The only new federal polling result we look to be getting this week, the regularly fortnightly rolling average from Essential Research, has Labor up a point on two-party preferred to lead 53-47, as the bad result which saw them drop two points a fortnight ago washes out of the system. On the primary vote, Labor is up two to 40% and the Coalition down one to 39%, with the Greens and Palmer United steady on 9% and 6%. We also have Essential’s monthly leader approval ratings, which have Tony Abbott down one on approval to 34% and steady on disapproval at 58%, Bill Shorten down two to 36% and down one to 39%, and Shorten’s lead as preferred prime minister shifting from 40-36 to 37-34. Other questions find approval of the government’s handling of boat arrivals up two since March to 41% and disapproval down three to 35%, with 27% thinking the government too tough, 18% too soft, and 36% “taking the right approach”. Another result suggests paring back the disability support pension to be a relatively popular cost-cutting measure, with 46% supporting recent recommendations to that effect and 37% opposed.
“@spicertracey: One woman #asylumseeker on #ChristmasIsland taken to hospital after jumping off roof. She has sustained broken ribs. (Informant.) 1/2”
@Simon_Cullen: Statement from Scott Morrison’s spokesman re: reports of self-harm on Christmas Island: http://t.co/QTAa3qZW5X
victoria
Yes appalling
SHY presser about to start 24 informs
Steve777
I agree with you 100%
Mind you when Hilary Clinton comes out and says more or less Australia should choose sides, it starts to get worrying.
Serious question for briefly and other “economists.”
If China gets antsy and seized some of the disputed lands and the USA and others respond with trade actions etc, what does Australia do? We would have little choice BUT to go all the way with USA but what effect on our economy?
[SHY presser about to start 24 informs]
Ready mute button.
“@ozkatz: Short Abbott: We decide who suicides to save their kids and the circumstances under which they suicide #auspol”
ACOSS @ACOSS 12m
There’s no justification for cutting Newstart payments by $4 a wk or penalising low income workers for paying super http://www.afr.com/p/national/abbott_urges_minor_parties_to_pass_DP1k6zcTWVijJVNuoD9FRO …
Retweeted by Rob Oakeshott
John Long @jacklong17 15h
The IPA and Waubra Foundation’s charitable tax status rorts http://www.independentaustralia.net/environment/environment-display/the-ipa-and-waubra-foundations-charitable-tax-status-rorts,6649#.U7u2MSHefOp.twitter … @IndependentAus @774Melbourne No doubt j Faine knows??
Good presser by SHY
Interesting that it was the vote of Senator Muir, who has attracted so much patronising and snide commentary in the last 9 months, which stopped the government from guillotining the carbon tax bills through the Senate.
@gabriellechan: The clip of @SenatorWong loses her cool over govt gag #politicslive http://t.co/HJJSGhSRiJ via @guardian
Bill Shorten was interviewed on 3aw this morning. Did not hear it, but this was on 3awtwitter account
[@NickMcCallum7: Bill Shorten admits ALP set up the system for processing of asylum seekers at sea. But says more than 4 questions asked.]
Pedant
Yep Ricky Muir has sided with Labor and the Greens in the govt’s bid to fast-track the repeal of the carbon tax.
guytaur
Penny Wong is so very good.
Come on down Ricky, all is forgiven….
[Rookie senator Ricky Muir broke away from his Palmer United Party voting bloc on Wednesday to deny the government a speedy vote on the repeal of the carbon tax.
The government on Wednesday moved an urgent motion in the Senate to gag debate on the carbon tax repeal bills and force a vote, but the Motoring Enthusiast Party senator voted with other crossbench senators, Nick Xenophon and John Madigan, and Labor and the Greens to ensure further debate on the bills.
The government has been determined to achieve its long-held ambition to scrap Labor’s carbon tax in the first sitting week of the new Senate.
The government had expected it would be able to force a vote by lunchtime on Wednesday, but the vote to guillotine debate was tied at 36-36, meaning the motion failed.]
Read more: http://www.smh.com.au/federal-politics/political-news/senator-ricky-muir-breaks-away-to-deny-abbott-government-senate-vote-on-carbon-tax-repeal-20140709-3blz8.html#ixzz36vbl1VLe
Anyway, didn’t the Lying Friar say he could be friends with Senator Muir?
Perhaps Penny Wong’s empassioned speech worked for Mr Muir
The front page of the Daily Telegraph today is absolutely disgusting and disgraceful. It’s very hard for the Murdoch press to reach new lows, but they’ve done it again.
Something should be done about this: be it in terms of racial vilification, sub judice, media code or just plain basic human decency.
sprocket
Who couldn’t Abbott be friends with?
meher baba
What is on the front page?
Is it true that Abbott said this morning that suicide attempts by mothers on Christmas Island is a “spectacle”?
meher – link?
glory
I hope that is not true – this lot are totally reprehensible.
gc
Abbott said wtte he will “not be held over a moral barrel” over refugee policy.
I would say easy for one who has no morals
Senator X being an idiot. Gives Direct Action a tick , just needs tweaking . Boos carbon tax because it was not high enough . WTF ?????? .
Dog almighty this government is bad.
Re today’s Telegraph front page
Image of the front page is here (click on image to enlarge)
http://dailytel.newspaperdirect.com/epaper/viewer.aspx?code=401
mike
I loathed Howard and Costello but they are looking like angels compared to this lot.
If Morrison and Abbott are both proclaimed Christians I would be willing to turn to Atheism.
Abbott is discovering how hard it is to herd the new senators (from Guardian parliamentary blog at 11:02:
[Democrat Labour Party senator John Madigan is defending his position voting against a gag. He says he supports the right of everyone to have their opinion heard, whether they have to sit late or into the weekend.
Madigan is making the point that there are new crossbenchers and need to time to speak, even though some government senators have said they have debated the topic “until their ears bleed”.
I won’t be bludgeoned into a situation where I go away from my tenet and ethos of respecting everyone’s right to an opinion…The government has a right to put forward and manage business in the senate…I am just asking you not to justify the way you do it by using the behaviour of the last government….for me, it’s a matter of principle.
Madigan will vote the carbon tax down but wants everyone to have a right to be heard.]
Just found it – calls suicide attempts by Christmas Island detainees a “spectacle”.
At 4.05
http://youtu.be/f4m5_ncNz-Q
That needs Twitter exposure, if someone with an account can get it up.
Of course Abbott won’t be “held over a moral barrel”. How could he when he is cemented to the bottom of the barrel ?
Asylum seeking mothers so frightened and desperate that they consider taking their own lives and annulling for all time the love and protection of their children.
It is hard to imagine a situation more catastrophic than one that would impel a mother to separate herself from her children by suicide.
And Abbott denigrates and belittles these women by describing them as moral blackmailers.
MTBW@528
Yes, practically benign compared to this lot.
Siding with Japan is a real worry.
Thanks to those who posted the link. It’s the headline “Asylum Assassin” that upsets me. On a range of levels, it’s a extremely provocative and totally reprehensible and way of portraying what happened at Westfield Parramatta.
On the same basis, I think other media outlets would have every right in future to report crimes suspects with headlines like “Another Daily Telegraph-reading pedophile gets life sentence”.
@senthorun: “Secrecy that shrouds Operation Sovereign Borders is designed to foil the law more than frustrate people smugglers.”
http://t.co/98QGsAhfJv
Now a substantive vote in the Senate on ALP amendments to Carbon Tax repeal package. This should give the benchmark number…
meher baba
Agreed.
There have been two brutal murders here in Melbourne recently that involved a young Irish woman murdered on her way home in Brunswick. Last week a young Chinese girl on her way to work in the city was brutally assaulted and murdered as well.
Both these were done by Australians.
There was also a young French student murdered in Brisbane recently by an Australian.
What should the front pages be saying. Young girls studying and working in Australia are not safe due to anglo saxon Australians out to get them?
So 34-40 down it goes the Carbon Tax. Question is how strategically will ALP/GRN vote on the PUP amendments?
sprocket
to be fair, that was a self serving amendment by the Labor party to get into the Senate record how fantastic the carbon tax had been.
Sea Shepherd’s four campaigns – Operation Relentless, Operation Toxic Gulf, Operation Zero Tolerance and Operation Kimberley Miinimbi – are focused on marine wildlife protection.
But it would be great if this organisation could expand their charter and send a vessel or two North to monitor the asylum seeker atrocities currently unfolding in Australia’s name.
Are their any restrictions on the presence (proximity) of observation vessels where customs or naval ships are engaged in mid-ocean operational matters?
Inner Westie
[But it would be great if this organisation could expand their charter and send a vessel or two North to monitor the asylum seeker atrocities currently unfolding in Australia’s name.]
Great idea!
Senate running sheet has the following amendment votes coming
Green just lost 10-63
Now X
Then committee amendments
Opposition
AG
Ricky
PUP
Just reading the amendments, Ricky is trying to save ARENA
PUP inserts a whole new part of the Repeal Act called “Carbon Tax price reduction obligation”
Amongst other things, each electricity and natural gas supplier has to write to each customer by 31 December 2014 telling them what their savings are.
Am expecting mine to say $550, or I’ll be one cranky customer.
Rollout of the landmark national disability insurance scheme should “take as long as it takes” rather than meet a specific deadline, the Abbott government has been told.
At the same time, a key cross-bench senator has warned the NDIS could become a huge bottomless pit for taxpayers if the scheme goes from a good idea to a bad one.
http://news.theage.com.au/breaking-news-national/hints-ndis-full-rollout-could-be-delayed-20140709-3bm99.html
Senator Loopy Lejdonholm is grandstanding on the vote, getting the package split.
I can see this being a frustrating Senate for the government over the next few years.
There is method in Senator Loopy’s TeaParty madness, he has split off the Bill to do with tax rates compensation which will be voted on separately, and it will likely go down. Could be the first DD trigger coming..
Yep, the personal income tax rates for low income earners stays.
“@AuSenate: Eight of the carbon tax repeal bills have been read for a second time and are now being debated in committee of the whole”
@independentaus: Scott Morrison — child kidnapper, by Bob Ellis. http://t.co/L3dJn0yXof
DTT, good question:
[If China gets antsy and seized some of the disputed lands and the USA and others respond with trade actions etc, what does Australia do? We would have little choice BUT to go all the way with USA but what effect on our economy?]
Two broad effects:
First, inflation. And lots of inflation, because China produces goods at below cost, and because Australia would probably have to reduce or suspend shipments of iron ore, copper, coal, etc, which would causing a collapse in demand for AUD and a commensurate drop in our purchasing power. The only thing that would work to hold it up could be increased demand for gold.
Inflation like this is in effect a cut in the real income of the entire nation. Cheap goods from China no longer available means less income to spend elsewhere, and everyone loses (including Chinese exporters). Nonetheless, some local manufacturing industries will be revived on the back of this.
Second, interest rate rises. Inflationary concerns should force the RBA to raise the cash rate, but it’s not unreasonable to assume that emergency conditions would change government policy on this. Either way, any reduction in the availability of international finance will drive commercial lenders to unilaterally increase their lending rates. So expect to see interest rate rises, precipitating a collapse in asset prices (stock market, property, etc), and possibly the destruction of some banks.
One really dangerous strategic effect:
We are cut off from our major supplier of refined oil and petroleum products, Singapore. At that point, we’re facing massive transport and agricultural production cost increases, possible rationing of fuel, etc, so in macroeconomic terms, all bets are off.