Essential Research displays its trademark stability this week by failing to record the big shift evident from the other pollsters, with two-party preferred steady at 52-48 and Labor up only one point on the primary vote to 40%, with the Coalition steady on 40%, the Greens down one to 8% and Palmer United steady on 5%. The results on the budget are also somewhat less spectacular than those seen elsewhere, with 30% approval and 52% disapproval, and 40% deeming it good for the economy overall against 32% for bad – quite a bit different from the 39% and 48% registered by Newspoll. The budget was deemed bad for working people by 59% and good by 14%; bad for those on low incomes by 66% and good by 11%; bad for families by 62% and good by 11%; bad for older Australians by 66% and good by 10%; bad for younger Australians by 55% and good by 16%; but good for people who well off by 45% and bad by 16%.
Response was also sought in relation to particular budget measures, of which the least popular was the raise in the pension age (61% opposition, 17% support), followed by deregulation of university fees (58% opposition, 17% support). Opinion was evenly balanced on making Newstart recipients wait six months (41% opposition, 39% support), while there was a net positive response to making graduates pay HELP loans more quickly (53% support, 23% opposition). Cuts to foreign aid had 64% supportive and 13% opposed, while those to the ABC had 27% supportive and 41% opposed. Fifty-six per cent believed there was a “budget emergency” against 32% who did not, but only 24% believed the budget addressed it, against 56% who did not.
The other relative latecomer to the budget poll party was yesterday’s fortnightly Morgan face-to-face plus SMS result, which was more in line with other polls in having Labor up 1.5% to 38.5%, the Coalition down 2.5% to 35%, the Greens steady on 12%, and Palmer up a point to 6.5%. Whereas Morgan polls usually combine two weekends of polling, this one was entirely from Saturday and Saturday, so all the responses are post-budget and the sample is somewhat smaller than usual. On two-party preferred, Labor’s lead was up from 53.5-46.5 to 56.5-43.5 on 2013 election preferences, and 55-45 to 57.5-42.5 on respondent-allocated preferences.
Tom L
You know how Centre has a unique method of rounding numbers. Psephos has a unique method of reading English.
Boarwar, are you praying for some natural El Niño warming this year to break the 17 year hiatus?
It is not possible for sea levels to rise. If ice melts into the sea, the extra water just spills over the walls at the ends of the earth.
Psephos
which is why I always ask how many of the protestors are actually from Liberal seats, the point of which often goes over people’s heads as they think a large crowd of people from Fitzroy/Belmain is representative of the wider community.
[According to the winking excuse, the ABC is happy to let Abbott vet the callers I’m surprised you guys are not up in arms about that.
]
Like somehow we would be surprised the abc is severely biased to liberals – we have been up in arms for about 13 years.
I don’t think that people are necessarily pissed off at the Coalition/Abbott because of new taxes or tax increases. The question of whether Abbott or the Coalition lied w.r.t. that particular topic may not be all that significant.
[ It is not possible for sea levels to rise. If ice melts into the sea, the extra water just spills over the walls at the ends of the earth. ]
Ahhh, Rummel will be pleased! All sorted then. 🙂
“@LauraDymock: Police have had to intervene as Young Liberals interrupt Greens senator Larissa Waters’ speech at Brisbane protest. @7NewsBrisbane”
[It is not possible for sea levels to rise. If ice melts into the sea, the extra water just spills over the walls at the ends of the earth.
]
Brilliant!!!!
BW
Wortley continues to boost his public profile.
[CLAIMS of “serious malfeasance” during Upper House President Russell Wortley’s time as a gas workers’ union official may be referred to a Royal Commission after a Labor colleague revived them with a stunning spray in State Parliament.
]
Let’s do the old back of the envelope on Frances Abbott’s extraordinarily lucky break in life. Everyone should be so lucky as to have a lying prime minister for a father!
One minister plus two advisors = three people.
Several hours = (say) two hours.
Two times three = six person hours.
$60,000 divided by six person hours would come to = $10,000 per person per hour.
Not that they are for sale or anything like that, of course. And there is absolutely no link between the $60,000 and anything else.
Everything in this ‘sum’ is completely hypothetical.
*winks* *smirks*
guytaur – it’s those rioting youths Abbott warned us about! No doubt he will condemn them immediately.
[Wortley continues to boost his public profile. ]
I can’t believe this absolute ****wits need to have this fight now.
We ALREADY have the worst government ever thanks to Labor’s infighting.
Can they PLEASE keep their dirty laundry private now while we try to get rid of it again.
****ING LABOR. They are as much to blame for this budget as Abbott and his pack of liars.
[i’d say a standard much closer to those used in consumer protection law ought to be adopted. If the words are likely to mislead, then it’s a lie. ]
That’s a fair comment, except that the words have to be intended to mislead, not just likely to mislead. Intention to deceive is a necessary part of the act of lying.
[What you’ll get under us are tax cuts without new taxes,” he said]
OK, that’s getting closer.
But none of these rise to the same level of specificity as “there will be no carbon tax under a government I lead.”
My view is that neither Gillard nor Abbott was lying, in the correct sense of the word – making a statement which they knew at the time to be false. I think they both believed what they said, then rationalised their subsequent breaking of their promises as necessary and dictated by changed circumstances, etc etc.
Having dealt with many politicians, I actually think very few of them tell deliberate lies. They say what they think they need to say to win elections, and then if they win they rationalise their way out of what they said. Abbott’s problem is that he’s very transparent and very unskillful at getting himself out of the holes he has dug for himself.
Diogenes
All the Informal Party can do at this stage is tut tut. Really, the Labor Party should clean up its act, get rid of duds, shonks, crooks, liars, time servers and sleeve tuggers, and get some proper processes in place.
What do we want?
We want a democratic and principled alternative.
When do we want it?
Yesterday, already.
[ I don’t think that people are necessarily pissed off at the Coalition/Abbott because of new taxes or tax increases. ]
Its a hook that is all the sharper due to the way they have targeted their spending cuts.
Really i don’t give a toss about the tax on high earners or fuel excise. But those in combination with the cuts points to a wider ranging duplicity from this mob.
Hit them on a very wide front and keep them responding to everything, seek the real vulnerabilities, and then target those for follow up attack.
@JuliaGillard: A chat with @TelegraphLondon on my Global Partnership for Education @GPforEducation work & more – JG. http://t.co/b4V04MU5yB
Hullo from Croatia, have been good and climbed the walls of Dubrovnik. amazing views but pretty exhausting, been up in the cable car even better views around the old town and about to go over to an island for 6 days Weather warming up have to make up mind if go into Bosnia when come back to Dubrovnik for final 2 days.
@Psephos/964
Yes he did.
He also said, that “If you going to put a price on Carbon, why not like a simple tax”.
We shouldn’t need to the homework for you, if you are truely an ALP member, you should do it yourself.
mari
Good on you. Health warning in relation to your return to Australia: Abbott is STILL Prime Minister.
BB
“I note that Network 10 is sacking 150 journalists.
So much for the brilliant leadership of Lachlan Murdoch and that twit, the Murdoch office boy he put in to manage the place.
And they promoted Lachie to Chairman of News International?”
It can only be hoped that Lachlan brings the same set of skills to News International that he bought to Channel 10.
http://www.liberal.org.au/latest-news/2012/03/14/ta-doorstop-0
TONY ABBOTT:
“It will be a modest cut. We took a 1.5 percent cut to the last election. There will be a modest cut that we’re taking forward at the next election. What you’ll get under us are tax cuts without new taxes. What you’re getting under Labor are tax cuts that are funded by new taxes and a tax cut that’s paid for with a tax increase. It’s not a real cut, it’s a con.” – 2012
[My view is that neither Gillard nor Abbott was lying, in the correct sense of the word – making a statement which they knew at the time to be false. I think they both believed what they said, then rationalised their subsequent breaking of their promises as necessary and dictated by changed circumstances, etc etc. ]
You have GOT to be kidding.
It was abundantly clear, and pointed out many times, that Abbott could not simultaneously keep his promises about spending and his promises about taxes.
He MUST have known that one or the other could not be delivered.
Bolt is not being axed. Light Entertainment not news category?
Looking at the Abbott wink, he was telling his advisors that he was onto the fact the caller was probably a set up. Kind of OK don’t worry I have her sussed.
The dumb thing is he forgot he had a camera staring at him. He is a very stupid man. Prime Ministers have to treat every caller a genuine.
Morrison’s mates:
‘Prime Minister Hun Sen and senior members of Parliament, are also known for their hand in getting family members into government positions. In the 2013 Cambodian parliamentary elections, at least eight candidates standing in the upcoming July election are sons of high-ranking Cambodian People’s Party officials.[16] All ruling party sons lost, but were appointed into high government positions.’
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Nepotism#Australia
El Niño warming is organic warming. It’s good for the world and your family, just like all things organic.
http://www.canberratimes.com.au/national/tony-abbotts-address-to-the-no-carbon-tax-rally-20110816-1wtp0.html
“There is one fundamental message that we want to go out from this place to every nook and cranny of our country: there should be no new tax collection without an election.”
– Tony Abbott at No Carbon Tax Rally – 2011.
[The dumb thing is he forgot he had a camera staring at him. He is a very stupid man. Prime Ministers have to treat every caller a genuine.]
By far the scariest thing about Abbott IMHO is that every single time you get a glimpse of his instinctive, un-filtered reaction to things, it’s utterly unpleasant.
Recall in particular the “Tony, you’re not saying anything” moment. It still chills me to think that a person who can stand there paralysed by rage for that long with cameras rolling is the leader of our country.
Sheridan jumps yet another shark in his desperate attempt to shore up the tottering cred of Abbott and his Micky Mouseketeers.
Sheridan reckons that Morrison’s placing 1000 asylum seekers in Cambodia might revolutionise the whole international asylum seeker thing.
Methinks he does not get it. Most of the 45,000,000 people who are displaced are not economic refugees. They left town because it was bloody dangerous for them to stay.
There is a fly in the ointment. Cambodia insists that it will only accept voluntary placements.
It is going to cost Australia a shitload of money to persuade volunteers to go and live in Pnom Penh. After all, right now Cambodia is generating more internally displaced people than it is accepting externally displaced people.
Psephos
[… Having dealt with many politicians, I actually think very few of them tell deliberate lies. They say what they think they need to say to win elections, and then if they win they rationalise their way out of what they said. Abbott’s problem is that he’s very transparent and very unskillful at getting himself out of the holes he has dug for himself.]
I don’t think a lie (or otherwise) on raising taxes is the hole he dug in this case. He spent years campaigning on cost of living and once in government has seemingly thrown that argument out entirely. New taxes or tax increases make a liar out of him w.r.t. to his professed concern for the effect taxes have on struggling Australians.
[rummel
Posted Wednesday, May 21, 2014 at 4:56 pm | Permalink
El Niño warming is organic warming. It’s good for the world and your family, just like all things organic.]
I see. Rummel’s arse is in the swamp, the alligators are all around, but he is eating candy floss. All’s well.
Channel 9 promo for evening news showing “The Winker” twice, the 2nd time in slow-motion. Channel 10 also showed wink before the “passionate, but largely peaceful protests”.
This undermines the Liberal spin doctors and Murdoch/ABC Copycat News cunning plan to whip up a “crisis of feral, privileged students rioting in the streets like a Cronulla Beach mob”.
[
Psephos
Posted Wednesday, May 21, 2014 at 4:27 pm | Permalink
…
And yes, if we are going to convict someone of lying, we do have to be “lawyerly” in comparing their actions after an election with what they said before it.
]
Spoken like a true political operative. I would suggest the polls on both sides of the fence would indicate the people that matter (voters) are fed up with it.
[But none of these rise to the same level of specificity as “there will be no carbon tax under a government I lead.”
]
How would have have defined carbon tax at that point? I think the Abbott statements are substantially clearer and better defined than Gillard’s – her and her clown advisers were simply fools to let Abbott define the term for her. She had the exact opposite problem to Abbott – she told the truth and was called a liar – he lied through his teeth and now has fools claiming he told the truth.
Demonstrations were so “dangerous” that the Channel 10 journo was able to make his report smack dab in the middle of a large well-behaved rally.
Breakfast time in Copenhagen. Hav en god dag.
Abbott did not promise to:
(a) fake a budget crisis
(b) use it as an excuse to transfer wealth from the poor to the wealthy
(c) use the fake crisis to transfer indebtedness from the Feds to the states
This is not about a lot of little lies whether they be white lies or black lies. Nor is it about the lawyerly wording of a lot of little lies.
It is not even that Abbott spent years crucifying Gillard for being a liar.
What this is about is Abbott painting a Big Lie to do Bad Things to the most vulnerable people in our society in order to Benefit those who already have Most Power in our society.
It is not fair, and everyone knows it.
People get that bit. It is why Abbott’s Netsat is very, very bad.
Boerwar
Abbott seems to be getting into more and more trouble so hopefully he won’t last too much longer :devil: Wishful thinkng I know See you later
Psephos
Lucky you.
[ There were NO other candidates. The Chairman made up a scholarship and gave it to Abbott’s daughter. Almost unprecedented.
In fact the official policy is that the school does NOT offer any scholarships! ]
So if it wasn’t a scholarship, what was it? A $60,000 gift? Seems a mite generous!
Does anyone have a link to the wink footage, please?
@Psephos/987
Good for those eh?
Abbott and Pyne run away. Albo steps up.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-EzBz8Oc5uw
DC3 after it has flown Abbott around the traps:
http://www.flickr.com/photos/32024533@N04/3849454949
bw
http://www.abc.net.au/news/2014-05-21/pm-responds-to-angry-phone-sex-grandmother-on-local-radio/5467122
Psephos
[That’s a fair comment, except that the words have to be intended to mislead, not just likely to mislead. Intention to deceive is a necessary part of the act of lying.]
Consumer law speaks not of lying but deceptive and unconscionable conduct, precisely because intent is hard to prove, even when the inference is hard to resist. Companies can be fined and forced to compensate consumers very substantially.
It’s difficult to resist the impression that the LNP’s leader and office bearers did intend to mislead because all of their propaganda fostered the singular impression that they would introduce no new taxes, and Diogenes’ quote is especially close. Without new taxes and no new taxes again especially considering the surrounding words seem completely synonymous.
One could hypothesise that the entire LNP leadership group and their advisers failed to notice the consistently misleading claims they were making on tax policy over several years and the political advantage this was earning them but that really does test credulity, in a way that makes the exchanges over Gillard’s carbon “tax” claim seem utterly frivolous.
@BW/992
Here is something better, animated GIF:
Retweeted by Josh Taylor
Mark Di Stefano @MarkDiStef 6h
Prime Minister winking has been turned into a .gif by @plmcky http://imgur.com/qjKzC9K #auspol
Today Abbott played one of his few remaining cards. He said wtte “Why would I damage my governments standing in the electorate unless the budget we’ve delivered was absolutely necessary blah blah blah”
Labor needs to counter this. It won’t be good enough to say that Abbott is obsessed with right wing ideology. Labor needs to be quite specific about who Abbott owes for his election win. Murdoch and the IPA have to be brought into the spotlight. That will be difficult particularly the News connection but, let’s face it, Labor is on a hiding to nothing in relation to the Murdoch media so considering Abbott’s latest defense, it is now time for Labor to join the dots in the minds of voters.
You know things are crook when even sky news commentators reckon the changes to higher education should have been put to the electorate sooner. Pat karavelas news ltd journo believes the changes to higher education is a real sleeper and will end up being a bigger issue for the govt than even the medicare co payment. I agree. We are talking about a huge sea change to the way universities operate. It will cross the Labor Liberal divide. Who wants their child to be hugely indebted for a degree that will not only cost more, but have higher interest rates attached to the loan.