Three new polls this week have collectively taken the shine off the Coalition’s recent recovery in the BludgerTrack poll aggregate, and returned Labor to absolute majority territory on the seat projection. Labor is recorded as gaining six seats, including two in New South Wales and one each in Victoria, Queensland, Western Australia and Tasmania. Its primary vote is little changed, but there’s an intriguing uptick for the Greens – something Essential Research contributed to, as well as the widely noted three-point lift in Newspoll – which quite possibly has something to do with major party bipartisanship on Iraq. Meanwhile, Palmer United is recorded as heading the other way, falling to a five-month low. Newspoll and Essential Research both provided leadership ratings this week, which have brought Bill Shorten nearer to parity on net approval, levelled off the positive trend to Tony Abbott, and left preferred prime minister much as it was, with Abbott narrowly in front.
[1635
Fran Barlow
You will struggle to find within my party anyone with a relatively good word about Rudd these days.]
I think Rudd’s humiliating weakness in relation to climate change impelled him to try to renew his leadership credentials. He chose the RSPT precisely because he knew it provoke a scrap with the miners, the LNP and the States. He sought a fight and he certainly got one.
It was an unutterably stupid choice because the policy made no sense whatsoever. He was prepared to bet all the authority of his office and his leadership on a fight for which no-one was prepared and in which he was almost completely alone. The RSPT was an inherently stupid policy yet he chose to make it a defining cause. He has only himself to blame for this. No-one else in Government was consulted. He included the RSPT in the budget because he thought it would advantage him inside the Government and in the electorate. It was obviously a profound misjudgment.
Given Beazley, Latham and Crean were all done over by their reactions to the various conflicts of the last 15 years, Shorten is pursuing the most prudent and politically sensible option at this point.
Abbott is very unpopular within Australia. However, if the electorate gets a whiff that Labor or Shorten are not supporting all measures to protect Australia, then the turnaround is on.
Regardless of what anybody thinks, the Government is perfectly entitled to be doing what it is doing. Labor, if they are fortunate at the next election to win will have to play the cards they are dealt. Being credible on the Defence of Australia will be a key factor in them winning.
The usual screaming harpies of the left can mount their predictable banshee wails of outrage. Doesn’t mean or change anything. Labor and the LNP probably account for 70-80% of the popular vote and they are supporting the current decisions.
Labor, Federally is about winning the next election and they are best able to do so from a non differentiated policy from the Libs on this issue.
For those who don’t like that, thank you for your preferences.
GG
An article I quoted here the other day also made the point that, with the Opposition letting the issue go to the keeper, the government has no one to argue with – and therefore no opportunity to put its case to the electorate.
Another beheading. This time a British aid worker. Not good!
I’m with Obama all the way on this. If Abbott deploys troops, Shorten is doing the right thing offering full support.
Earlier there were references to ISIS selling oil to Turkey, well to their black market anyway. From this New York Times article on the situation the Turkish government are not in a hurry to stop the illicit trade.
[WASHINGTON — The Obama administration is struggling to cut off the millions of dollars in oil revenue that has made the Islamic State in Iraq and Syria one of the wealthiest terror groups in history, but so far has been unable to persuade Turkey, the NATO ally where much of the oil is traded on the black market, to crack down on an extensive sales network.]
http://www.nytimes.com/2014/09/14/world/middleeast/struggling-to-starve-isis-of-oil-revenue-us-seeks-assistance-from-turkey.html
Zoomster
[fran
seriously, that post of yours makes the Greens sound like a cult….all that ‘we’ stuff.]
This may come as a shock, but in The Greens, we have conversations. We talk to each other at branch meetings and SDCs and by email and Facebook and twitter. Often we turn up at events and talk to each other there.
After a while, members get to know what other members are likely to say about this or that issue, and get a sense of where we differ, and how many of us do, and for what reason. As my text suggested, I differed with fellow Greens on Rudd amongst other things. I also disagree with most Greens on nuclear power, as you know.
None of this sounds cultish to me.
Abbott at an Aboriginal Community.
I look forward to reading his allowance claims for this time in an aboriginal community…
Bloomberg Business website give detailed summary of how Iraqi Oil from IS is imprted into eastern Turkey where petrol sells at nearly $3 US a litre…and smuggled fuel sells for less and is much sought after there
A Turkish MP is quoted in the article who gives chapter and verse….not much doubt about that I think..and the 40 Turkish hostages held by IS are of great value to IS,who captured the Turkish Consulate in Mosul some months ago
http://www.businessweek.com/articles/2014-09-11/islamic-state-smuggles-oil-into-turkey-with-hostages-as-insurance
@GG/1652
The other problem I have is that it is under National Security, which is also mass surveillance – which includes data retention, so if Coalition Party and Labor Party has agreed to put mass surveillance (also with data retention) into law, there goes your privacy.
http://www.heraldsun.com.au/news/law-order/metadata-and-terrorist-threats-australian-crime-commission-boss-backs-push-for-more-powers-to-help-identify-and-catch-criminals/story-fni0fee2-1227050830407
zoidy,
The paranoia of the left writ large.
Imagine if they had stronger surveillance laws and still didn’t bother to surveil you. You’d be heartbroken, I’m sure.
deblonay@1658
Hi deblonay, read my post at 1542 where I expose GG / ESJ as being one and the same.
No denials have been forthcoming. 😛
briefly@1651
I don’t reject that analysis at all. I’ve made a version of it myself several times, including, very probably, here. I thought and still think it was utterly shameless posturing, and doubtless, that’s what a great many who would otherwise have been sympathetic also thought.
The trouble is that once he’d advanced it, the issue escaped the virtues or flaws of the policy and became one about whose call this was. Unless you were siding with Big Dirt you had to swallow hard and back the regime. At least, that’s how I saw it.
Sadly deblonay you don’t understand the detail in that article do you ?
No, fran, no shock at all, considering that I have been to two ALP events in the last couple of days where there was vehement disagreement on a number of issues.
It’s just I’d never presume to speak as if I was the whole of the ALP membership, and that’s what seems weird.
I’m also not sure about the repeated meme that the Greens were miffed because their leader wasn’t consulted and therefore no one could expect them to engage after that. Sounds a bit of a petulant and childish approach to public policy.
Re Iraq…_________
While there is probably public support for humanitarian aid ,there is no indication that the commitment to Iraq is any more popular than it was a decade ago,when hundreds of thousands of us marched in the biggest demonstation seen since Vietnam…when Labor’s opposition to war was unmistaken and popular
There is no justification for this action,
Sad to see Shorten a prisoner of the Libs…weak and all that he the Labor Right are… It’s what we should expect
@GG/1660
Bemused, GG, Player One have all attacked me for stupid stuff, but your lefty attacks are pretty pathetic?
The fact that you went straight for personal attacks, just like the others, makes you worse than some of the other posters.
Quite clever deduction
__________________Bemused 1661
As good as anything by Hercule Poirot ,,,Bemused
Another sherry perhaps deblonay ?
[Personally, if Australian involvement is limited to what we have committed to, I support the commitment. The decision has bi-partisan support from people who have much better information than anyone here. The decision resulted from a direct request from the US. Something needs to be done to slow IS down.]
Arming the Kurds makes sense.
Supporting soc-called ‘moderate’ Syrian groups that are *currently allied* to ISIS doesnt make any sense,if the goal is slow ISIS down.
So now we’re back to undermining Assad. This is where the West was last year, effectively to support ISIS and other Sunni jihadist groups in Syria in their goals.
It sounds to me like the US is protecting the Saudis again – the ones who sponosr most of all this.
Abbott’s on the road(albeit long and hard) to Victory ,using “security”and war as his tools
Menzies was,like Howard a great practioner of these black arts… it comes as second nature to the Libs to use these tactics…in those days it was”communism”etc. ..with the help of Santamaria and the DLP ..a real winner
zoomster@1664
Perhaps the Greens have become like the Borg in Startrek where individuals don’t exist, just the collective? 😉
‘We will assimilate you’ 👿
William what is gained by a poster suggesting that another poster is drunk….and is this in any sense ethical see post 1668
deblonay@1667
And still no denial.
I note ESJs frequent references to alcoholic beverages and recall GGs reputation for drunkenness. It all fits. 😛
Deblonay
Shorten is no prisoner of the Libs. How ridiculous to claim so!
Shorten is doing the right and wise thing in offering Abbott full support.
Bill Shorten is a member of the Labor Party, he is not a Greenie – get over it!
Speaking of the Greens – The Bulldogs 28 defeat the Mexican Storm 4 (where you read it first) – and they want to get rid of betting – in their dreams 😆
deblonay@1672
Don’t worry about it deblonay, I would happily share a drink with you. Much better company than GG / ESJ even though you are a Green.
We must fo that sometime Bemused
What is gained by your inane anti-Semitic posts deblonay but your still bellowing away regardless despite boring everyone with your conspiracy theories.
I think We must so that sometime Bemused
davidwh –
I’m not seeing the benefits of “slowing IS down”.
Both IS and the political opportunists in the West seem keen to hype up the ‘superpower’ feats of IS.
IS is not a vastly superior new threat. They’ve had opportunities created by the chaos in the ME and they’ve taken advantage of them.
They’ve been quite adept at their own propaganda, but what is the conceivable point of the propaganda they have produced other than to prompt the exact Western reaction we see now.
IS need the chaos to continue. They need to have a ’cause’ to rally fighters and money to their side.
If they stop and have to actually be a governing force they will find that it’s quite hard to do with simplistic slogans and guys in black masks with guns.
IS exists because there is a vacuum of power. More weapons and more fighting simply extend that vacuum and make it more dangerous.
The West is currently playing into IS’s hands by reacting. We should not do that.
If someone could explain what positives we achieve by throwing more gunpowder on the ME flames I’d love to hear it.
I’ve got Big Brother on in the background. What if PB was a Big Brother?
Forget who’d win the thing, who’d get kicked out first 😆
Paul Mc Geough in Fairfax speaks of”fools rush in “… re Iraq
http://www.theage.com.au/world/fools-rush-in-tony-abbott-joins-a-war-without-definition-20140914-10gtib
Oh dear deblonay is mis-typing now, early session with the sauce bottle eh?
Jackol
[If someone could explain what positives we achieve by throwing more gunpowder on the ME flames I’d love to hear it.]
For me it’s the possibility of avoiding a genocide, although I accept that a genocide may not happen and the intervention may not stop it.
Good dog, if Shorten did the Green thing and opposed sending troops to Iraq, the next Newspoll would read 58/42 to the Monkey.
Keep away, they’re bad news!
[1662
Fran Barlow
…. Unless you were siding with Big Dirt you had to swallow hard and back the regime. At least, that’s how I saw it.]
You were far from alone in that, Fran, and the echoes are still being heard. But at another level, it was a spectacular example of self-wedging politics. Rudd cut himself and Labor off at the knees, especially in WA, where Labor has yet to successfully re-connect with voters repelled by Rudd’s quite determined refusal to listen. I hasten to add the issue here was not about resource taxation per se. It was about that particular tax. It’s going to take a while yet before Labor can put all that in the past.
Diog – as I’ve said elsewhere, providing humanitarian aid and getting people out who want to get out makes sense to me.
Providing guns to random folks and bombing the shit out of who knows where killing who knows who… not so much.
Edwina StJohn@1682
What drugs are you on tonight ESJ / GG?
Centre@1684
BS Centre.
Bemused
OK, 61/39 to the Monkey.
Zoomster
[It’s just I’d never presume to speak as if I was the whole of the ALP membership, and that’s what seems weird.]
i wouldn’t either. Clearly, I come from NSW and there are branches in each of the other states and territories and even within NSW I don’t get to meet everyone. Yet one does get a sense of the consensus because in a party as small as ours, if someone does put a contrary view, everyone notices. We do consensus decision-making so the first pass tests if anyone wants to block the consensus. If they do we get a debate with the minority. ]
[I’m also not sure about the repeated meme that the Greens were miffed because their leader wasn’t consulted and therefore no one could expect them to engage after that. Sounds a bit of a petulant and childish approach to public policy.]
When you’re not consulted you have to guess what the other side are up to and it breeds speculation. That tends not to be very productive and so the temptation is to save time, assume the worst and run your own race expecting the other side to try and mess you up. That’s not petulant. It’s pragmatic.
E SinJin/GG
Can’t you ever come up with an “original” comment? Your continual snide remarks about Deblonay indicate the pathetic thought patterns that influence your lack of character.
Deb is way ahead of you in every respect. Comparatively your comments border on the moronic. Just crawl back into your smelly little hole! The tone of PB will then be greatly enhanced.
Centre@1689
In your dreams.
Labor won the debate over the Vietnam War by being principled.
bemused@1692
I should add, Labor should take a strong stance about those f*ckwits heading off to fight with ISIS and also any other threats to internal security and the safety of Australian citizens.
Yawn ausdavo.
Mmmmm……so for a couple of months now PBer’s smashed Rabbott for chasing a war to improve his electoral standing. A shameless warmonger!
Now it’s Shorten must support Rabbott cos he may suffer some electoral backlash. 😯
As for being privy to all the information, intelligence…one only has to reflect on the intel given on WMD.
I agree with Dio at 1683. I just think if there is any chance we can slow down IS to give the Kurds and Iraquis some chance to overcome them then we have a moral obligation to try. After all we were part of the coalition which opened this Pandora’s Box back in 2003.
Interesting stuff:
@ClimateGroup: Young entrepreneur wins €500,000 in @PLGreenchalleng for #Biobean, that turns coffee into fuel http://t.co/gqJXtgE3Io http://t.co/nl5TCcqnrP
davidwh@1696
The Iraqi army vastly outnumbered ISIS but just ran away.
Help the Kurds maybe, provide humanitarian relief, and stay well clear of the rest.
Bemused
I wouldn’t have a clue about the Vietnam war.
Labor were principled in opposing Bush/Howards’ Iraq war and are being principled here again by supporting Obama/Abbott – and the voters know it!
Deb @1670,
I can remember in the Menzies era reference to the “domino theory” and the Packer Press having pictures of South East Asia with each of the dominoes falling over as the Commies came down.
Interestingly, Communist preferences (along with the DLP) got Jim Killen over the line in the 1961 election (seat of Moreton). This prevented Calwell from becoming PM.