The Australian has come good with Newspoll a day earlier than we have recently been accustomed, and it has Labor’s two-party lead at 54-46 after an above-trend 55-45 result a fortnight ago. The primary vote has the Coalition up a point to 36%, Labor steady on 37% and the Greens down two to 11%. Tony Abbott and Bill Shorten are both unchanged on approval at 31% and 34% respectively, but Abbott is down two points on disapproval to 60% while Shorten is up two to 43%. The poll also finds 53% want the carbon tax repealed, versus 35% who want it retained. Preferred prime minister ratings to follow shortly (UPDATE: Abbott narrows the gap from 44-34 to 41-36). Hat-tip: GhostWhoVotes.
Also worth noting that the Courier-Mail is unrolling Galaxy results from the Queensland state seats of Pumicestone, Gaven, Hervey Bay and Maroochydore, which I presume to be automated phone polls from samples of about 550. The only numbers available at this point are for Pumicestone, where the Liberal National Party is credited with at 52-48 lead in a seat it holds on a margin of 12.1%. Primary votes are 41% for the LNP, 37% for Labor and 13% for Palmer United. More to follow here presumably as well.
UPDATE (Galaxy Queensland electorate polls: Queensland poll results from the Courier-Mail here, showing the LNP leading 56-44 in Gaven, 54-46 in Hervey Bay and 58-42 in Maroochydore, for respective swings of 13.1%, 17.7% and 12.9%. Pumicestone was in Labor’s hands prior to the 2012 election, Gaven and Hervey Bay were gained by the LNP in 2009, and Maroochydore has consistently been conservative. The current member for Gaven is Alex Douglas, who since the last election has thrown his lot in with Palmer United. The poll result is not encouraging for him, showing Palmer United third placed in Gaven with 21% to 40% for the LNP and 29% for Labor.
UPDATE 2 (UMR Research electorate polls): Mark Kenny of the Sydney Morning Herald also relates results from robo-polling conducted for the National Tertiary Education Union by UMR Research, chiefly noted as Labor’s internal pollster, encompassing 23,176 respondents over 23 electorates. The overall picture of a double-digit swing to Labor is hard to credit, but it is nonetheless interesting to learn of a particularly heavy swing against Christopher Pyne in his Adelaide seat of Sturt, and that the best net approval ratings of the incumbents in the electorates polled were recorded by Darren Chester (Nationals, Gippsland), Alannah MacTiernan (Labor, Perth), Kate Ellis (Labor, Adelaide), Anna Burke (Labor, Chisholm) and Matt Thistlethwaite (Labor, Kingsford Smith). FURTHER UPDATE: The NTEU has published the full set of results here, and they show Labor ahead in every single electorate targeted, including such unlikely prospects as Dunkley and Gippsland.
UPDATE 3 (Morgan): This fortnight’s Morgan result, combining its last two weekends of face-to-face and SMS polling, has the Coalition losing further ground with a one point drop on the primary vote to 34% and a two point increase for Labor to 38.5%, while the Greens and Palmer United are respectively down and up half a point, to 11.5% and 7.5%. Using preference flows from the previous election, Labor’s lead is up from 54.5-45.5 to 56-44. However, the Coalition gains slightly on respondent-allocated two-party preferred, on which it now trails 56.5-43.5 rather than 57.5-42.5,
DN
not at all what I was saying. I was describing what happened and why.
In an ideal world, of course everyone gets on board and arrives at a consensus decision that the whole of the universe greets rejoicing. In the real world, decisions on the ground are made for reasons which – one hopes – seem the best at the time.
The Greens were, in fact, very intransigent. As I’ve already said, their attitude was ‘come to us’ and very much ‘our way or the highway’ – the kind of deal Abbott offered Gillard a couple of times (‘we’ll vote with you if you do everything we say’).
In those circumstances, given the Liberals had also gone to an election on a CPRS, and that a bi partisan package was more likely to stand the test of time, Rudd’s decision not to talk to the Greens was perfectly sensible.
We know differently now, and thus would do things differently if we had the time over again. But – I repeat – no Opposition had ever failed to support a policy they had themselves taken to an election, Malcolm Turnbull (who was the leader until the very last minute) was a climate change believer – there was no reason to think for a second that a deal wouldn’t be reached and wouldn’t sail through.
Remember, for Liberal Senators to be in a position to cross the floor to vote for it, the bill had already gone through the HoR — without Liberal Opposition.
You can only expect people to act in ways which were reasonable at the time, not to be psychics and foresee the most unlikely of possibilities.
“@ABCnewsIntern: “I’VE GOT FRIENDS WHO ARE GAY”, claims Philip Ruddock. #qanda”
It’s a beautiful thing.
Listening to our Lib radio Adelaide shock jock railing against the procurement decision on Rossi Boots!
Great program on 4C tonight on domestic violence and the murder of Luke Batty.
One of the factors that possibly contributed to what happened was police feeling constrained by privacy laws to not reveal full details of what had been going on with Luke’s father, Greg Anderson.
A further contributing factor was Greg Anderson’s mental illness which was undiagnosed by the Mental Health system, despite an assessment at Frankston Hospital. He was clearly delusional and paranoid according to those who had the opportunity to observe him.
It is a great move for Labor to be promising a Royal Commission on domestic violence when they win the State Election. All these sorts of issues should be examined.
Well said Tanya Plibersek!!
zoom
Me:
[After some thought, I think you’re incorrect that Labor should/need not have included the Greens in the negotiations for the original CPRS.]
You:
[not at all what I was saying. I was describing what happened and why.
You earlier:
[Let’s recap – Labor and Liberals had the numbers. Labor and the Greens didn’t.
Thus there was no point negotiating with the Greens.]
I’m confused.
[In an ideal world, of course everyone gets on board and arrives at a consensus decision that the whole of the universe greets rejoicing. In the real world, decisions on the ground are made for reasons which – one hopes – seem the best at the time.]
The point is that getting the Greens on board would have helped in a non ideal world.
[The Greens were, in fact, very intransigent.]
Given that they were not included in any negotiations, your claim of intransigence must be based on the narrow window of time when it looked like everything would fall apart without their support for legislation that they had not been included in discussions for. Fair enough, I also think that – with hindsight – they made a mistake.
[In those circumstances, given the Liberals had also gone to an election on a CPRS, and that a bi partisan package was more likely to stand the test of time, Rudd’s decision not to talk to the Greens was perfectly sensible.]
My point is that in hindsight it was not at all sensible. It looks more like, what’s that word, “intransigence”.
[You can only expect people to act in ways which were reasonable at the time, not to be psychics and foresee the most unlikely of possibilities.]
This is the same excuse, made by Greens supporters, that many Labor supporters have little time for (not suggesting you are one).
Sorry, I’ve concatenated two of your quotes together, they should be separate.
Fran Barlow@536
So your “ideological purity” won’t allow you to vote?
Do you really wonder why so many here lambaste the greens for precisely the same thing?
Like the Greens, you deserve exactly what you voted for – i.e. nothing.
Geez isn’t about time that dead-eyed vampires were removed from Parliament? Ruddock is awful.
Ruddock
{I am not sure what you mean by equity Tony]
If you want to seriously look in to things, why not buy every one a mirror.
A RC is just a waste of time, money and effort.
The issue of domestic violence is a curse of our society. It needs to be addressed by enforcing existing laws and resourcing change of attitude initiatives.
The most obvious comparison is the Road Toll where the community got sick and tirde of people killing themselves at the rate of over 1000 people a year (Victoria).
The Government introduced seat belts as a start. But, the biggest change occurred after .05 legislation was introduced and enforced, backed up by major television ad campaigns.
I’m not aware of any RC in to the Road Toll. They knew there was a problem and just got on with fixing it.
People spend far too much time advocating RCs instead of simply getting on with resolving the problem.
zoom
The reason I bring this up is because while I think most of the discussion tonight has been pointless blame shifting, I think this particular point is something Labor could learn from – that they should not exclude an otherwise interested party from discussion on the basis that their presence currently seems pointless.
Having said that, Ruddock is not nearly as offensive as Pyne or O’Dwyer.
Perhaps that is something Labor could not have expected to consider back in 2010, but now they’ve had a clear demonstration that it is something they should consider.
DisplayName at 562 – Agreed, with reservations… Surely the Libs wouldn’t have been so offended by the Greens’ presence that they would have pulled out of negotiations?
“I should be a naturally locked-in Greens voter over this issue, and I struggle to feel anything positive about the Greens at all, and it’s because of this kind of rhetoric.”
‘Long game’ isn’t some kind of lame political poetry, I mean it literally. Tackling climate change, high speed rail, eliminating homelessness, building transport corridors, etc etc. These are some seriously lofty goals, and the whole point of the Greens party is to genuinely pursue them – because the current lot have lost all direction and collapsed into a twitching populist heap. The Green mission is to get in there and get it done, in spite of the recalcitrant majors. Bob Brown and his colleagues didn’t start an alternative political party to win the nightly news, they started it and built it up over decades to change minds and to change the country. I’m not going to apologise for that. That’s what politics is supposed to be.
Re JD @563 – this is actually a fairly polite Q&A – no panelist is trying to dominate.
JimmyDoyle
Especially when we see who are his Walking Dead companions.
Jimmy, that has certainly been asserted a few times regarding the period *after* the leadership change. I’m not sure what effect – people think – the Greens’ presence in discussion would have had prior.
Steve777 – Yes, it seems that relieved of a ministerial portfolio, Ruddock returns to being a human being. Wonder if Morrison can pull that trick off? Somehow I doubt it.
[Having said that, Ruddock is not nearly as offensive as Pyne or O’Dwyer.]
He is to me. He’s my local member. I have had the pleasure of being offended by hi in the years 1998, 2001, 2004, 2007, 2010 and 2013, plus of course right now on July 14, 2014.
bemused@554
Plus the fact that he was a violent and vicious person who subjected his wife to extended domestic abuse, and had five warrants out on him at the time of Luke’s death.
Both Luke Batty and his mother were victims of Luke’s father’s extended record of violent domestic abuse – and of our inability as a society to deal with such offenders effectively.
JimmyDoyle@569
Morrison’s soul, if he ever had one, is dead.
Crikey Whitey – it amuses me how many on that list seems to stem from buyers remorse! Page, Banks, Barton, Hindmarsh etc
DN
I repeat: the Greens weren’t interested in negotiating.
They had dismissed the very idea of a CPRS and were adamant that a carbon tax (a different beast from the one we ended up with, it was far more encompassing) was the way to go.
They weren’t negotiated with partly because they didn’t want to negotiate. (Summoning the PM to come to you is not the way to begin negotiations; saying you want to negotiate doesn’t mean you do, just as Abbott as Oppo saying he wanted to be bipartisan about an issue didn’t mean he did, either).
At the time, it was pretty straight forward. The Liberals were going to support a CPRS, had said so consistently in the lead up to the 2007 election and afterwards. The Greens weren’t.
Under those circumstances, there was no point at all talking to the Greens – as I said, they were intransigent.
You also do need to remember that the Greens were a much more minor party then. It’s not at all unusual for minor players in the Senate to not get included in discussions – Meg Lees first talk with John Howard ever was about the GST.
Player One@571
Yep, all of which was fuelled by his mental illness.
Watch the program and see the kind of behaviours he exhibited described by others.
[I think she may have had a wind turbine on her house as well.]
Not in Hunters Hill
Bushfire Bill – well there’s no one quite so offensive as one’s local Liberal MP… I used to live in Bob Baldwin’s electorate, and while he’s a non-entity, he still manages to convey that nastiness that Tories do so well.
I’d take Ruddock over much of the current Cabinet any day of the week.
zoomster
BS as proved when the Greens did negotiate. Along with Windsor and Oakeshott.
Proof the Greens were willing to negotiate because they did.
http://www.abc.net.au/news/2014-07-14/palmer-reduces-chances-of-ets-by-adding-inda-to-list/5596146
Now I’m anxiously wondering if Modi will act the same way he acted while governing Gujarat.
Jimmy
Ruddock is an expert at passive aggro, obfuscation and stonewalling.
And his current avuncular state makes his power seem benign.
He is an arch conservo and the architect of many savage policies over the years.
Granted, he does not exhibit Pyne’s “punch me now, punch me hard” aura.
Morrison is Ruddock’s successor
DN
I have not tried to place blame, but to outline what happened.
The main blame lies with the Liberals. I repeat: no Opposition had ever before voted against a policy they had gone to an election supporting.
That they did this was breathtakingly dishonest – that the media let them get away with doing this, failed to point out the basic dishonesty of their position and continued to act as if anything they said at all could be trusted, was even worse.
zoom
[I repeat: the Greens weren’t interested in negotiating.]
[They weren’t negotiated with partly because they didn’t want to negotiate. ]
Is this before or after the Liberal’s leadership change? If we give you your assertion on this w.r.t to Milne, what about others’ assertions that Rudd refused to talk to Brown?
[You also do need to remember that the Greens were a much more minor party then. It’s not at all unusual for minor players in the Senate to not get included in discussions – Meg Lees first talk with John Howard ever was about the GST.]
My proposition is that, perhaps, it should be unusual in the future.
Zoomster @ 584
I doubt anyone here will disagree with you about what a bunch of gobshites most of our journalists are… why can’t we have a homegrown Rachel Maddow to call out LNP lies?
guytaur
The position post 2010 was very different.
This is why I don’t tack on to any one party.
I was disappointed at the Greens over the failure of CPRS, and then I was disappointed with Rudd over failing to push on with CPRS or any action. The age of crossbenchers and Gillard working to make the Carbon Tax shoe in was an age of great optimism for me. Minority governments usually work very well for me.
But that’s just me. I hate any one party have absolute power.
Who do I vote for these days? Minor parties with the Greens and Labor receiving preferences.
Psyclaw – here’s hoping he never becomes a minister again.
Morriscum (excuse the vituperative portmanteau) makes Ruddock seem like a humanitarian. Morrison is scary. He shouldn’t be allowed anywhere near military hardware.
bemused@576
zoomster
Yes. However it is proof that the Greens do negotiate. Unlike your categorical statement.
GG
I can’t see a RC doing much about domestic violence either. The causes are numerous, complicated and difficult to fix. I think the money could be better spent on programs than on a talkfest with a retired judge pontificating at the end.
I actually don’t think the RC into child abuse will do very much either. The union one is clearly a waste of time.
I’m much more supportive of ICAC type of bodies than RCs.
Jimmy
“History will vindicate Australia’s treatment of boat people because securing our borders ensures support for an orderly migration program, former immigration minister Philip Ruddock says.”
This statement was made 6 May 2014.
Shades of the man whose policies Ruddock is supporting, Morriscum.
DN
ah, so as I thought, you’re not very familiar with the events of the time.
Milne was the designated person for discussions.
I’m not saying – at all – that the Greens shouldn’t have been included in the conversation, or that Rudd shouldn’t have invited Bob Brown around for tea and bikkies. But in the context of the time, this would have been mere window dressing.
What was on the table was a CPRS, and the Greens weren’t interested in one. When that’s a given, there’s not much scope for discussion.
Here we go. ruddock asked about Morriscum’s secrecy.
guytaur
seriously, there’s a difference between ‘do’ and ‘did’.
Ruddock vomits up the old ‘children overboard’ lie.
Disgusting.
Ah!
Secrecy needed to prevent children overboard “misperceptions” happening again.
Steve777 @590 – That sign from Gosford Anglican Church telling Morrison to pack his bags for The Hague would have made me laugh if it hadn’t struck close to the truth.
http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-2683372/Anglican-priests-stance-marriage-equality-goes-viral.html
(apologies for the Daily Mail link)