BludgerTrack: 51.1-48.9 to Labor

A closer look at the parties’ polling fortunes this term state-by-state, in lieu of much to go on in the way of new polling over Easter.

Easter has meant that only the regular weekly pollsters have reported this week, which means Essential Research and Morgan. The latter polls weekly but reports fortnightly, which I deal with by dividing each fortnightly result into two data points, each with half the published sample size. Neither Essential nor Morgan is radically off beam, so this week’s movements involve a correction after last week’s Greens outlier from Nielsen. This is not to say that Nielsen’s Greens surge was measuring nothing at all, the 17% result perhaps having been partly a reflection of it being the poll most proximate to the WA Senate election. In fact, both of the new results this week find the Greens at their highest level since at least the last election, and probably a good while earlier. Their 11% rating in Essential may not appear too spectacular, but it comes from what is the worst polling series for them by some distance – indeed, the only one the BludgerTrack model does not deem to be biased in their favour. Nonetheless, their rating in BludgerTrack this week comes off 1.8% on last week’s Nielsen-driven peak.

The dividend from the Greens’ loss has been divided between other parties in such a way as to produce essentially no change on two-party preferred. However, state relativities have changed in such a way as to cost Labor three seats and its projected majority, illustrating once again the sensitivity of Queensland, where a 0.8% shift has made two seats’ worth of difference. The New South Wales result has also shifted 0.6% to the Coalition, moving a third seat back into their column. Another change worth noting is a 2.4% move to Labor in Tasmania, which is down to a methodological change – namely the inclusion, for Tasmania only, of the state-level two-party preferred results that Morgan has taken to publishing. I had not been putting this data to use thus far, as the BludgerTrack model runs off primary votes and the figures in question are presumably respondent-allocated preferences besides. However, the paucity of data for Tasmania is such that I’ve decided it’s worth my while to extract modelled primary votes from Morgan’s figures, imperfect though they may be. The change has not made any difference to the seat projection, this week at least.

Finally, I’ve amused myself by producing primary vote and two-party preferred trendlines for each of the five mainland states, which you can see below. These suggest that not too much has separated New South Wales and Victoria in the changes recorded over the current term, leaving aside their very different starting points. However, whereas the Coalition has had a very gentle upward trend this year in Victoria and perhaps also New South Wales, their decline looks to have resumed lately in Queensland. Last week I noted that six successive data points I was aware of had Labor ahead on two-party preferred in Queensland, including five which are in the model and a Morgan result which is not. That’s now extended to eight with the availability of two further data points this week. The other eye-catching result in the charts below is of course from Western Australia, which clearly shows the effects of the Senate election with respect to both the Greens and Palmer United. The current gap between Labor and the Greens is such that the latter could well win lower house seats at Labor’s expense on these numbers – not that I recommend holding my breath waiting for that to happen.

Author: William Bowe

William Bowe is a Perth-based election analyst and occasional teacher of political science. His blog, The Poll Bludger, has existed in one form or another since 2004, and is one of the most heavily trafficked websites on Australian politics.

1,662 comments on “BludgerTrack: 51.1-48.9 to Labor”

Comments Page 24 of 34
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  1. One thing we CAN agree on regarding flight MH-370 is that Tpony Abbott made a complete dickhead of himself with all that “I’ve got a secret” bullshit while he was in China, and the media (especially the ABC) were in on it with him. They played it up shamelessly, at one stage omitting Angus Houston’s name entirely from articles for several days, giving the (False) impression that abbott was practically conducting the search by himself.

    He made an complete fool of himself, humiliated Houston, and led the Chinese up the garden path needlessly… all so he could Big Note himself and look like a hero to (what he seems to regards as) the simpletons who run China.

  2. Bemused thanks for your recollections tonight. I reckon you, me and our 2 dads would have had great fun sitting around a table having a beer!

  3. [Shows on didn’t read all of my sentence or indeed the post where landing on Diego Garcia was only ONE scenario.

    It may have been headed there and yes, detected on DG’s radar, then shot down as an unidentified threat.]
    Bushfire Bill should post his nonsense to Bushfire Bill’s Blog of Batshit insanity.

  4. The Washington Times reports opn the shocking stated of the Ukrainian armed forces
    __________________
    Lacking such essential as blankets and food ,the men of the Ukrainian armed forced have poor equipment and worst vehicles and weapons
    It seems that while appealing to the US for military aid…the Ukr. military have been selling their best equipmernt secretly to all sorts of customers,and is no condition to mount any sort of attack on the pro-Russian groups in the East…let alone
    think of a conflict with the Russian Army The Ukr armed forces are as corrupt as their leaders it seem
    saee Wash.Times article

    http://www.washingtontimes.com/news/2014/apr/23/sold-out-ukraines-leadership-swapped-best-military

  5. roger bottomley@1152

    Bemused thanks for your recollections tonight. I reckon you, me and our 2 dads would have had great fun sitting around a table having a beer!

    Probably so.

    I asked a question earlier about Sandakan. I haven’t seen any response from you.

  6. ShowsOn@1153

    Shows on didn’t read all of my sentence or indeed the post where landing on Diego Garcia was only ONE scenario.

    It may have been headed there and yes, detected on DG’s radar, then shot down as an unidentified threat.


    Bushfire Bill should post his nonsense to Bushfire Bill’s Blog of Batshit insanity.

    Well I reckon on this occasion he has sucked you in beautifully.

  7. [Well I reckon on this occasion he has sucked you in beautifully.]
    Bemused should post his nonsense to Bushfire Bill’s Blog of Batshit insanity.

  8. ShowsOn@1158

    Well I reckon on this occasion he has sucked you in beautifully.


    Bemused should post his nonsense to Bushfire Bill’s Blog of Batshit insanity.

    BB has been running his tongue-in-the-cheek conspiracy theory for a while now and it is obviously not meant to be taken seriously.

  9. [BB has been running his tongue-in-the-cheek conspiracy theory for a while now and it is obviously not meant to be taken seriously.]

    Half-seriously.

    If anyone can show me how any of the elements of the “conspiracy theory” are unprecedented, unlikely or unmatched to the facts, please do so.

    My argument about Diego Garcia is as much a philosophical one as anything else: why are seemingly unusual interpretations on events automatically classed as “conspiracy theories”? 9/11, for example, was a preposterous scenario on 9/10. One day later it was mainstream.

    MH-370 has completely disappeared. Anyone who truly believes it will be found in the next few days is only going by the official line of the searchers. It’s Tony Abbott’s favourite theory too (when he’s trying to get an FTA up and running with the Chinese). Until today we were told it would be like Air France… found in a week, salvaged a little later, but we’d know where it was pretty promptly. One “expert” went so far as to say it WAS found, they just need to bring it up. Not so. Wishful thinking at best, bullshit at worst.

    As of today we are being told “years”, maybe never. Some “change” in the story since Abbott blurted out his “special secret information” (for the ears of the Chinese Premier only) a few weeks ago, eh?

    The elements of my hypothesis or theory are as follows:

    1. Everyone agrees that the aircraft is in the Indian Ocean area. To say otherwise nowadays, like that it’s in the South China Sea, with so much consensus for the Indian Ocean in place, is the REAL conspiracy theory stuff.

    2. Diego Garcia is also in the Indian Ocean, pretty central actually (about 7 degrees south of the equator).

    So far I haven’t said anything too outlandish, I hope.

    3. We don’t know exactly what they DO at Diego Garcia. Sure there’s a prominent military airport there (which also allows some commercial flights, mainly to ferry crew and workers), capable of taking the largest modern jet aircraft.

    No alien abductions so far, or Bermuda Triangle wormhole theories.

    4. Some of the the lesser known functions of Diego Garcia involve illegal renditions of terrorism prisoners en route to other places (such as Guantanamo Bay). It has also been suggested that Diego Garcia is in itself an illegal rendition destination. That is, it has prison… and possibly torture facilities.

    The US? TORTURE people? Keep them illegally in secret prisons indefinitely? Out-RAGE-ous!

    5. Diego Garcia, it can be safely said, has covert capabilities that the US is not advertising, just like many other US bases, e.g. Pine Gap. Who really knows what exactly goes on at Diego Garcia, over and above its obvious function as a military aircraft base? Take a look at it on Google Maps… there are literally dozens of large buildings there, perhaps a hundred of them. Are they all just simple aircraft hangers and barracks for the military people posted there? It’s safe to say “not”.

    6. There was a reported sighting of an aircraft “with red, white and blue markings” flying low over the southern Maldives. These sightings have never been explained. The noise woke people up. Many people saw and heard the phenomenon. The southern Maldives are not far from Diego Garcia (in intercontinental aircraft terms)… just over 1,000 kilometres, a couple of hours flying time.

    7. The pilot of MH-370 had a sophisticated flight simulator (many pilots apparently do). On it was a data base related to the Diego Garcia airstrip (“strip” is too modest a word, the runway is three and a half kilometres long… anything can land there).

    Anything too outrageous or unprecedented yet?

    8. I assume that any aircraft approaching Diego Garcia without proper identification WILL be challenged, and if it remains unidentified, WILL be shot down. This is true of practically any large US military base, especially the really sensitive ones.

    There are precedents for the military shooting down civilian aircraft: the USS Vincennes shot down an Iranian commercial aircraft in the Persian Gulf a while ago, believing it to be a threat. The Russian Air Force shot down a Korean civilian 747 when its inertial navigation system (pre-GPS days) was incorrectly set, leading the pilots to not realise that it had encroached into Russian air space. I’m sure there are other examples, but these two serve to illustrate that trigger-happy military, with a sensitive installation or airspace to defend DO shoot down commercial planes.

    I have’t even referred to the TWA jumbo out of New York, or Flight 93 on 9/11 as possible “shoot-downs”. I don’t have to. I don’t care whether they were or not (probably not). I have REAL examples of where this has happened before. So, so far nothing unprecedented or extraordinary or even “outside the square” of history in my “conspiracy theory”.

    9. If the US shot down a commercial airliner full of Chinese citizens would they tell us, or the Chinese, about it?. Even if it was in a forbidden air zone (which Diego Garcia surely is) because it had been hijacked,did the US know it had been hijacked?. What if an initial decision had been made to try to cover up such a shoot down… could the US now back away from that and come clean? Hard to say. It’s probable that a very serious situation would come about even IF they admitted it straight away. Certainly trying to cover it up would only compound that situation. We’re talking possible war scenarios here.

    10. Do the Chinese themselves believe the “official” line? It’s pretty plain they did not, because when they heard that first ping they were 1,000 kilometres north of the official search zone. Why were they searching out of the zone when they were part of a supposedly international co-ordinated effort? The question has never been asked (as far as I can see), and no answer has ever been volunteered. I don’t think the Chinese trust the “official” line. They are running their own race. When it overlaps with Angus Houston’s, fair enough. But when it doesn’t, hard cheese.

    Untrusting, suspicious Chinese? A big power running its own race? Worried they might be having a snow job done on them by the West?

    “How preposterous!” I hear youse say. Tony Abbott is their greatest friend. He wouldn’t dud them. Ever. His big strengths are loyalty and telling the truth. The journos are always telling us that. Even though the Chinese ARE Communist, Godless, and Asian. Even though we DO have a defence treaty with the US, but not with China. The Chinese are just the sort of people Tony likes to mingle with. He loves them all..

    It’s getting late, and probably no-one will read this. But for anyone who does glance through, you need to put aside the convenience of “conspiracy theory” labelling and look at the facts:

    * The plane is lost. It can’t be found. All the hopes and stories were wrong. All the excitement was over nothing. It’s gone, maybe not forever, but for the next reasonable length of time… gone just the same.

    * The US military gets nervous when unidentified planes with their automatic ping equipment turned off fly near their covert bases.

    * Such aircraft have been shot down before.

    * The question is: would the US admit it if they could get away with NOT admitting it? Apparently it took them 8 years to even apologize for the USS Vincennes incident, and then only privately.

    Why the plane might have been flying towards Diego Garcia is anyone’s guess. One thing is for certain, Diego Garcia is the ONLY runway in that part of the Indian Ocean capable of taking a Boeing 777, except for Mali in the Maldives.

    Thing is… Mali is not secure.

    Diego Garcia is.

    Maybe someone was defecting (again, not unprecedented for defectors to hijack a plane), maybe the US wanted to kidnap some terrorists (ditto as regards “unprecedented”). Who knows why the pilot might have flown that way?

    Unless he was unconscious, or dead, or planning suicide in the most elaborate way thinkable (flying himself and 250 pasengers thousands of kilometres to ditch in the ocean), he would hacve been planning to land. And he only could have landed either in Mali or Diego Garcia.

    And we know he didn’t land in Mali.

    We DON’T whether he landed in Diego Garcia, or got shot down trying to do so. If he WAS shot down, we don’t know whether he was conscious, unconscious or dead. Very possibly neither did the people who shot him down (if he WAs shot down). But these types of military operatives often don’t take chances.

    Before you condemn all this is just some tin-foil hat conspiracy theory, consider that you may have been royally swindled by the “official” line, which so far has produced literally not one shred of evidence as to the plane’s actual whereabouts. All leads have evaporated. The search is about to be abandoned, or at least severely curtailed.

    The only reason for any member of the public to have any optimism at all about MH-370 being found is because they read it in a newspaper: they read confused musings by the Malaysians, professional assessments that turned to dust in the case of Angus Houston, and outright bullshit bragging by Tony Abbott, trying to make himself out to be a hero “in the know”. There IS no other source of information to Joe Public than these.

    Just because something seems outlandish doesn’t make it automatically a “conspiracy theory”. And, for a kicker, what I’ve suggested isn’t even really all that outlandish, when you consider the precedents.

    No aliens. No wormholes. No death rays. No approving, or concurring pronouncements about the US shooting down that TWA plane. No controlled implosions of the Twin Towers killing thousands. No starting a war costing thousands of lives for oil, based on faked evidence presented as fact to the UN General Assembly. Nothing even as silly as a pilot committing suicide by flying over thousands of kilometres of ocean just to crash in another part of the ocean thousands of kilometres away.

    Just stuff that’s all happened before.

    G’night. This tinfoil hat is starting to chafe.

  10. BB,

    We do have one shred and that’s the acoustic pinger contacts which are quite definitely of the type that are attached to an aircraft black box.

    The chances of these signals coming from anything natural are non existant.

    The chances of these signals coming from anything other than that type of equipment are very small.

    And the chances that we just happened to have found a pinger that just happened to land in that patch of the ocean within the previous month, but wasn’t from said plane, are pretty damn small too.

  11. Good morning Dawn Patrollers.
    For a party that has no factions the Libs seem to have a lot of factional trouble!
    http://www.smh.com.au/federal-politics/political-opinion/factional-menace-has-potential-to-rear-its-head-again-20140425-379xt.html
    More from the NSW cesspool.
    http://www.smh.com.au/nsw/no-brotherly-love-roy-medich-wants-ron-out-of-badgerys-creek-deal-20140425-zqz7f.html
    Here we go! The US elitism, dog-eat-dog US model for higher education.
    http://www.smh.com.au/comment/tough-task-in-higher-learning-20140425-379k6.html
    MUST READ! Tony Windsor with sage advice to crossbenchers in the Senate.
    http://www.thesaturdaypaper.com.au/opinion/topic/2014/04/26/word-advice-the-senates-wildcards/1398434400#.U1rMzvmSyQk
    The legislative portents for Abbott’s Direct Action are not at all good.
    http://www.smh.com.au/federal-politics/political-news/direct-action-could-fail-even-without-palmer-united-party-20140425-zqzmd.html
    Rebekah Brooks and Andy Coulson are back in the news via the courts.
    http://www.smh.com.au/world/coulson-and-brooks-affair-ran-until-he-quit-paper-uk-hacking-trial-hears-20140425-zqzs6.html
    Looks like Abbott might have kicked an ants’ nest.
    http://www.theguardian.com/world/2014/apr/25/green-groups-to-wage-legal-war-against-tony-abbotts-pro-development-agenda
    Inside Bill Shorten’s war room. A good, long read.
    http://www.thesaturdaypaper.com.au/news/politics/2014/04/26/inside-bill-shortens-party-war-room/1398434400#.U1rMIPmSyQk
    A good column from Mike Carlton today.
    http://www.smh.com.au/comment/let-no-one-name-him-marmaduke-20140425-379g8.html

  12. And from the Land of the Free –

    A “Bad Lip Reading” spoof on Game of Thrones.
    http://americablog.com/2014/04/bad-lip-reading-game-thrones-video.html
    A Repug in New Hampshire with a rather old fashioned view of equal pay.
    http://thepoliticalcarnival.net/2014/04/24/granite-thick-skulls-granite-state-new-hampshire/
    And this Repug defends cockfighting in Kentucky.
    http://www.dailykos.com/story/2014/04/25/1294656/-Matt-Bevin-caught-lying-about-cockfighting-rally
    I wouldn’t mind a bit of this stuff!
    http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2014/04/25/nissan-car-wash_n_5208187.html

  13. BB @ 1151

    “He made an complete fool of himself, humiliated Houston, and led the Chinese up the garden path needlessly… all so he could Big Note himself and look like a hero to (what he seems to regards as) the simpletons who run China.”

    And, BB, including his earlier statements to the Australian Parliament it was also so that “he he could Big Note himself and look like a hero to (what he seems to regards as) the simpletons” … who voted for him in Australia.

    Regarding your “possible” (but improbable) theory involving the USA and Diego Garcia your relevant points are potentially valid. For Shoes On to relate to “insanity” suggests he’s the insane one not you.

    If he doesn’t want to consider it he doesn’t have to. He probably didn’t even believe that Abbott, Murdoch et. al. would “conspire” to dupe the Australian electorate for the last 5 years. The “fact” is now clear – they did.

    What may emerge from all the lies and bullshit regarding MH370 may well be closer to your “hypothesis”, BB, and put “egg” on the faces of some of those who are not that bright.

    As I’ve said before the silence of the US regarding the flight of MH370 over the Indian Ocean is amazingly ignored by most people. There is no way the US would not have tracked it when it flew over that part of the Indian Ocean East of DG.

    So, why no report from them?

  14. Hairy

    [My Dad was in the RAF and died last January aged 98. His brother, Vincent, serving in the army, was killed in action while helping to evacuate allied forces near the Corinth Canal in Greece.]

    Vale both.

  15. Morning all

    BB

    Your musings on flight MH370 are more than reasonsble, and Abbott’s conduct throughout this whole affair has been shameless. Cos i dont like or trust Abbott, his conduct appears opportunistic. But I do wonder if the PM was someone else, would we be getting the same behaviour. In other words, is our PM merely following instructions.

  16. For those who wished me well before I left I’m back from Thailand.

    Apart from the damage to tourism from the illegal right wing sit-ins/disruptions in Bangkok all is well there.

    The progress in the regions is nothing short of amazing – the villages display the prosperity that has flowed from the lead of the Thai Labour Party Governments actions. Both increased Government and private spending and increased minimum wages are flowing through to nearly everyone.

    The rich elite of Bangkok and Phuket are clearly financing their “protest people” and naturally sucking in some of the middle class who resent paying higher wages or believe the rubbish about the Royals.

    Fortunately the Government has it’s own TV channel so their message doesn’t rely on the media to the degree we do in Australia for even-handed coverage.

    The elite also have their channel spewing out the lies in the same way the Murdoch press does here. Most rural Thais ignore it.

    There are several independent channels. The average joe doesn’t read the papers in Thailand so it’s not like our MSM influence.

    Let’s hope violence can be avoided over there. The elite will do anything (as in Australia) to protect their vast wealth.

  17. ausdavo

    Appreciate your observings re Thailand. My son’s girlfriend is due to holiday there in next few months and I have been rather concerned

  18. Think you all for your Anzac Day stories yesterday. They were so interesting. My dad flew Catalinas in WWII and crash landed in the Philippines once. They swam to shore and someone swam back out to get their money. We have a terrific photo of them all sitting starkers on the beach, waiting to be rescued, with their money drying in the sun, held down by stones.

    One of my grandfathers was a Rat of Tobruk and the other wounded at Messines, but they never told any of us anything about it.

  19. Think you all for your Anzac Day stories yesterday. They were so interesting. My dad flew Catalinas in WWII and crash landed in the Philippines once. They swam to shore and someone swam back out to get their money. We have a terrific photo of them all sitting starkers on the beach, waiting to be rescued, with their money drying in the sun, held down by stones.

    One of my grandfathers was a Rat of Tobruk and the other wounded at Messines, but they never told any of us anything about it.

  20. Morning all. BK thanks for the links. I am not anti-USA, but I have had the same view as this opinion by Malcolm Fraser for some time: Australia would be better off being more independent of USA, and should avoid involvement with any conflict with China at all costs.
    http://www.smh.com.au/federal-politics/malcolm-fraser-warns-australia-risks-war-with-china-unless-us-military-ties-cut-back-20140425-zqz8p.html

    Australia’s alliance with USA made sense in 1942. The USA was the dominant world power, and they helped defend Australia against Japanese aggression.

    This time two things are different. First the USA is no longer the world’s dominant power; they are not even game to effectively support the Ukraine vs a Russian annexation.

    Second, there is no evidence China wants to attack Australia, or indeed anywhere else in south east Asia. Historically, that has not been their modus operandi. So we risk offending the one regional relationship that really matters, to appease a nation that has no strategic interest in Australia, other than to assist them. Whereas they do represent the present and future of Australia’s economic interests. Australia has a large trade deficit with USA, and current trade arrangements favour them at our expense.

    Our defence and intelligence chiefs seem happy to follow USA blindly in current policy. Our politicians do the same, or perhaps they think they are “savy”?

  21. http://www.thesaturdaypaper.com.au/news/business/2014/04/26/the-end-coal/1398434400#.U1rkRYGSyKJ

    [Whatever else you might say about Gina Rinehart, about her extreme political views, her dysfunctional family, her execrable poetry, it’s hard to fault her business acumen.

    There is probably no better example of this than her decision, back in September 2011, to sell off most of her assets in Queensland’s Galilee Basin coalfields to an over-leveraged, over-ambitious Indian company, GVK, for $US1.26 billion.

    At the time, the price for thermal coal – the type they burn to make electricity, and the biggest single global source of carbon dioxide emissions – was north of $120 a tonne.

    No sooner had the deal been done than the coal price started to fall. And it has kept falling ever since.]

  22. BK

    As per your link of the article re Shorten in the Saturday paper

    [Labor knows the government has set a time bomb with its royal commission into union corruption, which started hearings this month and will report by year’s end. In the months ahead, it could detonate and severely wound the ALP and its union supporters, who contribute millions of dollars to the party.

    “There’s some trepidation,” one Labor source says. “We don’t know where we might be within a year.”]

    This is indeed the big concern within Labor ranks.

    In some respects, I am of the view that even though Howard conducted a RC into unions (which resulted in the ABCC) when in power, part of Abbott’s motiviation was to counteract the ICAC stuff in NSW, which he knew was coming. The strategy being that even though some corruptive practices have occurred in team Liberal, the Union corruption connected to team Labor is even worse.

  23. Soc

    [ustralia would be better off being more independent of USA, and should avoid involvement with any conflict with China at all costs.]

    I think John Burton might have walked with that (Only 6 decades on.

  24. victoria

    It will be like ICAC . Whatever corruption is found in unions you can bet your bottom dollar that the Liberal mates in the construction industry will at least match and probably exceed it.

  25. More sleazy entanglements for the LNP

    http://tiny.cc/9p8vex

    Maybe Sinodinos, and the LNP more generally instead of playing the memory lapse card, could try something more intellectually uplifting like “spooky action at a distance”. A whole new meme could be started.

    😉

  26. poroti

    The previous RC back in 2004, constantly gagged any witness that made any allegation against anyone that did not suit the purpose of the outcome. That is why some witnesses took to yelling out “this is a bloody kangaroo court” which of course resulted in them being in contempt.

  27. Morning all. Some reports on that ‘hijacked’ plane in Bali.

    [Initially, the Indonesian Air Force said the flight was believed to have been hijacked.

    They suggest that the pilot transmitted the hijack code whereas Virgin Australia say that the code transmitted was for an unruly passenger.

    According to Perth man Chris Corless, who was waiting to board a flight to Perth, the incident was over with in less than 40 minutes.

    “Apparently not hijacked. Just very unruly passenger,” Mr Coreless tweeted.]
    https://au.news.yahoo.com/thewest/latest/a/22942498/reports-that-plane-to-bali-has-been-hijacked/

    Rule no. 1 when flying: don’t get drunk!

  28. Isn’t an RC inquiry different from a CCC style inquiry because there are specific ToR for RCs?

    At least that’s my understanding, therefore unless something is in scope with the ToR, it can’t be considered by RC.

  29. Good Morning

    I see the reality of the new Senate is waking the Canberra Press Gallery up. This is bad news for Abbott.

    Once real critique starts it can become a habit. With any luck we will see the end of the MSM protection racket regarding Abbott

  30. confessions

    Witnesses were asked questions and when they took to answering them and the answers did not suit the Commission, they stopped the witness from speaking any further.
    The whole thing was a sham to get a preconceived outcome.
    These same witnesses say the same thing will no doubt occur again. Although we have been told in the media that the Commissioner appointed to conduct the hearings, will give plenty of scope.
    We shall see I guess

  31. Fran barlow

    The article was referred to yesterday and I managed to find some connected stuff relating to one od fhe witnesses to be called namely Pat sergi. I will see if I can find it and post it again.
    The mind boggles.

  32. [why are seemingly unusual interpretations on events automatically classed as “conspiracy theories”? ]

    It is a “conspiracy theory” if it requires a conspiracy (usually by governments, government agencies, big business, secret societies, or any other dark force you can make up) to keep the truth hidden. I certainly think that applies to your theory.

  33. Ctar

    We could use a few more like Burton in Canberra now. People capable of analysing a problem on its merits, setting past prejudices aside. Otherwise you only repeat the past.

    I wish our current political crop (on both sides of the kindy) would spend more time getting advice form serious career diplomats and less time pretending they know the first thing about international strategy.

  34. victoria

    I have not read the TOR of the RC. From media reports and comments by people like Malcolm Fraser I think they are not as restricted as the former RC was.

  35. I just looked up #SamKekovic. Apparently he is a real person. I’d long thought he was merely a parody invented by the ABC like Roy & HG.

    The ABC has much to answer for … 😉

  36. Gauytaur
    [
    ustralia would be better off being more independent of USA, and should avoid involvement with any conflict with China at all costs]

    The general public couldn’t give an FF..

  37. Here are articles posted yesterday

    Also on the witness list is Pat Sergi, a Sydney property developer was named at the Woodward royal commission as being a principal in Robert Trimbole’s Griffith drug syndicate. A decade ago Mr Sergi and two business associates lobbied Liberal politicians to prevent a Victorian Mafia figure being deported.
    Six months after then immigration minister Amanda Vanstone overturned the man’s deportation order, his relatives and associates donated at least $30,000 to the NSW Liberal Party. A subsequent police investigation found no wrong doing on Mrs Vanstone’s part. The man is awaiting trial in Victoria for money laundering and drug importation.

    Read more: http://www.smh.com.au/nsw/abbott-ally-called-as-witness-in-new-corruption-inquiry-20140425-377l1.html#ixzz2zqSRiFOR

    This article in fairfax back in 2009

    The AFP is refusing to comment, but the investigation appears to have stalled. Whether it should have, though, is an open question. For donations did exist. And four Liberal politicians – Marise Payne, Bruce Billson, Russell Broadbent and an unnamed NSW state MP – all discussed the visa case with Madafferi’s supporters or contacted Vanstone’s office about the matter.
    Payne’s involvement in the Madafferi case began around late 2003 when she was approached at a charity function by three NSW businessmen, including the man named in the 2004 file note, furniture store owner Nick Scali.
    The two other men – Pasquale Sergi and Antonio Labozzetta – were both businessmen of Calabrian heritage, strong Labor Party supporters and co-directors of a Sydney charity. Both also have some colourful connections. Two decades before Pasquale “Pat” Sergi was awarded an Order of Australia, he was named as a money launderer for drug boss Robert Trimbole in the 1979 Woodward royal commission.

    Read more: http://www.theage.com.au/national/men-of-influence-20090222-8eob.html#ixzz2zqTMRdtO

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