The latest fortnightly Newspoll has Labor leading 51-49, which is down a point on last time and equal with the time before (and also the same as the ReachTEL poll conducted on Thursday). Primary votes are 41% for the Coalition (up two), 34% for Labor (down one) and 11% for the Greens (down three on last time, back to where they were the time before). Tony Abbott has enjoyed a big hike in his personal ratings, up six on approval to 41% and down two on disapproval to 52%, and he has gained a 41-37 lead on preferred prime minister after being level at 37-37 last time. Bill Shorten is up one on approval to 38% and steady on disapproval 43%. Hat-tip to GhostWhoVotes, and of course The Australian.
Also out today was the regularly fortnightly Morgan poll, covering a sample of 2922 respondents from two weekends of face-to-face and SMS polling. This recorded next to no change for the major parties on the primary vote – the Coalition on 38.5% and Labor on 37.5%, both up half a point on last fortnight – but has the minor parties moving in accordance with recent trends, the Greens being up 1.5% to 12% and Palmer United being down half a point to 4%. The previous poll was the only one recently published which failed to record a lift for the Greens, no doubt because half the survey period predated the bipartisan commitment to send military forces to Iraq. Labor gains half a point on both the respondent-allocated and previous election measures of two-party preferred, respectively leading 54.5-45.5 and 53.5-46.5.
UPDATE (Essential Research): Essential Research is steady at 53-47 to Labor, with Labor up a point on the primary vote to 39%, the Coalition steady on 39%, the Greens down one to 10% and Palmer United steady on 4%. Also featured is a biannual gauge of attributes of the various parties, recording little change for Labor since March apart from a six point drop on “clear about what they stand for”, while the Liberal Party has weakened across the board, particularly with respect to “keeps its promises” (down nine points), “divided” (up eight points) and “looks after the interests of working people” (down six points). The poll adds further to a somewhat confusing picture on the public attitudes to the Iraq commitment, with 52% expressing approval for sending military personnel versus 34% disapproval. However, 51% say doing so will make Australia less safe from terrorism, versus only 15% for more safe. Questions on industrial relations laws indicate broad satisfaction with the status quo, 30% saying current laws balance the interests of employers and workers, and a fairly even 23% and 17% believing they favour employers and workers respectively.
[988
William Bowe
Here’s another of those SMS polls Roy Morgan has taken a shine to of late: Australian participation in US airstrikes in Syria favoured by 58.5-41.5.]
A fairly high 41.5% opposed…not a great surprise given the very long, inconclusive and unsatisfactory outcomes of past deployments in Iraq.
I suspect that if you asked people if they support “humanitarian” acts, you’d get a very high level of support; if you asked people if they support destroying “terrorists”, likewise you’d also get strong support.
People must see the deployment as being about more than these things. That’s the point. No-one really knows what the Australian role will be, nor for how long it will last or what it might be expected to achieve. It’s going to be hard to sustain high support for something that is visibly destructive, strategically ambiguous and possibly also self-defeating in a political and home-security sense.
confessions@998. It’s a big step up from his past public statements. I’m sure many in the ALP will see it the same way.
meher baba@999
I didn’t see much that was new apart from a bit of literature classification.
confessions@998
As has yours.
Re Diogenes @966: Kevin Rudd is doing his legacy no good with the types of statements he is quoted as making. Especially giving the ‘carbon tax lie’ meme a boost – poor show.
meher:
I’d reckon many in the party would already be well aware of the kind of person he is.
To me his outburst just smacks of sour grapes. His legacy will be one of vindictiveness and vengeful whiteanting of his own party in govt, and perhaps that penny is now finally dropping for him.
I heard the dimwit Brandis in the Senate today giving his condolences to the police & their families, but not the family of the poor boy shot.
Typical politicising Liberal twat, the family came to Australia as refuges from Afghanistan looking to escape the troubles there.
It appears they attempted to help their son & steer him away from trouble, they deserve sympathy.
sceptic@1007
Absolutely!
The family are completely innocent victims who will probably suffer much more than the police involved. Not that I wish to understate the suffering of the police. But the police will recover, at least physically, and be able to get on with their lives.
dtt@1000: I can’t see that anything JG has had to say about Rudd comes close to what I would describe as a “dump”. Can you find me a quote from her about him that comes within a bull’s roar of the vitriol of his statement tonight?
I’m no great fan of JG, but I think she gave a very dignified performance last night. I haven’t seen her book, so perhaps you can find me a quote?
Kevin Rudd’s comment is the most petulant thing I have ever seen by anyone who has ever held the office of Prime Minister. The responses of DTT and Bemused demonstrate once again how profoundly off the planet they are.
William Bowe@1010
Good on you William. Keep it up. 😆
Thanks William. I’m glad someone is as shocked as I am. I felt like I must be mad.
[Gillard has done a Latham]
I mean … Jesus Christ.
William,
As always, you take the compromise stance.
Gold photo of Shorten being in contact with the workers and Tony……..
https://twitter.com/torin/status/459665513140867072/photo/1
[ David Speers @David_Speers · 4h
Libertarian Sen Leyonhelm arguing to keep silly Senate photography restrictions in place!]
Like pro-lifers who advocate for a return of the death penalty!
@GG/1015
That Abbott Stare seems to be the normal in the Coalition Party.
“Gillard has done a Latham and it does her no credit” bull bloody shit
William
Yes
Jesus bloody Christ.
Gillard was an ambitious lady. Good luck to her, but trying to pretend she was poor little Miss innocent is as silly as Sarah Palin pretending to have a brain.
The public KNOWS she was plotting against Rudd (she wrote her speech two weeks before for BLOODY GOD’S SAKE.
The public also KNOW she offered Rudd three months to turn the polls around and then 10 minutes later reneged on the deal.
Gillard would have been well advised to express remorse and sorrow for her actions on Beazley and stay stum on Rudd, except to say it was an unfortunate period or some such soft soap words.
I’ll give you the benefit of the doubt and conclude that you haven’t read, or even heard all that much about, The Latham Diaries. Although “if someone had dumped on me just as JG has just done, I think I would not have been so restrained as Rudd was” is not something an intelligent person would say.
I’m sure this has already been discussed, but good on the govt for bringing a regional solution to asylum seekers closer by signing on with Cambodia.
However, typical of this govt we have to rely on the international media to inform us of our govt’s actions when it comes to immigration matters.
[The Abbott government only confirmed a deal had been reached after the Cambodian government announced Mr Morrison’s impending visit.]
Morrison has been quite happy to comment at length on defence matters recently, but unwilling to speak about his own portfolio.
William
I suggest you do not confuse intelligence with not sharing your Gillard luuuurvve!
I should not have made that crack about your intelligence, and I withdraw it. I happen to think Gillard was not terribly good at being Prime Minister, although in very different ways from Rudd.
Indian space craft encirlement of Msrs which cost less than $80 dollars would be great news to the 500 million in India who still live below the dire poverty line,,if they only had a redio or tv to see about it
YIKES!
….still with the Gillard Rudd wars
She backstabbed Kim, then Kevin (perhaps she is “K”ist?)
He is a narcissistic twat with delusions of popularity
They both have relevance deprivation syndrome
Cant we move on?
:devil:
Keyman@1018
😆
Goodness… who dragged the cult out of the crypt and reanimated it?
They have a lot to answer for. 👿
1013
Do you mean Jesus Christ has done a Latham or Gillard has done a Jesus Christ? You clarification does not specify.
If these incidents are indeed indicative of an amped up targeting of muslims here then we need to take a good long look at ourselves.
[A church and a Catholic school have also been targeted in “hate crimes”, Mariam Veiszadeh from the Islamophobia Register told reporters in Sydney.
“A number of women, particularly in hijab, and children have been verbally abused and threatened,” she said on Wednesday.
“A man in Perth tried to rip the scarf off a woman’s head.”
Threats have been made against at least four mosques across Australia and cars have been spray painted with threats, Ms Veiszadeh said.]
And nuff nuff govt MPs in parliament banging on about an episode of Qanda somehow morphing into a propaganda recruiting agent for terrorists (or whatever they were on about) is only fanning the flames of this crap.
Speaking as someone who admired neither Rudd nor Gillard, I’d say ‘petulant’ is indeed the correct adjective for Rudd’s response. If I had any lingering respect for him, he’d have lost it all.
Really he should have gone with ‘look, I’ve said all I need to say on these matters. I’ve moved on and am prepared to leave it to those still interested to work it out for themselves’.
It wouldn’t have been true, but it would have given his admirers something to work with.
Fran
[ It wouldn’t have been true, but it would have given his admirers something to work with. ]
The only admirers Rudd has left seem to be here on PB – and they apparently don’t need anything to work with other than their own fevered imaginations.
Fran,
Rudd’s just promoting his coming book.
Duelling publications and raging interpretations
It’s all about the book sales and I expect Rudd and Gillard will now be caught up in a never ending joust of he said, she said. Hopefully, this will become less relevant to current politics as every minute expires.
However, I agree with William about the immaturity of Rudd’s response. No doubt he has taken personal command of the publicity.
On the Slipper sentencing, he could’ve been sentenced to jail over $954 – I’m sure many fine defaulters who find themselves in jail get there over way less.
But in any case, given what we saw late last year and early this year with coalition MPs who had wrongly claimed travel allowances being allowed to repay the falsely claimed amounts, why was this option not afforded to Slipper?
Think of how much taxpayers would’ve been saved in terms of the entire process surrounding his Cabcharges. Such a waste of time and money.
[“A man in Perth tried to rip the scarf off a woman’s head.”]
As I wrote this morning, imagine if wearing Muslim head gear was officially illegal. There would be many “citizens arrests” like this.
Bushfire Bill@1033
That would constitute assault and should be dealt with as such.
1032
I think repayment and a small penalty, such as an on the spot fine or small civil penalty, would be the proper course of action in parliamentary entitlement misuse cases.
William wrote:
[I happen to think Gillard was not terribly good at being Prime Minister, although in very different ways from Rudd.]
You have to separate the Gillard we had – embattled, mocked vilified, white-anted – with the Gillard that might have been if just one or two more seats had gone Labor’s way.
Sure, there have been plenty of hung or delicately balanced parliaments in Australia’s past (in the states at least, and close to during the early part of WW-2), but what made Gillard’s parliament stand out was the hatred and vilification she had to endure, which (I would argue) she did with uncommon grace and dignity.
It’s very easy to make mistakes when you’re under an extremely antagonistic microscope.
[That would constitute assault and should be dealt with as such.]
As always, Bemused, you don’t get it. It’s not what people are charged with after the fact (IF they are charged) its the people on the ground who are perhaps scarred for life by the experience.
BB:
Yeesh, can see it now. The pinnacle of every blokesville, assclown dick move on a muslim woman wearing her head gear. Finagled on by hate radio and the tabloids, all in the interests of national security of course.
Re the Slipper affair: it’s a concern that our legal system can be used in this way to persecute someone for, in this case, political purposes. Sanctions for misuse of parliamentary cabcharges should have been left to the Parliament. Were it to reach the court system, surely it should have been dealt with in a couple of hours.
[Bushfire Bill
….. but what made Gillard’s parliament stand out was the hatred and vilification she had to endure, which (I would argue) she did with uncommon grace and dignity.]
I am just glad that the Lying Rodent and Budgie Smuggler never had to endure any hatred and vilification.
[I am just glad that the Lying Rodent and Budgie Smuggler never had to endure any hatred and vilification.]
They paid the ABC to be their friends. That counts.
Tom the first and best@1035
I don’t care what he got so long as the same treatment was applied to his peers.
Steve777:
I can’t remember the details now, but have a vague recollection that the Slipper Cabcharge stuff was referred pretty quickly to the AFP.
In my view, esp for matters relating to travel entitlements, and where those amounts are in the hundreds rather than the thousands of dollars, that the person should be first offered the option to repay. My guess is that most wrongful claims would be either an attempted overreach or a genuine oversight. Either way, for the amounts Slipper breached, this length of court time and investigation is clear WTF territory IMO.
Bushfire Bill@1037
And as usual you start bloviating.
It has happened so it can’t be wished away. So how is the offender to be treated?
The best way is as the common criminal he is. Don’t accord him any special status. Don’t give him any special attention or publicity.
1042
There is a rather concerning discrepancy in the treatment. I causes questions about political bias in the system.
Everything
[I am just glad that the Lying Rodent and Budgie Smuggler never had to endure any hatred and vilification.]
Yes…. But there is a thing called ‘magnitude’…
[I am just glad that the Lying Rodent and Budgie Smuggler never had to endure any hatred and vilification.]
You’re right about the pair of them not having to endure it. Both of them just meted it out however.
Re Bushfire Bill @1036: I fully agree. No PM in my memory ( goes back to the late Menzies era) has had to put up with the crap the Ms Gillard had to endure, from a feral opposition, a large section of the media actively campaigning against her, and on top of all this whiteanting from her own side.
The media bias shifted a critical couple of percent. It continued for 3 years, including outright fabrications like this: http://www.dailytelegraph.com.au/pm-julia-gillard-slapped-down-at-g20-summit-by-the-president-of-the-european-commission-jose-manuel-barrosa/story-e6freuy9-1226400667769
The whole Slipper episode only shows that he has to pay the money (which was about $900) back (which he offered to do at the time).
He’s been ordered to do 300 hours of community work which is one day a week for 9 months. You might also argue that being a politician might hasve served as community service.
So, the penalty is a crock.
I reckon pay them all a fixed amount and get rid of the accountability.
It’s a waste of time and money trying to keep them honest.
Rudd is still trying to blame others for his own failings. Luckily no-one cares any more.