The only federal poll for the week is the regular fortnightly rolling average from Essential Research, and it’s none too eventful: two-party preferred is steady at 51-49 after successive one-point shifts to the Coalition over the previous two weeks, from primary votes of 41% for the Coalition (steady), 39% for Labor (up one), 9% for the Greens (steady) and 4% for Palmer United (down one to its lowest level since April). Further questions:
• Joe Hockey’s net approval rating has plunged since the question was last posed in November, now at 35% approval (down 10%) and 44% disapproval (up 16%). He is nonetheless given a higher rating on trust to handle the economy in comparison with Chris Bowen, at 34% to 23%.
• The government’s plan to require 40 job applications a month from the unemployed has 44% approval and 48% disapproval, which is a poor result as these things go. As if to illustrate that point, 68% are in favour of the unemployed doing up to 25 hours community service a week, with 25% opposed.
• Most respondents would prefer that Federal Police sent to the MH17 crash site be armed, with 64-25 in favour. An unarmed option draws a slightly lower net approval of 51-38.
• Relationships with other countries are deemed to be equally excellent in the case of the United States, New Zealand and the United Kingdom, less good but still strong for Japan, China and India, mediocre with Indonesia, and very poor indeed with Russia.
After a fallow period, I’m resuming my practice of appending these posts with preselection news. The first glimmers of movement have appeared for a federal election still two years away:
• Brad Norington of The Australian reports talk of Barry O’Farrell succeeding Philip Ruddock in his blue-ribbon northern Sydney of Berowra. In a recent interview with the Seven Network, O’Farrell responded to a question about federal political aspirations by saying it was “an option”.
• A nominee for the fraught Liberal state preselection for the Sydney seat of Riverstone, Yvonne Keane, is said by Sean Nicholls of the Sydney Morning Herald to be motivated by a desire to “gain some exposure before a possible tilt at Greenway at the 2016 election”. Greenway has twice stayed in Labor hands at the past two elections thanks in large part to the disastrous candidacy of Jaymes Diaz, whose family dynasty is a principal player in the Riverstone preselection.
Finally, a couple of links worth noting:
• The latest venture of the Poll Bludger’s benefactors at Private Media, The Mandarin, has two items of interest to election watchers – a report on the Australian Electoral Commission’s lack of enthusiasm for a substantial move to electronic voting, and one on the rights of public servants who stand for election.
• Shout out to two very good psephology blogs that took a long time to come to my notice. One is Phantom Trend by Jamie Hall, who “designed quant models for the RBA” and brings to the polling aggregation game superior statistical chops to my own. The other is Infographinomicon by “PsephologyKid”, who is presently on hiatus but has done some fine work on everything from the Tasmanian Legislative Council to the Eurovision song contest.
[@bencubby: A useful explainer: what is metadata, and why is it important? http://t.co/4uCn42rbjT #auspol
[ “@CatalaxyComment: Catallaxy no longer supports this government.
We’ll play our small part in destroying it from now on.” ]
Welcome aboard, comrades.
😀
Christ! Who put that link up to Brandis talking to Speers?
They should be banned.
Brandis talking is bad enough. But Brandis with a bit of rubbery mucus r’daaanging between his top lip and his bottom lip is far too much.
(We had a brother who had that affliction. You couldn’t stop staring at his lip, praying the gob would finally come unstuck and put you out of your misery. The Brother probably thought we were trying to read his lips).
Throw in Speers on top of that and you have the perfect ingredients for a chuck-bucket.
Poroti
Corruption is so omnipresent in NSW maybe it will be safer for me to stay home and watch reruns of Wallaby triumphs over the All Blacks. That will take up at least a hour.
If you have never taken Catallaxy seriously before, you should not start now.
For ShelLbell
Looks like our little mate Joe Tripodi will be going up the river.
Though the penalty for secretly funding the ‘Stop Jodie’s Trucks’ pamphlets may not be overly harsh.
Balfour & Palestine by Sir Anthony Nutting in 1975!!!
(Sir Harold Anthony Nutting (1920-1999) was a British diplomat and Conservative Party politician.)
http://www.balfourproject.org/balfour-and-palestine/
“Too much has happened since the Balfour Declaration was issued and too many Jewish roots have been put down in the soil of Palestine to put back the clock to 1917. Any solution, to be viable and acceptable, must take account of modern facts as well as ancient claims. But whatever the ultimate terms of settlement might be, the archives which Mrs Ingrams has unearthed demonstrate beyond any doubt that our present and future Governments, as successors of Balfour and his colleagues, have an inescapable obligation to help in resolving the problem and removing the injustice which their predecessors cynically and deliberately visited on the Arabs of Palestine.”
[ shellbell
Posted Wednesday, August 6, 2014 at 6:09 pm | Permalink
ICAC to concentrate on who knew about the dodgy Liberal funding
Save time to ask who did not ]
Loughnane appears to be the biggest scalp in the sights atm.
Surely he will have to stand aside – if he knew and agreed as alleged. Then did abbott’s chief of staff know.
Did abbott know ?
[Did abbott know ?]
Did Credlin know?
Joe Tripodi certainly seems to be the guy to go to if you have something unscrupulous in mind.
[mark forbes @forbes007 8m
Investigative expose in @theage tomorrow will be very embarrassing for Scott Morrison, a massive leak!]
Shellbell , not at club Marconi . They can spot ’em a mile off!
{Brandis talking is bad enough. But Brandis with a bit of rubbery mucus r’daaanging between his top lip and his bottom lip is far too much.]
sure its mucus?
Maybe it was feeding time in the scum suck
shellbell
You’d need a Betamax player for that wouldn’t you ? 🙂 Better bet would be watching every Super Rugby championship the Warratahs have
onewon.Property developers donating to the Federal Libs is Kosher, the bit icac needs to prove was the intent for the money to be washed back to NSW.
Seems like ICAC have some high profile people with the answers in their pocket.
Having dutifully read a whole lot of comments and tweets about ‘metadata’, I know no more than I did this morning, except that one IP provider says it’s going to cost them $m p.a.
It will be interesting to see if any decent independents will run in the central coast/Newcastle state seats next year.
Must be one or two in the frame for independents when the libs get swept out of those seats.
ICAC – Liberal own goal.
[ ruawake
Posted Wednesday, August 6, 2014 at 6:27 pm | Permalink
Property developers donating to the Federal Libs is Kosher, the bit icac needs to prove was the intent for the money to be washed back to NSW. ]
Yes.
It appears to turn on this –
[ Federal Liberal Party director Brian Loughnane has been drawn into a corruption scandal embroiling the party after an inquiry heard allegations he rubberstamped the use of federal channels to subvert the NSW ban on donations from property developers.
An email shown at the inquiry suggests Mr Loughnane agreed for donations from property developers – which were banned in NSW in 2009 – to be made to the federal party to subvert the laws. ]
http://www.smh.com.au/nsw/icac-hears-that-liberal-party-boss-brian-loughnane-knew-of-developer-donations-going-through-federal-channels-20140806-100vlc.html#ixzz39aevnZBl
Puff@661
One of the nicest posts I’ve read all day. 🙂
Vale Crikey Whitey
Looks like Geoffrey Watson has been flipping Libs and their crew like a cook at a Pancake Kitchen!
sceptic @ 693
The Gaza situation is not complicated at all. Israel and every single Jew left Gaza in 2005 and with a terrorist group coming to power they then chose suicide bombings at first and then weaponising for war/resistance/terrorism/hate etc over peace and prosperity which was there for the taking with aid and infrastructure in place and fairly open borders and sea-port. Tens of thousands of Arabs from Gaza worked in Israel until Hamas started attacking them as well as they passed through the crossings. I’m sure that the Arabs of Gaza will be given another chance, and another chance, and another chance. That’s just how it is. Let’s hope they’ll eventually take it. The West Bank is more complicated.
BTW The word “Palestinian” for an Arab from the area was only invented in the 1960s to reframe the dispute as one between the big-bad Arab world and little Israel, which it still is essentially, to big-bad Israel against a subset of Arabs who call themselves palestinians even though they mainly originate in 19th & 20th century from surrounding Arab countries and areas. That reframing/renaming has been their greatest PR success and they are far less deserving or in need of their own state than the Kurds, the Druze, the Aborigines, the Maoris and so on, given that there are already 22 Arab states and only one Jewish State. The 1947 partition was between a Jewish State and (another) ARAB state. After 1917 Jordan was already partitioned off from the mandate area and given to the Arabs and today most Jordanians identify as Palestinians. So how many states do you want to give the Arabs and have you checked the map on the size of Israel?
However back to the present. There is no big difference between the ultimate aims of Hamas, Islamic Jihad, ISIS, Nusra, Hizbullah, Al Qaeda, Boko Harem and every other Islamic terror group who all are basically offshoots of the Muslim Brotherhood. Israel “gets it” even if others don’t.
mikehilliard
Puff and Danny were great company at crikey whitey’s mini-wake today.
Lets look at #719 a different way.
How would such an allegation be treated if it was the Labor Party Federal Director whose wife was CoS to a Labor PM.
Indeed.
I was curious as to how the ABC would report the ICAC suggestion of corruption possibly linking Loughnane-> Credlin -> Abbott whatever.
Particularly in the light of the ABC’s complicity in the witch hunt against Gillard echoing Murdoch hyped allegations going back decades based on ….nothing.
Surely a current version, albeit involving the ‘other party’, would be regarded as news?
Nup.
The SA 5pm ABC 24 news report did not mention it at all.
Strange.
Lizzie
[mark forbes @forbes007 8m
Investigative expose in @theage tomorrow will be very embarrassing for Scott Morrison, a massive leak!]
Can’t wait! Couldn’t happen to a better bloke.
AussieAchmed
An own …… https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=UioCvLN-370
If anyone should feel inadequate after not understanding WTF Brandi was on about with Speers they can stop feeling that way. You are in very good company. Stan Grant interviewed some “expert” in the area who pretty bluntly said he had no more idea after listening to Brandi’s explanation than he did beforehand.
Brandis DH Brain Explodes on SKY.
http://www.skynews.com.au/video/program_agenda/2014/08/06/agenda-security-laws-may-collect-metadata.html
Nup.
The SA 5pm ABC 24 news report did not mention it at all.
The ABC has been bullied into submission with threats of privatization and massive funding cuts
Genuine question!
Why is Australia contracting and paying a company/search team to find the missing plane? Surely, this is now Malaysia’s responsibility????
[“I remain cautiously optimistic that we will locate the missing aircraft within the priority search area,” Truss said. The search, which may cost as much as A$80 million ($73 million), will be “a challenging one,” he said.]
[mark forbes @forbes007 8m
Investigative expose in @theage tomorrow will be very embarrassing for Scott Morrison, a massive leak!]
The orange lifeboats have holes below the waterline?
Brandis DH Brain Explodes on SKY.
Reminded me of John Hewson and his GST explanation…????
Yes, listening to Richard Glover discussing and later interviewing Mike Carlton was pathetic. Even the light entertainment hosts are running scared of anything remotely controversial on your ABC.
How dare Carlton speak the truth!
Brandis states the Govt has had the advice “Your agenda is too cluttered you are fighting on too many fronts”.
So why open another two fronts today you dingbats?
Dee
Posted Wednesday, August 6, 2014 at 6:47 pm | Permalink
Genuine question!
Why is Australia contracting and paying a company/search team to find the missing plane? Surely, this is now Malaysia’s responsibility????
=====================================
Why is Truss now taking the lead instead of Abbott?
Retweeted by Van Badham
Nancy Cato @nancycato1 45m
You’ve a Right To be a Bigot As Georgie B Did mention Just don’t expect Him to explain MetaData (Cough!) Retention #skynews
I doubt Abbott will be announcing that the AFP will be withdrawn from the Ukraine this week.
[@dobes: Top car crash TV featuring anAttorney-General trying to define something he is meant to write laws on. http://t.co/xVoRYqK14U ]
OMG! Worst. AG. Ever!
Does Brandis not understand the simple act of viewing web content?
Funny how, when you antagonise the public service, suddenly damaging leaks start happening…
[ruawake
Posted Wednesday, August 6, 2014 at 6:50 pm | PERMALINK
Brandis states the Govt has had the advice “Your agenda is too cluttered you are fighting on too many fronts”.]
While they are fighting on so many fronts, they have neglected to realise their rears are under active attack from all and sundry.
Or how the media would treat a Labor PM whose child accepted a $60,000 gift from an institution which shortly afterwards stood to benefit greatly from a change in Government policy. There seem to be different sets of rules applying.
“@AlexGreenwich: All sides of #nswpol agreeing on need of market mechanism to combat climate change”
Mick77
The Palestine is referred to in the Balfour declaration of 1917, the term as a larger geographical region goes back to the the 5th Century BC.
So where do you get your 1960’s PR bit from.
The partition was a carve up between the French & British Colonial powers… without any consideration of the original native inhabitance…. just like always.
It is irrelevant how big the state of Israel is, the unjust it stands for is what counts.
There will be no peace until there is justice for ALL.
From the Balfour Declaration 1917…
“it being clearly understood that nothing shall be done which may prejudice the civil and religious rights of existing non-Jewish communities in Palestine”
Never honoured…. & always implemented unjustly.
Adrian , Glover was very soft , Mike was Mike
You kidding me?
Retweeted by Richard Chirgwin
Adrian Dodd @Adrian_Dodd 23m
BRANDIS CONCEDES TO HAVING TO GOOGLE “WHAT IS WEBSITE”
Poor old George really struggled with that David Speers Show interview.
Very cringeworthy.
ABC 7pm news reports ICAC looking at top Federal Liberals on Sydney bulletin
guytaur #743
So, what’s stopping them from implementing a state base ETS ?
How bad was Brandis ? This bad. PvO reckons the only person in the government who should be allowed to speak about metadata is Malcolm.