendersons Springs.
Around the end of WWII Australia designed (based on the Mustang) the CA-31 which outperformed the Mustang.
CAC was designing aircraft to rival the American Phantom and the British TSR-2 (cancelled in favour of F-111) before the plug was pulled and our aviation industry killed.
[Astrobleme
Posted Wednesday, April 23, 2014 at 7:35 pm | Permalink
Boerwar you can’t admit you were wrong about Ludlum, so you changed your argument. That’s cowardly.
If your comprehension is poor that’s not our fault. Keep trying you will get there.
If you start telling people the Greens want to allow the Indonesians to invade that is spreading FUD another cowardly behaviour. It’s not abuse to call a coward a coward.]
You Greens are excellent at throwing personal abuse at others but you are utterly incapable of showing a single example of where Ludlam, or any other Greens represenative, has EVER supported a particular item of defence expenditure.
There is, of course, apart from vacuous platitudes about peace and disarmament, not as single line item of defence expenditure in the Greens’ policy.
You keep throwing bits about what Ludlam has asked about defence expenditure without the slightest suggestion that he supports any of it at all.
This is because the Greens just do not like fighter jets or submarines or tanks or artillary. Go on, admit it.
This is because none of these is a ‘defensive’ piece of kit.
Fair enough, if that is your point of view. But puhlease don’t hide behind bland general policies and personal abuse of people who are onto the Greens’ total lack of committment to actually defend Australia with anything more than boomerangs.
Just fess up and acknowledge publicy what your spending priorities on jets, subs, ships, missiles, artillery and tanks. Show me a statement. A document. A committment to any specific defence expenditure. Just one over the past decade.
De nada. Get it?
None?
This is one thing the TNI and the Greens have in common – a desire to see Australia disarmed.
I continue to be fascinated by the weather in Pacific…
El Niño likely in 2014…Issued on Tuesday 22 April 2014 | Product Code IDCKGEWWOO
http://www.bom.gov.au/climate/enso/
[The likelihood of El Niño remains high, with all climate models surveyed by the Bureau now indicating El Niño is likely to occur in 2014. Six of the seven models suggest El Niño thresholds may be exceeded as early as July.
The Pacific Ocean has been warming along the equator over recent weeks, with continued warming in the central Pacific likely in coming months. Another burst of westerly winds is presently occurring in the western Pacific, and is likely to cause further warming of the sub-surface.
El Niño has an impact across much of the world, including below average rainfall in the western Pacific and Indonesian regions, and increased rainfall in the central and eastern Pacific. For Australia, El Niño is usually associated with below average rainfall, with about two thirds of El Niño events since 1900 resulting in major drought over large areas of Australia.
The Indian Ocean Dipole (IOD) is currently in a neutral state. Model outlooks currently suggest the IOD is likely to remain neutral through late autumn and early winter, with two of the five models surveyed suggesting a positive IOD may develop by early spring. Positive IOD events often coincide with El Niño and are typically associated with large parts of southern and central Australia experiencing lower rainfall than usual.]
Bludgers might also like to have a look at the links here, which offer current and historical graphical depictions of Sea Surface Temps…
http://www.ospo.noaa.gov/Products/ocean/sst/anal_fields.html
briefly
Yep. It’s been a while, actually.
@BK/836
Says the Crusaders!
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Crusades
z
Sort of like a jihad?
Lazy FUD peddling Boerwar…. You made a claim so the burden of proof lies with you.
12-16 submarines would form a significant deterrent even to China. The reason is that that number would be enough to seriously put in question the 40-50% of China’s POL that crosses the Indian Ocean.
Ahh, that must be our new emissions offsetting plan!
Boerwar
[Where has any Greens representative EVER supported ANY specific defence expenditure AT ALL?]
Not going to be sidetracked with your ‘look over there’ tactic.
Where has any Greens representative EVER said they supported doing away with the navy and air force.
Over to you.
I don’t think even the Greens would want Australia to be invaded by the Indonesians.
There happy for them all to arrive by boat in their tens of thousands but to invade the country? Not any more than they have a defence policy!
A
Why not just admit that no single Greens reprsentative, Ludlam included, has ever supported any spending on any single item of significant defence equipment?
Why not just admit that Greens, Ludlam included, only ever question, condemn or criticise defence spending?
Why not just admit that the Greens Defence Policy statement is designed to hide the fact that Greens do not support spending on Defence?
I acknowledge that you Greens understand some basic principles of warfare. The first is to hide your real intentions from the enemy.
Oh, and you preach peace and practice personal abuse.
Bw – you’re almost right.
It was fraught, hard, and stuff got a bit personal towards the end.
A land Assault by the RN – GF! Things can be done if you have the gonads for it, and this one cost a bit.
[Centre
Posted Wednesday, April 23, 2014 at 7:52 pm | PERMALINK
I don’t think even the Greens would want Australia to be invaded by the Indonesians.
There happy for them all to arrive by boat in their tens of thousands but to invade the country? Not any more than they have a defence policy!]
It would just take a mere 25,000 years.
Yep……25,000 years for Indonesians to empty out into Australia @ a rate of 10,000 per year.
Kinda makes a mockery about the panic Australians have about the few thousand arrivals we have annually, don’t it?*
*of course we have no fear about plane arrivals, just boat arrivals. :devil:
[835…Astrobleme]
Try as might, there’s no denying it: when it comes to Defence the Greens are in Never Never Land.
The truth is Australia spends bugger all on Defence – the lowest as a share of GDP since the 1930’s. That’s not necessarily a bad thing – we live in a peaceful neighbourhood. The main objective of our policy should be to help make sure it stays that way.
Since we cannot (and should not) impose security on the region, we have to try to integrate our capabilities and strategies with those of our allies and neighbours while also having the ability to safeguard own territory. This is a complex array where the whole is greater than the sum of the parts. This means our security is improved by the contributions of others, but the corollary is we also have to play our part.
The Green proposition is that we can enhance regional security by withdrawing from it. This is a fallacy.