With just about every pollster in the game taking the field last week to gauge budget reaction, there is a corresponding lull this week, the trusty weekly Essential Research being the only new data point nationally. Since this of itself doesn’t bear much weight in the model, the change since last week is more to do with pre-budget polling fading from the system than any recorded shift from last week to this. The trendlines instead move a little further along the trajectories set for them last week, with Labor up a further half a point on the primary vote, the Liberals down correspondingly, and a lift for the Greens boosting the two-party preferred shift to 0.8%.
There has been one substantial new poll result this weak, and that’s been a relatively mild result for the Coalition in Galaxy’s Queensland-only poll (which, interestingly enough, was exactly replicated in the small-sample Queensland component of this week’s Essential poll). However, the BludgerTrack model only uses state-level polling to determine the manner in which the national vote is apportioned between the states, so the effect of this result has been to soften Labor’s numbers in Queensland while fractionally improving them everywhere else. Since Queensland’s is the mother lode when it comes to marginal seats, the swing in the national result has yielded Labor little gain on the total seat projection, as gains of one seat each in New South Wales, Victoria, Western Australia and South Australia have been counter-balanced by a loss of three in Queensland.
The other BludgerTrack news for the week is that the retrospective poll tracking charts have as promised been extended to the start of the Howard era, the results of which you can see on the sidebar. There is no new data this week on leadership ratings, so the results on the sidebar remain as they were a week ago.
I think if you’re assuming there’s an “official theory” of MH370 you’re overcooking your pudding before you’ve bought the ingredients.
The official theory is that MH370 disappeared after tracking back over mountainous northern Malaysia, and then *probably* flying south. Other that that? There is no official theory. There’s a lot of speculation about what or why the plane might have done this or that, but an official, specific theory? Not that I’ve read from anywhere.
Without knowing what happened on the plane, it’s impossible to assess why passengers did or didn’t do anything. I can come up with entire logical and entirely illogical answers to all of the common questions people have, but I’ve no more or less evidence they’re true than BB does for his Diego Garcia theory. Which strikes me as very unlikely. But then everything about MH370.
Ultimately, this isn’t the first plane to inexplicably disappear. It probably won’t be the last.
BHP must of been at that Minerals meeting last night to get that memo from Abbott (or the other way around).
@AA/149
Shorter version: you will be working for us as slaves, long longer than we will be, & your rights have been incinerated.
Please guys – the MH370 conspiracy theories are cringe-worthy enough without the lectures on how science works (which confuses hypothesis and theory no less). Can we stick to discussing things tangentially related to polls?
zoidlord @150
Yes, they do, so do people on Carers Payment and a few other benefits.
tielec
I’ll second that. The MH370 theorising and conspiracy rubbish is as boring as batshit and completely pointless.
Guessing about what happened to MH370 isn’t science.
BB
Whenever the debate turns to MH270, I am always reminded the the UK spoof newspaper Sunday Sport.
Despite the name, it wasn’t a sport newspaper and published plainly ridiculous stories and of course, being a British tabloid, lots of pictures of naked women.
One of its most famous front pages, from the mid 80s, carried the headline: World War 2 bomber found on moon.
They may have been ahead of their time
10.36am AEST
Freedom commissioner Tim Wilson has confirmed he attended a Liberal Club function at Sydney University, even though he has resigned his membership from the Liberal Party. Wilson said it was not a Liberal Party function which he acknowledged was a “technical point”.
You should ask Mr wilson to come to your next socialist meeting, Brandis says.
Wilson outlines his rules of political engagement as freedom commish.
He resigned from the Liberal Party.
He will speak to political parties, which are usually where human rights issues are debated.
He will only speak to parties if they pay his costs.
He does not attend political fundraisers.
There is a lot of argy bargy, with Labor senator Lisa Singh calling Tim Wilson, “a good friend” of Brandis. She asks why the attorney general rang his good friend Wilson to inform him of his $300,000 commission job offer while not having the decency to ring disability commissioner Innes to tell him his contract was not going to be renewed.
Brandis replied that contracts are not expected automatically to be renewed and that a phone call to Wilson was easier than flying to Melbourne to tell him.
Chairman Ian Macdonald thanks Innes for his time at estimates over the years and he gets a little clap.
They all have a tea break.
No wink?
dtt:
[I have to disagree with you about the way REAL CREATIVE science is done – as opposed to routine cross checking and confirmation/quality control.
The hypothesis need NOT be based on any data – just gut feel or a sense of something in a jigsaw that is missing. The experiments then proceed to try to prove or disprove the hypothesis. Of course the wilder the “gut feel” from actual data the harder it will be to get funding for expensive research but do not confuse funding protocols and scientific research protocols.]
We are not really in disagreement here. The gut feeling can be a prelude to preliminary experiments, which provide a preliminary dataset.
However, a hypothesis that is based *solely* on a gut feeling, with no supporting data (aside from cherry-picked “facts” and dubious personal testimonies) is not really a hypothesis at all.
Bushfire
It’s fine to hypothesize and then look at the facts and see if it supports the hypothesis. And the facts you have… well they don’t discount it, but they’re not particularly unique to your hypothesis.
what you need to do is be skeptical of your own hypothesis first. So try and determine if your facts/evidence support ONLY your hypothesis. If they support other hypotheses then they’re not so useful for yours.
At present the list of data you have aren’t solely supportive of your hypothesis they support other ones as well.
You also need to adequately deal with some evidence absence:
A terrorist group would normally claim responsibility
The pilot or passengers would need to be linked to a terrorist group
And some evidence that contradicts your theory:
The plane location would need to be closer to Diego Garcia, but the triangulation makes it well south and east of there.
I also believe you may be wrong about the suicide theory. I do remember hearing that a commercial pilot had suicided and killed the passengers.
teh_drewski:
[I think if you’re assuming there’s an “official theory” of MH370 you’re overcooking your pudding before you’ve bought the ingredients.]
That hits the nail on the head. There is no “official theory”. Just the media fumbling around for a headline, and latching on to any explanation at all.
The Diego Garcia “hypothesis” may prove to be correct. But at the moment, there is absolutely no evidence to support it. The fact that the current favored hypothesis (pilot deliberately flying over and into the Southern Ocean) is looking shaky (again, based on media reports) does not by default lend credence to alternative explanations.
Whitehouse application form
Astrobleme:
[what you need to do is be skeptical of your own hypothesis first. So try and determine if your facts/evidence support ONLY your hypothesis. If they support other hypotheses then they’re not so useful for yours. ]
Yep. To quote physicist Richard Feynman:
“The first principle is that you must not fool yourself – and you are the easiest person to fool. So you have to be very careful about that.”
In other words, How would I know if I was wrong?
“@EN2wit: For the diary: Press Club 4-Jun = John Howard & Bob Hawke, On life and politics. Live on #ABCNews24 #abc1 #Newsradio #auspol”
How romantic.
We have a process where, starting with the set of all hypotheses and zero data, we increase the data and reduce the set of hypotheses – preferrably correctly, to a minimal set (just one, say) and requiring as little data as possible (i.e. begin efficient).
It may make sense to use an iterative process where we inform (or direct) our information gathering process (experiments) with each successive, reduced set of hypotheses.
An infinitely big set of hypotheses is difficult (impossible?) to imagine, usually we generate them one at a time.
Then it’s just a matter of arguing strategy. Stuff romance.
😉
begin = being
“@ABCNews24: Today on #CapitalHill @lyndalcurtis is joined by Oppn Finance Spokesman @Tony_Burke to discuss #Budget2014 http://t.co/FlRWJArtyW #auspol”
Some incredible swings on the bludgertracker – the 9% for WA bodes ill for Barnett. However, I’m confused how the LNP still have a lead in QLD?
Not doubting the results of the polls; it just seems strange to me because Newman is floundering and I thought Labor got a little kick up when Rudd was reinstated. Perhaps this will change after state of origin last night?
Kakuru
““The first principle is that you must not fool yourself – and you are the easiest person to fool. So you have to be very careful about that.””
Yes!
And it also saves a lot of embarrassment later! A lot of scientists are VERY shy to reveal their ideas as they can be pretty ridiculous when more data is revealed. It’s why they prevaricate so much.
Friend of mine, who happens to be a nuclear physicist, claims that 90% of science is done around a teapot.
My 2PP aggregate is still at 53.9 but it will go to 54.3 tomorrow night if there is no new polling. Generally mine is a bit slower getting rid of lag from old polls, which works well when it comes to muting the impact of rogues but not quite as well when there is a sudden and genuine shift. Half the remaining difference is caused by mine being a bit more Essential-tolerant.
haha I like Doug Camerons comment on the dinner,
They should not send Turnbull to negotiate with Palmer they should send Malcolm Fraser
[Can we stick to discussing things tangentially related to polls?]
If be “we”, you mean all of us posting…. then, no. One of the best discussions had on this site was about Huntsmen spiders… a species that would probably out poll Abbott at present.
If be = If by
[The official theory is that MH370 disappeared after tracking back over mountainous northern Malaysia, and then *probably* flying south. Other that that? There is no official theory. ]
There is “no official theory”. The plane turned left then disappeared, right?
That must be why the largest air-sea search possibly in aviation history occurred in the waters to the west of Perth, based on information – alleged pings and satellite data – that is now in doubt. And also why our government appropriated $90 million dollars in the Budget, to continue it.
Please forgive me.
I might also add that one man’s “cherry-picked facts” are another man’s “plausible evidence”.
To Boerwar’s objection that if the plane was shot down over Diego Garcia then 5,000 people would instantly know about it, I’m not sure this is true.
One F-18 fighter on routine patrol could have shot MH-370 down, either under orders or on the initiative of the pilot.
THAT would be easy to cover up. It’s why I ceased theorizing about a landing on Diego Garcia and started considering whether it has been shot down off-site (as it were). No fireball, no wreckage, no landing. Nothing.
Once the act was done, then the question would be whether to admit it. Once sufficient delay had occurred after the hypothesised act then it may have been impossible to admit it without very serious geopolitical repercussions.
There are many reason why the plane could have been headed to Diego Garcia. I have a favourite – the “hijack” scenario – but I’m not casting it in concrete.
Whatever the motivations and the details surrounding the tragedy, the plane IS gone, without electronic or physical trace. This means that ALL theories are reset to zero.
You don’t have to believe in aliens (which I don’t, incidentally), or wormholes (which have never been observed), to believe that there is a lot to do with the disappearance of the plane that does not meet the eye, metaphorically or literally.
Given that the official evidence has just about turned to dust at this stage, we are free to speculate.
If you think I’m wrong to hold to the theory that I do, then go ahead and say so. I can’t rpove it.
But I don’t think it’s reasonable to say that such theories are so crazy that they don’t bear any discussion at all.
The possibility of a more sinister end to flight MH-370 than just “misadventure” cannot be discounted.
Diego Garcia is my favoured choice because I’ve always been fascinated by the place, the pilot had some interest in it, and it was in the right area, had the right facilities, function and capabilities for a cover-up, and there was supporting evidence to indicate the plane may have been in that area.
I have been interested in the area for some time and I suppose you could call it a “pet” theory… boased even.
But microbiologists don’t come up with hypotheses concerning quantum physics. They come up with hypotheses concerning microbes. Vice versa with physicists. We stick to our areas of interest, if the facts don’t rule them out.
Incidentally, on the Maldives sightings, we were assured that the sound of screaming jets at a low altitude, observed by multiple witnesses, was NOT MH-370, but were never told just WHAT it was. Hard to imagine that dozens of people on a quiet island in the middle of the ocean could mistake the sound of jet engines for a passing freight train (OK, OK… straw man).
I also note that there are NO sightings, or even reported sightings, at all of any large plane in the lower southern Indian Ocean at the relevant time.
I am defending the right to think outside the square here, not to think outside of the known universe. I’m trying to keep things relatively rational, and attempting to demonstrate how it’s easy to monster alternatives to the official line by bald declarations that such-and-such is “just a conspiracy theory”.
Its relevance to politics is stark. We, Australia, are intimately involved in the search. In fact we are leading it, and funding it.
It has been used as a political stunt on several occasions – the Motion Of Condolence in Parliament, and the bullshit in Beijing are two examples.
Dissent is shouted down by bald declarations of the “conspiracy” nature of the hypothesis.
We’ve seen all this before in the media and in public opinion, on many, many matters, not just disappeared planes.
Clive Palmer….
Does his presence increase the likelihood of extra leaders in the election debates?
Could Clive pave the way for Milne to take part?
[ Simon Katich
Posted Thursday, May 29, 2014 at 1:15 pm | Permalink
Can we stick to discussing things tangentially related to polls?
If be “we”, you mean all of us posting…. then, no
]
——————————————————-
I agree – the ‘mix’ in PB is so fantastically diverse – I have learned so MANY things in here apart from sheer politics
I love Bushfire Bills ‘contributions’ …. fact or fantasy
Whatever it was that Palmer, Turnbull and Parkinson discussed, let’s hope it included the Carbon Pricing Mechanism and what an all-round good idea it would be if it were not repealed.
BB
FWIW, I like reading your views on this. I also like reading deblonays views on the Ukraine.
But not sure those posts need to be so…. ahhhh…. wordy – and I take into account you (and often deblonay) are defending yourself from criticism.
Feynmann:
[“The first principle is that you must not fool yourself – and you are the easiest person to fool. So you have to be very careful about that.”]
I believe Feynmann was the inventor of nanotechnology. He gave a famous paper on it… decades before any of it was physically possible.
He worked on the A-bomb, which had never been exploded before. Until the Trinity test went off, some scientists believed it might be a fizzer. Others believed it could consume the planet in an Earth-wide chain reaction.
You take your ideas, in the area that interests you, and you kick them around to see where they end up.
I only “went public”on Diego Garcia because the “evidence? we were being presented with continually turned out to be flaky.
A month or two later, that evidence is even flakier. It’s possible that NONE of it could be real, or accurately interpreted.
We are left with a place not too far away from the search area (for an intercontinental passenger jet), that is intensely secure, is armed to the teeth, kitted out with THE most sophisticated radar and satellite surveillance equipment available and is thousands of kilometres from the nearest inhabited island.
Yet, to consider it as a serious possiblity for being involved in the disappearance of MH-370 is crazy, tinfoil hat stuff?
I don’t think so.
BB – a best guess isn’t an official theory. You’re massively overplaying what is, essentially, a stab in some otherwise slightly illuminated (and increasingly less so) dark.
OK, to sign off for the afternoon here’s a (mercifully) short post, less wordy.
I am trying to discuss how group-think works.
The plane’s disappearance is just a convenient incidence of it.
Good afternoon all.
[149
AussieAchmed
The head of Australia’s biggest mining company has backed the federal budget, saying Australians must boost their productivity if they want to continue to enjoy a high standard of living.]
This makes no sense. While it’s perfectly true that we have to invest and improve our productivity if we want to expand incomes, the social spending cuts and tax increases proposed by the LNP will not lift productivity at all.
In respect of education, they will actually worsen the productivity outcome if they are ever enacted.
“@samdastyari: SBS Cheif Michael Ebid can’t commit to having the funds to broadcast future Football World Cups and the Tour De France due to cuts. #auspol”
sortius @sortius 1m
Scott misleads Senate about Q&A’s #NBN coverage http://delimiter.com.au/2014/05/29/scott-misleads-senate-qas-nbn-coverage/ …
Nothing new there about Scott misleading NBN Coverage.
Afternoon BB
QED
[ Bushfire Bill
Posted Thursday, May 29, 2014 at 1:31 pm | Permalink
OK, to sign off for the afternoon here’s a (mercifully) short post, less wordy.
]
———————————————-
Good onya Bill – life of the party 🙂 ….. and fun posts
There is no conversation more boring than the one where everybody agrees.
BB
I don’t think the skepticism over the Diego Garcia explanation of flight MH370 is an example of groupthink at all.
How sad. If true.
[The Wild Duck meeting has set off the jitters in the Coalition, according to the Australian Financial Review.
Phillip Coorey and Joanna Heath report that “paranoia levels are high” about the dinner]
http://www.smh.com.au/federal-politics/the-pulse-live/politics-live-may-29-2014-20140529-395dv.html#ixzz334Xn0yQ9
If the coalition are going out of their way to confuse the electorate, they are succeeding magnificently.
This morning Hockey and some National MPs were stating that student loans should be treated like all other loans and if owing at date of death, estate should repay it.
Then we have the habitual liar Abbott saying no no no. But of course, we must not take notice of what Abbott ever bloody says, but what he actually does.
Stephen Koukoulas @TheKouk · 19s
My take on the business investment data:
Capex goes Crapex http://thekouk.com/blog/capex-goes-crapex.html#.U4asPMa26f0 …
Palmer doesn’t dine with just anyone.
[The dinner comes days after the PUP Leader refused a dinner invite from Julie Bishop, ]
@Victoria/191
He is using everyone else to point out the truth, so that he claim he said no.
Abbott is a flatterer and everyone’s best friend.
Post 179 Simon Katic
__________
Thanks for your comments…very perceptive of you
Yes I always feel impelled to defend views which some here find unacceptable and they then tend to attack the commentator rather than take part in a debate..Psephos does this repeatedly because he detests my pro-Palestinian viewpoint….a sad fact even on a blog like this
BB
“I believe Feynmann was the inventor of nanotechnology. He gave a famous paper on it… decades before any of it was physically possible.
He worked on the A-bomb, which had never been exploded before. Until the Trinity test went off, some scientists believed it might be a fizzer. Others believed it could consume the planet in an Earth-wide chain reaction.”
But his thoughts on these things were based in his understanding of physics that was specific to what he was hypothesizing about; so he had already been through the self-skeptical part. He did mathematics and computations first.
I see no self-skepticism in your Diego Garcia hypothesis.
Re duck dinner dalliance…
What is the extent of Clive Palmer’s political ambition? Satisfied with balance of power? Or is PUP merely a stepping stone?
Retweeted by sortius
Asher Wolf @Asher_Wolf 3m
Leaked photos of Manus Island detention centre, published via @thecitizenweb http://ow.ly/xndDS pic.twitter.com/ffP1oD2DQP
Pyne floats a thought balloon, Abbott shoots it down, a year later it’s official Liberal policy.
It’s not a lie, he just changed his mind. Debt disaster. Changed circumstances. Tough decision. Lifting, not leaning. You knew what you were voting for.