Three new polls this week provide an early indications of a slight revival in the Coalition’s fortunes after the MH17 disaster and, some might claim, the carbon tax repeal. However, this week’s BludgerTrack poll aggregate result differs only slightly from the one I published a week ago, for two reasons. The first is that a data entry error led an undercooked Labor lead last week of 53.5-46.5, which should have been 54.1-45.9. The second is that this week’s polls only imperfectly capture the effect of a news event which Australia woke up to on Friday morning. The earliest of the three was Nielsen, conducted from Thursday to Saturday, which showed no change to the recent trend in having Labor leading 54-46. Then came this week’s Essential Research sample which was surveyed from Friday to Monday, and caused the fortnightly rolling average to move a point in the Coalition’s favour. Most timely of the three was Monday night’s ReachTEL poll, which was the Coalition’s best result from the pollster since late March. After a fairly flat period since the budget, this makes next week’s Newspoll of particular interest.
Going off a corrected result for last week, this week’s seat projection has the Coalition up one in New South Wales, Victoria, Western Australia and Tasmania, but down one in Queensland. The last federal poll we will ever get from Nielsen provides this week’s only new contribution on leadership ratings, and it’s enough to produce an upward tick for Tony Abbott for the first time since the budget, and also to narrow the gap on preferred prime minister. Bill Shorten meanwhile maintains a slow descent that has been evident since a spike in the wake of the budget. Full results as always on the sidebar.
zoomster
[People have a choice – they can pay rent (in which case ‘all that dead money’ goes to landlords) or they can take out a loan and buy their own home (in which case all that loan interest (“dead money”) goes to the bank.]
There fixed that for you.
So hang on, despite 24/7 news coverage, I need something clarified: If Israel has a right to defend itself, doesnt Palestine also have that right?
And if so, isnt this a rather useless framework for looking at the conflict – shouldnt we examine causes instead?
Meh.
Further evidence, if needed, that Hockey is a total buffoon. He got into politics because one of the lower orders was rude to him.
From the Guardian
[The biography ]says that Hockey as a young child told “everyone who would listen that he wanted to be prime minister one day”, but by his third year at university he had not mentioned those political ambitions for some time.
That all changed when Hockey visited the University of Sydney’s students’ representative council front counter seeking a movie pass. The woman at the desk “had dismissed his query”. The book says Hockey thought the woman was rude; he felt that his fees went to paying her salary and that meant she was in his service.
“I would have liked her to be nice to me,” Hockey says in the book, “so I thought I should give politics a go.”
[The biography ]says that Hockey as a young child told “everyone who would listen that he wanted to be prime minister one day”]
Sounds just like that other loser Prabowo.
I don’t really want to wade into the MH17 matters but I will note that really it should be our Head of State (or the closest thing we have) that leads the nation-uniting ‘mourner-in-chief’ business rather than the Head of Government. Without it meaning to be an attack, it is an irony of fate that the staunchest monarchist PMs, Howard and Abbott, have also done tge most to usurp ceremonial roles for the PM.
Having said all that, I suspect that community attitudes have changed, and people do expect the PM to be visibly involved in such affairs.
leon, very good.
There certainly needs to be a new ADF unit for such things. We could have the RAN, Army, RAAF and the new R-ETA; a unit comprised mostly of 3 star generals dedicated to the Re-Election of Tony Abbott by utilising supposedly nonpartisan highly respected institutions to give credibility to otherwise discredited LNP ventures.
http://kevinbonham.blogspot.com.au/2014/07/poll-roundup-brief-history-of-disaster.html
Poll Roundup: A Brief History Of Disaster Bounces
My aggregate is 53.1 to Labor.
newmatilda @newmatilda 4m
‘Medieval’ Campaign To Block Higher Ed Reforms Spreads: An ancient university practice which dates back to the… http://bit.ly/1x3x0Fc
My sceptical view about a potential significant bounce for Abbott is based on my hypothesis that disasters do not automatically boost incumbents but rather they provide the opportunity to do so. Whether that opportunity can be taken depends largely on the existing performance and perception of the leader. Howard had established such pre-conditions for success; I am more doubtful Abbott has.
No doubt there is some lift possible from increased exposure on its own, but I suspect this is a considerably smaller effect
52 lefty e
[So hang on, despite 24/7 news coverage, I need something clarified: If Israel has a right to defend itself, doesnt Palestine also have that right?]
To summarise, both Israel and Palestine has the right to defend itself. Except in cases where each of the country is not recognised as one, therefore they will be treated as terrorist organisations by the countries that don’t recognise their sovereignty. Am I right to assert this?
[ My sceptical view about a potential significant bounce for Abbott is based on my hypothesis that disasters do not automatically boost incumbents but rather they provide the opportunity to do so. ]
I am coming around to the idea that they will get a bounce out of this. The fawning of the media has been extreme (the woman on the drum last night was puke worthy), the coverage is saturation and at the moment no-one is talking about the crap that they are trying to inflict on the country. You know, actual governance of THIS country??
There is also the fact that a goodly number of the punters were actually stupid enough to vote of Abbott and the Wabble and will be seeking some sort of validation / reassurance that decision wasn’t actually a really dumb one, particularly after the policy and PR debacle that was the Budget.
Interesting that Liberal Leader$hit is bubbling away after the oddness of Hockeys release of a biography???
I suspect that the polling will soon provide a bit of relief for the blue kool aid brigade but wouldn’t bee too worried about it. Actually, if i were on the dark side i would be more worried that the Fibs may actually GET some of their more stupid and unfair budget proposals through the Senate and have to wear those through to the next election.
[ Boerwar
Posted Thursday, July 24, 2014 at 8:44 am | Permalink
badcat
261%? 100% in the last five years? Australian prosperity rests on the solid foundation of $26 trillion of Chinese debt?
You spoiled my breakfast with that one.
]
—————————————————
Yes Boerwar – China has a 261% to GDP – and the best figure I can find is that Australias is 20.48% to GDP ….. but that does not stop that fatass cigar chomping Joe ( chicken little – ths sky is falling in ) Hockey and that other poormans Arnie blockhead, Corman – screaming out WE have a major economic crisis of titanic proportions …… what FRAUDS !!!!!!
should have said % DEBT to GDP
Dan
You can argue that it’s ‘dead money’ either way – but at least once you’ve paid thirty years of a mortgage, you have something to show for it at the end — not so with rent.
With household debt a tick over 100% of GDP and net Government debt 12-14 % GDP being called a “budget emergency” I wonder what HoJo calls household debt ? Joe is after all fond of comparing household budgets to government budgets.
Good Article :
The ABC Is Biased. Get Over It.
https://newmatilda.com/2014/07/24/abc-biased-get-over-it
( warning : there is a very vomitous pic of TA on right of screen )
William said
[And yet Bill Shorten and the entire parliamentary ALP remain silent on Tony Abbott’s scandalous insensitivity.]
I have a heuristic rule; if even Labor’s MPs are complaining about something the Libs have done then the complaints are probably unjustified and likely to be due to mindless partisanship and pathological hatred.
Whoops
should be “aren’t complaining”
Bolta is really pissed off with Hockey. His biography, which must have been authorised, says he will never trust Truffles, says he wanted a tougher Budget but Abbott wimped out and Abbott went to Rupie about his PPL before his colleagues.
Kiev have not been deterred from flying in the area.
[MH17: Ukraine fighter jets shot down close to crash site
Ukraine has accused rebels of shooting down two fighter jets on Wednesday close to where the Malaysia Airlines flight MH17 crashed, killing all 298 passengers on board.]
http://www.independent.co.uk/news/world/europe/mh17-ukraine-fighter-jets-shot-down-close-to-crash-site-9623448.html
[You can argue that it’s ‘dead money’ either way – but at least once you’ve paid thirty years of a mortgage, you have something to show for it at the end — not so with rent.]
Since in most metropolitan suburbs you can rent somewhere for less than the mortgage you’ld pay on it you have to allow for the surplus, and its investment potential.
Morning all. Regrding MH17 and the Ukrainian separatist conflict, I had an interesting chat last night with a Ukrainian friend who I only finally realised during the conversation was of ethnic Russian origin i.e. One of the minorities supporting the rebellion. He had some quite bizarre conspiracy eories that the MH17 shoot-down was set up by the Ukrainians to generate sympathy and support from the west. He referred to various internet sites he used for information. He also felt the separatist “States” like Donetsk werre legitimate and self-defense.
I found this extraordinary (and implausible) but asked about his other views. He referred to a lot of persecution of ethic Russians in an independnt Ukraine. Part of this had motivated his family to migrate to Australia. He is otherwise a very reasonable and well educated person.
To me this highlighted just how messy these ethic conflicts are. It is easy for a nationalist to use past bitterness to motivate current fighters. It also highlights just how easy it is to use the internet to wage propaganda wars. Ukraine really is/was corrupt and that caused suffering that was real. After further reading some of the discrimination againts ethic Russians by an independent Ukraine seems to have been quite real. This does not justify mass murder, but it does explain how Putincan find willing supporters in the Ukraine. They are not just Russian, they do not want to be part of the Kievan State. Those who suffered are easy to manipulate into antagonistic positions.
What does all this mean? Accurate information, widely distributed, is critical. But equally, there are no simplistic solutions to the conflict. The Russians will want a face saving solution to get out for any diplomatic solution. Over 100,000 Ukrainian civilians have fled to Russia since the fighting started. They won’t be going back to anywhere controlled by Kiev.
[Stephen Spencer
Has there been a more divisive biography this early in a govt? Madonnas King’s Hockey biography revealing huge splits]
It is good to see that Abbott finally gets it that the environment is neither an infinite and passive source of minerals nor an infinite and passive sump for our detritus. Stuff around with it badly enough and it bites back.
There is a rich tradition of rats eating battlefield bodies however insect larvae usually gets a head start on mammalian necrophagues.
71
You also have to allow for the costs of renting beyond when the end of the mortgage would be and deduct that from investment earnings. Not to mention the more favourable tax and means-test treatment of an owner occupier home compared to other investments.
K17
Very interesting history re Hockey:
His father came to Austalia from Armenia and married here.
Joseph Benedict Hockey was named after his father’s hero Joseph Benedict Chifley in gratitude for being able to settle here.
Consequently his father was a Labor voter.
Socrates
I don’t think I can begin to understand ethnic rivalries that exist all over Europe.
I recall once hearing a discussion about the Balkan conflict, and the story teller recounted how he had asked one fighter why he wanted to kill somebody who until relatively recent times he had lived in peace with.
Apparently the fighter, I don’t recall whether he was Serb or Croat or whatever, pointed across at the opposition lines and said: “those people have no right to live here. They have only been here 400 years.”
Hard to reason with logic like that.
Martin B
[Since in most metropolitan suburbs you can rent somewhere for less than the mortgage you’d pay on it you have to allow for the surplus, and its investment potential.]
True, and of course there are other expenses, such as rates (council) and water service charges, plus property maintenance and insurance, for which tenants are not liable.
On the other hand, tenants who aren’t saving for a property don’t tend in practice to save these surpluses, whereas with a house they have little alternative but to bear them. It’s a firm of forced investment. Moreover, it takes a degree of sophistication to invest in something more exotic than a bank account — which is something most people don’t have. So while in theory, these surpluses ought to be accounted for in comparative analysis, in practice the bulk of these surpluses will be spent on consumption goods.
On renting, I saw a housing expert say we should become more like Europe where people are offered long-term rents on houses so they feel they partly own it and will do a bit to improve the house.
He said houses are becoming increasingly too expensive to buy and there should be a better option than one year leases.
Today the Oz has a ‘belt the bejesus out of Joe and Peta day’. Naturally, it continues with bashing away at Clive.
Hockey is a bit of a klutz, it must be admitted. In his book he:
(1) disagrees with his own budget
(2) blames Abbott for allowing political rather than economic considerations to determine budget outcomes
(3) reckons that Abbott did not consult him in detail before committing publicly to an eight billion spend over foreward estimates.
Peter has joined stablemate Nikki in sinking the slipper into Peta big time.
Meanwhile, they are dripping copious amounts of saliva slavering over Bishop cos she is so such a fantasitic foreign minister. Let’s see who she and her Government have thoroughly pissed off in less than a year: 1.4 billion Chinese, .25 billion Indonesians and .14 billion Russian Federationists.
Sheridan has a piece in which he wets his pants drooling over what a global statesman Abbott has turned out to be after all. He reckons that this is not a fluke because Abbott had figured all this out before he became prime minister – presumably when he was having a cup of coffee with Sheridan or chatting with Murdoch.
And now Abbott wants to put Australian soldiers and the AFP in somebody else’s war zone.
I did warn you that Biggles Mk 2 is a war monger.
Socrates
There would be a deep social memory of the horrors of The Great Patriotic War and the collusion with “the fascists” in WWII by sectors of Ukraine’s population .
The Kiev government early on moving to ban Russian as an official language in Ukraine would ring alarm bells for the Russian minority. With the prominence of a number of right wing parties in Kiev , including some that hail infamous collaborators, it would be understandable that a wave of fear could be generated amongst the Russian population. The “fascists are coming !” .
[The biography ]says that Hockey as a young child told “everyone who would listen that he wanted to be prime minister one day”]
Joe Hockey’s biography has one huge takeout: he’s punch-drunk from being biffed, king-hit, swindled and dudded by Tony Abbott… so much so that he blames Turnbull for frustrating his ambition to be Prime Minister.
Abbott has been sucker-punching Poor Old Joe for so long that Joe’s started seeing tweety birds where there ain’t any.
He is completely unsuited to be Prime Minister based solely on his lifetime’s delusion that Tony Abbott is his friend.
Until he shakes that one off he should stick to acting as a human shield, absorbing punches intended for his boss over the Budget, and give up any pretensions to higher office.
Joe has been a spoiled little brat all his life. He’s never been denied anything he was prepared to throw a tanty over. Against Abbott, he’s a rank amateur.
The best thing for housing access in Australia is to have around 240,000 NOM per annum. Not.
It is environmental, social and economic insanity.
vic
[Has there been a more divisive biography this early in a govt? Madonnas King’s Hockey biography revealing huge splits]
That’s what Bolta said. He reckoned it was written like someone who was looking back on his political career after it was over, rather than someone who is just starting out in a government that is struggling. Said Hockey’s colleagues were very unimpressed.
79
Who was this housing expert?
Does he work for some company that wants to be a major player in renting people housing?
Did he mention the option of tax changes to reduce the cost of existing housing by stopping subsidising investors? Or did he, as it sounds from your reports, present comparative rises in housing prices as a fait accomplit?
A big tick to the Canberra Times subbie who came up with,
‘Lambie chases the donkey vote.’
Ross
Agreed – I did not say I agreed with my friends. But the conversation highlighted just how messy they are. The Soviets persecuted Ukrainians in the Stalin era (badly – millions died) so since independence the Ukrainians have discriminated against ethic Russians (causing a lot of hardship in a poor, corrupt country grappling with the post GFC world with little capital). So now they seize their chance to break away if Putin helps them. To them, Putin is a savior, not an ogre.
We really need to put greater emphasis into educating immigrants when they come to Australia. The old prejudices do not always die away here, witness the recent 18yr old Aussie muslim suicide bomber in Iraq. Those who fan the flames should be prosecuted for inciting racial violence.
Of course, Operation Bring Them Home only adds farce to tragedy. Have a good day all.
Dio
Does a rotten apples generate fear and loathing?
BW
I just can’t believe Hockey thought a bio criticising Abbott and Turnbull was a good idea. Unless he’s planning a tilt at the leadership and then it makes perfect sense….
Dio 79
That view on rentals is all very well if we also adopt European (or even New York) rental contract laws to protect renters. You cannot be thrown out after so many years, and many countries feature rent (price) control. They are good laws, which our property industry vigorously lobbies against us adopting. So it is their own fault people here prefer to buy when they can afford to.
rossmcg
The Balkans are a good example of it. I have heard those arguments – especially between Greeks and Macedonians. Just dont mention most of them have more than a good sprinkling of Turkish blood running through their veins. A great ouzo stopper that one.
Eleni by Nicholas Gage is a good book on the subject of Balkan hate where even people in little villages turned on each other.
So Rising houses prices and China debt with more than US+Japan combined.
A recipe for destruction by 2016 election I think.
sceptic@28
😆
Just saw your post.
[Chalk one more up for the focus groups & PR spooks.They would be using Leni Riefenstahl to direct if she were available]
Poroti 81
Yes, he mentioned some of that. I was actually talking to my friend’s son (at uni here). The language laws had a big negative impact on the educational prospects of young ethnic Russians. Great way to create a large group of angry young men with few prospects. Must be off.
US botches another execution
Joseph Rudolph Wood took almost two hours to die in Arizona execution
http://www.news.com.au/world/north-america/joseph-rudolph-wood-took-almost-two-hours-to-die-in-arizona-execution/story-fnh81jut-1226999742272
dio
Hockey is either throwing down the gauntlet for the leadership or exiting stage left from politics
Diog
Exactly right. In fact we should have them anyway to provide security for people.
All the issues that face renters are the same if its one or a million ith their rights.
We have not done this because its just assumed people will own their own home.
victoria
Hockey could be doing both. If so I think its going to be exit stage left.
He is arguing he should be leader so the LNP can be more unpopular
guytaur
Or the release of the book was simply timed to reflect a triumphant budget. Too bad it didnt turn out that way
victoria
Yes you are right. I guess the publishers like the publicity foor sales either way.
It does show why Hockey lost the leadership. Lack of political judgement.