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.
CTar1
Good on you!
William Bowe,
I am interested to hear your opinion on Essentils obvious move towards Morgans 2PP polling results and away from Reachtel. Galaxy and Newspoll 2PP results.
Thank you
Thanks so much poroti! Really appreciate it!
Paul, Morgan typically leans 1.5% to Labor, so its result this week is equivalent to 52-48 from other pollsters, all of whom use the previous election method of allocating preferences. So all agree that it’s either 51-49 or 52-48 except for Essential – and Essential is a fortnightly rolling average, so half of this week’s result comes from last week’s polling. So it’s result from this week could well have been 52-48 as well (I happen to know the answer to this, but I’m not at liberty to divulge it). It’s slightly out of character for Essential to be a few points better for Labor than Newspoll and ReachTEL, but certainly not anything that can’t be explained by the margin of error.
There you go, cant fool the people.
http://essentialvision.com.au/documents/essential_report_140923.pdf
Thank you William
http://www.smh.com.au/federal-politics/the-pulse-live/politics-live-september-23-2014-20140923-3gcps.html
Bronwyn Bishop kicks out her 200th Member!
Nasty piece of work she is!
@briefly/247
Looks like I will prob be right regarding 70/t for Iron Ore.
Will still wait though.
Any penalty imposed on Peter Slipper should take into account the heavy personal price the former Speaker has already paid, Labor frontbencher Anthony Albanese says.
ACT chief magistrate Lorraine Walker on Wednesday will reveal the sentence to be imposed on Slipper, after he was convicted for dishonestly using government-issued taxi vouchers.
http://news.theage.com.au/breaking-news-national/slipper-paid-heavy-price-already-albanese-20140923-3gfdk.html
victoria@259
Slippers conduct merely followed the example set by his leader. But on a much lesser scale.
Looked at that way, he should be commended for his restraint compared to Abbott.
Centre@208
You must mean the one that is preferred by John Key.
http://www.aljazeera.com/mritems/imagecache/206/309/mritems/Images/2014/3/11/20143118618131734_20.bmp
I really like this one:
When I think Green and Gold, I keep thinking of the Boxing Kangaroo flag.
I had one as favourite which I can’t find now but it had a boomerang on it as a central theme, and dividing the flag into two portions.
This is nice too:
People like Dr Owler are obviously very anti “Team Oz” because they are trying to divert our attention from the only thing that matters at present.
Apparently anti-burqa campaigners are telling Lambie to STFU. Lambie’s anti-burqa arguments are so stupid and incoherent that they’re actually doing the anti-burqa campaign a disservice.
So says govt MP George Christensen. When he says someone is stupid, you sit up and listen, because being stupid is the one thing Christensen is an authority on.
I hate the green and gold colours. They clash on the colour wheel and there is no hope in hell of ever making them look good together. Many designers of Aussie sporting team uniforms have tried but it ALWAYS ends up a dud. Even the Boxing Kangaroo has a red gloves to offset the clash.
http://kevinbonham.blogspot.com.au/2014/09/poll-roundup-terror-focus-improves.html
Poll Roundup: Terror Focus Improves Abbott’s Ratings
2PP aggregate 51.5 to Labor (-0.4 on last week)
A lot of the wonky stuff that was going in this episode has been shuttled off into a supplement which should go up later tonight. It just got too long!
I like blue for our skies and gold for our wattle, the stars from our present flag. Perhaps our present flag with the Australian Crest in the corner. In past times such a complicated design would not be possible as flags were hand sewn but with computerised embroidery and screen printing we can have a detailed design.
The difference with Slipper is the use of multiple vouchers in an attempt to deceive the real purpose of the use of the car, which was outside what was allowed.
That said I agree he has suffered sufficient. Other politicians get lenient treatment with the ‘payback if caught out’ policy but I’m not aware if they have used multiple vouchers etc – but they may have.
He was also a very good speaker – apart from allowing someone like ashby to get anywhere as ‘close’ to him as he did.
An incredible situation which beggars belief.
All the flags on the Flags Australia website are about as inspiring as a wet dishcloth. Get some young people to design some.
They all look like brands for soap powder.
dave
10.4 and his history of pushing the envelope on ‘entitlements’.
I like this one but would make the big star gold.
Puff, the Magic Dragon.@271
Too elaborate.
And simplify the crest.
268
You say that like being as inspiring as a dishcloth is a bad thing. All national flags should be as inspiring as a dishcloth.
Re the flag: the following link has the flag I linked here last week – the minimalist option, remove the Union Flag and shift the Federal star ro balance. I have also shown a green and gold version and a version with a gold Federal star.
With the fourth flag, I had a go at Centre’s preference – green with gold southern cross and three outline stripes of a red, a white and a blue, although I wasn’t quite sure what an ‘outline stripe’ was. I think it works better without the stripes.
Anyway, here that are: http://randomreflections777.blogspot.com.au/2014/08/new-flag.html
Puff, the Magic Dragon.@271
Actually I agree with all the other criticisms you have made of other ‘designs’. Most are puke worthy, on a par with wanting ‘Waltzing Matilda’ as the National Anthem.
If the Kiwis vacate the Southern Cross, I don’t think we need do much more than remove the Union Jack from our flag.
Steve777@275
Centre has bogan tastes.
276
Only removing the union Jack would make our flag visually lopsided and even lopcornered. At the very least something would have to be put there.
Like this one.
I think we need something gold in the corner and a take on our coat of arms could look good.
277
One of those options has the French flag (vertically elongated) twice.
I would vote a definite no to anything that had green and gold to it. Anyway, Brazil has already done better.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Flag_of_Brazil#mediaviewer/File:Flag_of_Brazil.svg
Green and gold looks fantastic together – in the same way the Australian ARL jumper looks very classy.
Now picture this everybody:
A dark green flag with the 5 gold stars of the southern cross in the middle and three outline stripes of red, white in the middle and blue on the outside.
Sensational!!!
Raaraa
I don’t like animals on flags.
Puff, the Magic Dragon.@279
Still too complicated.
The simpler the better.
Bemused
Very close but the stripes should be joined horizontally.
Also the southern cross could be tilted at a diagonal angle as you see it in the night sky.
Centre@283
Yep! As I said earlier. Centre has bogan tastes. 😛
I am of the belief that the new flag should be predominently Sky Blue with a couple of coloured horizontal bands of colour.
Black to represent the original occupants and white to represent the arrival of the Anglo Saxon contingent.
And to top it off I think that the flag should have a creature that represents our native wild life.
I think a great big White Pointer Shark would be fantastic.
What do you reckon Centre…. it would be fantastic.
http://www.abc.net.au/news/2014-04-21/anti-islam-hate-campaign-raises-tensions-to-violent-new-heights/5402526
We should change the flag to be just slightly different to whatever NZ changes to just for a stir
As for the stripes, red should be inside and blue on the outside (white in the middle).
We’re getting there 😆
The flag has to be predominantly dark green and gold like the ARL jumper.
It’s like Christine Milne’s cuts to CO2 – it’s non negotiable 😛
*gotta go, catch soon
A Morgan SMS poll reports a 55.5-44.5 split in favour of banning the burka in public places, widening to 79.5-20.5 for when giving evidence in court.
http://www.roymorgan.com/findings/5825-australian-attitudes-to-wearing-burka-september-2014-201409230736?utm_medium=email&utm_campaign=Morgan+Poll+20140923&utm_content=Morgan+Poll+20140923+CID_b408e16695c0bb889b2f66f6a2cd2381&utm_source=Market%20Research%20Update&utm_term=Read%20full%20article
Dark green and yellow reminds me of my dog’s puke.
The ARL jumper reminds me of dog’s puke after he has been eating grass to make himself vomit.
Does she perhaps keep a scorecard on the speaker’s desk? She really does seem obsessed with creating a miserable record of Opposition MPs booted.
The IO price should eventually settle back roughly where it started…that is, when the exchange rate is taken into account, at a price that’s just high enough for supply to match demand when the least efficient producer is operating at its most efficient average output level.
The volume of Australian IO demanded by the market seems likely to settle at about 700 mtpa. This can be supplied by Rio, BHP and Roy Hill. The market does not look like it will be large enough for FMG to also operate, and in any case FMG’s cost of production is higher than the next large producer, Vale.
If the only producers are Rio (360 mtpa), BHP (290 mtpa) and Roy Hill (55 mtpa) and they all operate at capacity, the IO price should settle at about AUD50.00-55.00/tonne CFR China Ports. This will allow the operators to meet their freight, royalty, production and overheads costs, recover their capital and maybe earn an average of around 10-12% before tax on their equity. Rio will do the best and Roy Hill will about break even. The boom is well and truly over.
The shake-out in Chinese steel production appears to have a long way to run, so we should expect to reach this level fairly soon – within the next 12 months.
The WA Government appears to take about A$10.00/tonne in royalties. This will come down to less than A$3.50 if the price reaches A$50.00/tonne. So WA Government IO collections will fall to around $2.5 billion – roughly enough to pay off our stupendous State debts.
As the iron ore price and the exchange rate decreases, does there come a point where local steel production becomes economic again?
Re Jeffmu @288: might clash with the flag of Katuzy City, Poland, although they don’t have a shark:
http://www.crwflags.com/fotw/flags/pl-kartu.html
I think the ideal Australian flag would be keep the blue background and the stars and to replace the Union Jack with the Aboriginal flag. The First Peoples are far more important to our identity and values today than the colonial exploits of the British Empire.
We should also amend our constitution so that the Prime Minister is directly elected by the entire national electorate, is not a Member of Parliament, is designated our Head of State as well as Head of Government, and serves a fixed four year term (with no term limits – term limits transfer power away from the people’s representatives towards power bases which are not term limited).
We could have a unicameral national legislature of 300 MPs – half elected through optional preferential voting in single-member electorates; the other half elected through a nationwide vote for party lists and independent lists (optional preferential voting, proportional allocation). If you get 0.67 percent of the national vote after preferences, you get one of the 150 nationwide seats. The Parliament’s term could be of four years duration, concurrent with the Prime Minister’s term.
Then the Parliament would reflect the full diversity of interests and views in the electorate. Yet stable coalitions would still be possible because half the seats would come from single-member electorate contests which favour major parties.