This week’s Essential Research result ticks back a point to the Coalition on two-party preferred, who now trail by 52-48, from primary votes of 39% for both the Coalition and Labor (respectively up one and down one), with the Greens and Palmer United steady on 9% and 6%. Other findings:
• Perceptions of the Senate balance of power have not changed since last year, with 32% thinking it best when the government has a majority (up one), 25% favouring independents and minor parties holding the balance of power (up one), 8% preferring the opposition holding the balance of power (down two), 7% saying it doesn’t matter, and 28% saying they don’t know.
• Perceptions of the present situation are likewise unchanged on immediately after the election, with 36% thinking the micro-parties good for democracy (steady), 28% bad (up two) and 15% opting for makes no difference (down two).
• Twenty-seven per cent would sooner the Greens hold the balance of power versus 22% for Palmer United, with 34% saying no difference.
Other inquiries relate to respondents’ retirement and superannuation arrangements. Another polling nugget to emerge yesterday was a ReachTEL result commissioned by the Electrical Trades Union showing Queensland Treasurer Tim Nicholls facing a 13% swing in his affluent Brisbane seat of Clayfield, but nonetheless leading 57-43 on two-party preferred.
UPDATE (ReachTEL): The Seven Network this evening brings us a ReachTEL automated phone poll of national voting intention, as it does one a month or so, conducted to gauge reaction to Tony Abbott’s handling of the MH17 disaster. The poll shows a slight tick to the Coalition, which now trails 52-48 from primary votes of 36% for the Liberals, apparently not including the Coalition (up one); 37% for Labor (down one); 10% for the Greens (steady); and 8% for Palmer United (up one). Abbott scores strong ratings for his handling of MH17, being rated very good or good by 51%, satisfactory by 26% and poor or very poor by 23%.
[Oops i repeated myself!]
It’s slright vic. Abbott does it all the time. All the time.
It made me angry when I heard that Darius Boyd felt the need to check himself into a clinic for depression.
Boyd was subject to constant and relentless attack from the News Ltd media because of his refusal to speak to them.
Boyd has every right to treat the media as he sees fit. Given that he has been burnt by the media in the past, I don’t blame him one little bit.
I hope the News Ltd league journos are happy!
[ The real crime of these superannuation funds is that they routinely (and often spectacularly) outperform the funds managed by the so called “professional” fund managers. ]
Lol! The Industry funds do seem to better look after their members, and give them better returns don’t they?? I always find it amusing that when this kind of thing gets discussed in the media that is often not mentioned as though just not an important standard a super fund should be judged by.
Helen Skyes
I said earlier, that my hope was families who have lost loved ones were not exposed to having to listen to Abbott. He is beyond pathetic. As the parents who have lost three children and their grandfather stated, “pain is not a story”
Boerwar @ 670
[I find it difficult to understand how it is that they somehow or other missed finding 80-90 bodies.]
Some would have been consumed by flames, others rendered into small pieces, the human body can be very fragile, and there may be some that came down outside the main crash site where no one has yet thought to look.
Kinkajou
Gaseous state ….
‘Zactly
See #670, #682, #685, #726
Boerwar who asserts differently has not got back yet about my questions in #726
BK
Too true!
Got to be kidding imacca @ 753
Which lightweight no clue said that?
It’s like comparing newspaper tipsters with the bookmakers 😎
Slothy #755
Also ‘zactly.
[I said earlier, that my hope was families who have lost loved ones were not exposed to having to listen to Abbott.]
How very noble of you.
Victoria, I have been out this evening and missed your post. I didn’t have time to post myself before I left. I felt quite ill watching the presser, hoping that none of those family members was watching. I know my contempt for Abbott colours my judgment but I am disturbed that his desperate lunge to improve his popularity may cause real harm to people.
Psyclaw, I’m not even attempting to understand the logic of the government’s case, I’m just attempting to understand where the HC may go on this. Yes, I’ve read the case you mention that holds that the government is bound by the provisions of the Migration Act (Plaintiff M61/2010E v
Commonwealth for anyone who is interested). I think this case, along with the Malaysia decision will be what the HC will use to assess this case. Having invoked jurisdiction in the contiguous zone in order to prevent a breach of the Migration Act, this should mean that because of the Plaintiff M61 decision previously mentioned, that the government is bound by the act and thus cannot for reasons of procedural fairness and rule of law return the Sri Lankans to either Sri Lanka or India (even if they were willing). Having said that I know better than to try and predict what the HC will actually decidein the end.
I can recall visiting my cousin most evenings of the last day of her life whilst in a hospice.
I found it appaling that a particular chaplain or the like kept coming in to ply his cloying attention on her. She did not want it. I did not want it. It was patrom=nising to say the least.
We took some joy in seeing him off. She felt good after that.
A few days later she died.
I am thinking of how the loved ones of the MH17 victims may be feeling at the moment.
Rossmore
re Lockerbie and only 10 out of 300 not accounted for.
I doubt that the accounted-for rate with MH 17 will be so close to the total.
MH17 I suspect the search area will need to be expanded based on Lockerbie
“This task was made extremely difficult as the debris was spread over approximately 845 square miles between Lockerbie and the North Sea. Miles of Scottish moors would need to be searched to find the remains of those people from the aircraft along with wreckage of the plane that would eventually lead to the cause of the crash.”
http://www.fireservice.co.uk/history/the-lockerbie-bomb
William, I love your wry comments – and you’re a great moderator. But did you watch Abbott talking about the bodies being exposed to the ravages of animals? It turned my stomach. I think Victoria and I are right to be concerned if families were listening.
Martin B @ 749 – though I am by no means a lawyer either, the more case law I read the more dubious the government’s proposition that it’s actions are not covered by the Migration Act becomes.
Helen Skyes
Abbott’s presser was disgraceful. I heard it on the radio whilst i was out and about and had to switch off the radio. I was so angry. All i could think was that hopefully no family members were listening to it
It’s entirely possible that the families of the victims would have been quite a bit more offended if he’d said nothing.
[I’m reading a book called “Plutocrats” about the rise to the global super-rich. One argument in it is that it’s not really the top 1% who are getting richer, it’s the 0.01% who are booming.]
I had seen something on this too, I guess I despair of those of the 50% – 99.99% that support the policies that just aren’t working. I guess in the US those policies are also supported by the 0-50% but that makes no sense at all to me.
William Bowe
Families that have lost their children dont need to hear the PM talking about remaims being ravaged by animals. Please!!
Jimmy Doyle
Just saw the HC matter mentioned on 10pm ABC 24 news.
Their wording was spot on.
“As directed by the judge the government and the plaintiffs have agreed on a streamlined statement of the case”
So all parties and His Honour now know and agree what the legal contest is specifically about.
This is a legal version of the well publicised pre activities of the 70’s when the US and Vietnam argued for some time about the shape of the table to be used in peace talks.
imacca @ 753 – I’ve often heard it expressed that the industry superfunds are the financial arm of the trade unions. Thus I imagine for that reason they are not taken “seriously” by our corporate media.
I am I the only one who finds it a bit off that there is a discussion on here about what happens to the human body in a plane crash and then people get into Abbott and the media for talking about it?
We know what happens, just let it go.
rossmcg
I am not talking about what happens to bodies. I am merely saying that the PM of this country did not need to do this himself. It was crass and disrespectful
Those ads comparing the performance of industry funds vs retail funds tell it all. They make reasonable assumptions about future investment returns and fees. No one has attacked them as being misleading, although I am sure their competitors and enemies have done the maths and would have screamed blue murder at the slightest error or doubtful claim. Over 30 years, given a net rate of return of about 5% p.a, a 1% higher annual fee will reduce the final payout by about 25%. That’s a big chunk of anyone’s super.
imacca@753
I reckon the crap about the FoFA regulations stems from the same source – they want to make all that money available to their kind of people to be ripped off as much as they can manage.
Pretty sick, if you ask me.
I agree with you entirely, Victoria.
Do you want to outperform everything?
Put it all on the Broncos to beat the Storm 😈
Helen Skyes
Any reasonable person would understand the boundary of decency. 🙂
And yet Bill Shorten and the entire parliamentary ALP remain silent on Tony Abbott’s scandalous insensitivity.
Abbott is milking it (MH17) for all he can for his own political purposes.
What’s new?
*night
Re WWP @570: I had seen something on this too, I guess I despair of those of the 50% – 99.99% that support the policies that just aren’t working. I guess in the US those policies are also supported by the 0-50% but that makes no sense at all to me.
The parties of Big Money / Corporate Power use a combination of social conservatism, populist fears (about crime, migration, external threats, whatever) and racist dogwhistling to persuade many to vote against their own interests. They also have an uncanny ability, supported by the media outlets they and their allies control, to persuade lots of ‘punters’ (as they think of them) that the problems of the rich (e.g. a tax on the super-profits of big miners) is in fact theirs’ ( the punters).
William Bowe
I dont know what shorten etc have got to do with Helen and i believing Abbott’s comments this afternoon were crass and insensitive?
644 RD
I have a colleague at work who is really anti-Bracks. He’s no Lib and can’t stand the sight of Abbott, but he’s got very little faith in Vic Labor ever since Bracks. I was in Queensland until 2010, so I haven’t paid much attention to Vic politics until I moved here, but my colleague raised the point about Bracks investing and making that business trip to Lebanon. That might win the Lebanese votes, but as far as I know most of the Lebanese populations are already concentrated in safe Labor seats.
I would never call William unreasonable. I doubt that he heard exactly what you and I heard in that presser. I didn’t see any news tonight but I suspect that most newsrooms would have decided not to include that part of the PM’s speech. It was distasteful, unnecessary and distressing.
Sorry, Victoria. That last post was for you.
[ Samantha Maiden @samanthamaiden · 3h
“No hate in the world is as strong as the love we have for our children, for Mo, for Evie, for Otis – Maslin family ]
Above all the victims I’ve wondered the most about this couple and how they might fare going forward.
I’m not a parent, but know if I lost all three of my offspring I’d seriously want to bash heads and get in peoples faces. That alone poses a stress to a couple in a normal set of circumstances. Worse that they’re in their 40s and unlikely to produce more offspring. That would cruel me.
But knowing you elected to stay behind in Amsterdam to have a naughty nooky break with your husband while your kids sallied forth back to Perth only to be shot out of the sky in some fucked up random bullshit agenda? Seriously not dealing. I can imagine they’d be blaming each other for whose idea it was to stay behind. And I also imagine there’ll be times when one or the other doesn’t wish they were on that plane with their kids so they could be spared the pain of being the ones to have to go on without them. I don’t envy them that rocky road ahead, and hope their relationship has the strength to power through it.
Seriously, how do they return home knowing they’ll have to walk into their bedrooms, see their kids’ shit everywhere, see letters from their school given the term resumes next week, and not lose it? I just can’t imagine. And I can’t imagine how people get through this stuff. How do they?
It is a minority view that most likely isn’t held by the families of the victims, in whose interests you presume to speak – distastefully, some might think.
On a very quick reading of Plaintiff M61 it would seem to me that the case turned on A) original detention on Australian territory, and hence clearly subject to Australian law (if not to all parts of the MA) and B) decisions of the Minister to treat all detainees by a similar process, regardless of onshore/offshore status.
Clearly the government is seeking to ensure that neither of these applies here.
William
I dont care if it is a minority view. I found it disgusting and totally unnecessary
himi
[they want to make all that money available to their kind of people to be ripped off as much as they can manage.]
Spot on.
[ I reckon the crap about the FoFA regulations stems from the same source – they want to make all that money available to their kind of people to be ripped off as much as they can manage. ]
More the push in the Fair Work Commission to allow more retail funds to be listed as default funds in enterprise agreements.
I think the FOFA regulations thing is simply to close off way that some influential members the LNP’s “donating class” could be held to account come the next financial advice ripoff and scandal. Cant have those silly pensioners who have lost their savings getting the money that should rightfully be paying their advisers kids school fees and being donated to good causes…..like lunch with JoHo.
Steve777 – Funny you should mention the mining tax in the context of the super rich persuading a large proportion of the population to vote to protect their interests, I was under the impression that the mining tax has always enjoyed majority support. I get your broader point though.
And yet Bill Shorten and the entire parliamentary ALP remain silent on Tony Abbott’s scandalous insensitivity.
I saw the Abbott interview earlier this evening and was surprised at him going into this sort of detail. In my opinion he should have said that it might not be possible to recover all remains but the recovery teams will do their best. Maybe Shorten decided (wisely in my opinion) that a bunfight over Tony Abbott’s insensitivity would only make things worse for the families of the victims.
I would have thought the families of Aussies killed in the disaster having for days seeing the bodies of their loved ones treated the way they were would have been justifiably enraged if our PM had not spoken up strongly over what happened to them.
I could say more about some of the rhetoric here at times but I don’t want to test William’s patience and besides there would be little point.
And for the record I think Bishop has handled all this very well and was excellent at the UN.
Just for once it would be nice to see people put political bias aside and give credit where it’s due. This disaster would be a good time in my opinion.
[But knowing you elected to stay behind in Amsterdam to have a naughty nooky break with your husband while your kids sallied forth back to Perth only to be shot out of the sky in some fucked up random bullshit agenda?]
I’m not entirely sure that this passes the sensitivity test either.
Steve777
As often, you are the voice of reason. 🙂
[William
I dont care if it is a minority view. I found it disgusting and totally unnecessary]
The highlight of my day was reading Mumbles take on this and the ‘warm’ response of some of the Limited News residents.
William, I’m not objecting to the PM giving regular updates about the ‘Operation’. I agree that the families would want that. I’m objecting to graphic descriptions of what might be happening to the remains – a description that served no apparent purpose but that made my blood run cold.
I think Victoria feels the same.
If we’re a minority, we might nevertheless have a point on this. But I have had my say and will now desist.
I still think that you are (mostly) a terrific moderator and I thoroughly enjoy this blog. Perhaps I should go back to lurking.