The first federal poll from Galaxy since July is well in line with the trend, as Galaxy so often is, in having Labor leading 51-49 on two-party preferred. On the primary vote, the Coalition is up three to 42% and Labor down one to 36%, with the Greens on 12% (up one) and Palmer United on 4% (down three). Further questions found 62% support for Australian involvement in air strikes against Islamic State, with 21% opposed, and 75% considering the threat of a terrorist attack on Australian soil to be “real”, versus 16% who thought otherwise.
UPDATE (6/10): Roy Morgan gives the Coalition its best result since February, its primary vote up 1.5% to 40% with Labor down 2.5% to 35%. The Greens are steady at 12%, and Palmer United are down half a point to 3.5%, their weakest result since January. On two-party preferred, Labor’s lead narrows from 54.5-45.5 to 53-47 on respondent-allocated preferences, and from 53.5-46.5 to 51.5-48.5 on preference flows from the previous election. The poll was conducted over the last two weekends by face-to-face and SMS, from a sample of 3151.
Have you considered where these feelings of anger are coming from DL ?
Don’t ever lose your innocence, david, y’hear?
davidwh – woof!
I’ve told you before I’m too old to change.
Good night
New research shows you never stop growing brain cells.
daretotread@949
I think it is better put that some simply don’t like the message and choose to shoot the messenger.
Fortunately, their aim is poor and their ammunition is ineffective. 😛
Well Harlan Ullman on LateLine telling us how it will take troops on the ground to defeat ISIS.
Ohhh… he also says to defeat ISIS in Syria we need to defacto support Assad.
[My advantage over you is that I can be ‘mundane’ in far fewer words.]
I may be verbose and mundane, but I don’t think I’ve been responsible for anyone leaving a blog, with the honourable exception of you Bemused, whom I have had the pleasure of banning from another blog and then reading your weasley emails, begging to return. Embarrassing, they were, even as I chuckled at them.
DN yes but it gets harder to work out how to make use of them.
Bushfire Bill@960
Well you are one up on me. I have not caused anyone to leave a blog and nor have I ever banned anyone.
Oh there you go again about those non-existent emails I have on several occasions called on you to produce. You can’t because they only exist in your fevered imagination.
Go back to your ‘blog of batshit insanity’ where you can strut like foghorn leghorn, secure in your ability to toss out whoever you like for no reason.
So, according to Lateline we’re flying around the desert looking for something to do, and not finding anything much. At $10,000 per hour.
All the Cockpit Cam footage is there. Lots of dashingly helmeted shots of equally dashing pilots, but no bombs.
All to be expected, we’re told.
We haven’t fired a f*cking shot and already the ISIS wooftahs have sussed out our strategy and countered it. Hide among the civilian population.
Now, why didn’t we think of THAT before? Where are the Einsteins in the senior command echelons of our defence forces when we need them? What’s next? Dropping leaflets?
BB, the point is and always was the production of war porn.
[Well you are one up on me. I have not caused anyone to leave a blog and nor have I ever banned anyone.]
Bemused, you’re perfectly free to start a blog if you want to.
In it you can inform the World of your wisdom. You can insult anyone you like (and they’ll come crawling back, like you do, I guess). You can upset the women posters, and generally throw your weight around like you owned the place. Let’s see how many devoted followers you gather from that impeccable strategy.
Truth is, you suck-up and kick-down. You set yourself up as the de-facto moderator and challenge other posters’ credentials, assuming your own as Holy Writ.
You are hugely unpopular here, most people dislike you greatly, because your stock in trade is continually “proving” your own worth by denigrating others. But somehow you’ve convinced yourself that disgust is only one degree away from love, so you persist with your one-liners, a legend in your own lunchtime.
#964
[..the point is and always was the production of war porn.]
Succinctly and accurately stated.
Bushfire Bill@965
Projection old chap.
As the old saying goes, empty vessels make the most sound. You are the living proof.
Anyway, bed time for me.
Goodnight all.
Bemused
As in the past I fail to see or understand why you posts arouse such passions
anyway I often find them amusing and informative
Newspoll quarterly breakdowns:
http://resources.news.com.au/files/2014/10/06/1227081/794124-newspoll-pdf.pdf
Those Vic results don’t give much credence to the idea of anti-Coalition sentiment softening there, unless it has done so very recently. Not exactly a friendly sign for Liberals for Victorian state election.
Newspoll’s Victorian numbers are quite a bit worse for the Coalition than BludgerTrack’s at the moment.
As a longtime lurker and occasional poster, I have seen many posters come and go since Hyacinth held court in Kirribilli. I’m with Astrobleme when it comes to posting on this site , having seen too many play the man rather than the issue. Whatever happened to normal public civility? There are those who write cogently, such as Poroti, Sprocket , BK, etc., who make my visiting here worthwhile.
But there are times it feels like walking in on someone’s domestic blue which takes up all the oxygen, or just niggling carping from the usual suspects.
I rarely poke my head up as I’m not into blood sport and wonder how many others feel the same.
Have become a dab hand at scrolling but miss many of the bloggers who provided so much colour over the years, including the naughty Finns.
Thanks for your blog, William.
guytaur
[ but if all else fails there is always Lloyd’s]
We once had a Solicitor-General who got called out on this.
The rest of us 😀
Nett_NEWS++™ by @Otiose94 http://bit.ly/1nAtjp1 #Iraq, #abbott, Jet Fool by Rod Clement © http://bit.ly/1CPc49Q
[958
bemused
Well Harlan Ullman on LateLine telling us how it will take troops on the ground to defeat ISIS.]
This is a tacit admission that IS will win.
[
Bushfire Bill
Posted Monday, October 6, 2014 at 11:09 pm | Permalink
…
Now, why didn’t we think of THAT before? Where are the Einsteins in the senior command echelons of our defence forces when we need them? What’s next? Dropping leaflets?
]
Less likely to cause any lasting damage and it has gotta be worth three nights news.
Night 1) Preparation and “how dam good” the leaflets are. The greens might point out English is not a universal language. But they can be dismissed as extreme nutters.
Night 2) The actual drop, as it is a transport issue, not sure what the hornets will do; but this is “war porn” all plans can’t be perfect.
Night 3) Women reading and ripping off their Burka’s in the streets.
This is a hell of a lot better than footage of carnage because we accidentally dropped the bombs on a school or something (all the locals fault of cause, info was bad, they told us it was a ISIS recruiting center).
The coalition of “we showed up”. We showed up, we flew around, we came home. No-one gets hurt. It truly is the right way to run a war.
And for the real news:
http://www.theguardian.com/world/2014/oct/06/nurse-spain-tests-positive-ebola
David Johnston has a habit of saying things that are intended to reassure but which are not deliverable. The text from SMH below, is an example.
It also illustrates how misconceived the deployment really is. The costs of war are great enough that countries should only accept them when there is really no alternative. Yet we have involved ourselves in a discretionary war where we have little to no chance of success. For the the most transparent of political reasons, and from the desire to stroke his own vanity, Abbott has joined a war that can and probably will go terribly wrong.
This is practically a classical definition of a reckless policy adopted for the most worthless ends.
[As the RAAF prepared to carry out the first Australian air strikes against Islamic State targets, Defence Minister David Johnston rejected suggestions that Iraqi ground forces were inadequate to the task of driving the Islamic State out of towns and cities.
While acknowledging the Iraqi army was “a little bit disjointed” and had been “allowed to run down”, Senator Johnston said there were “pockets of … highly professional and highly capable Iraqi security forces”.
He indicated on the ABC’s Insiders program that he viewed the ground war as being a “counterinsurgency” – the firmest acknowledgement yet that it could involve a difficult and drawn-out fight marked by guerrilla-style tactics in urban areas.
“The counterinsurgency service of the Iraqi security forces is very capable and very good and we’ll be working with them more than likely,” he said. “We are optimistic that we can put them up in a position where they can resecure many of these towns.”
It is understood this could mean the Australian special forces work with Iraq’s elite Special Operations Forces – the counter-terrorism commando brigade set up by the Western coalition in the wake of the 2003 overthrow of Saddam Hussein.
As well as 400 RAAF personnel, the Abbott government has deployed 200 special forces commandos to the Middle East where they are awaiting final orders to enter Iraq and begin an “advise and assist” role with local forces.
Iraq has an army of about 270,000 soldiers but by Washington’s estimate only about half of the 50 brigades are remotely reliable.
Tens of thousands of Iraqi troops fled in the face of attacks by much smaller Islamic State forces in June and July, largely because of weak leadership, with commanders often abandoning their troops.
Experts say that restoring the confidence of Iraqi troops – many of whom are well-equipped and trained – is pivotal to building them up to a force that can drive the militants out of the towns and cities they have seized in recent months.
“It’s not so much training them in military skills,” said Peter Jennings, executive director of the Australian Strategic Policy Institute. “It’s more a psychological thing that they can go on the battlefield and prevail. I think it will take at least several months to equip them with that level of confidence.”
But that also means the Australian special forces will need to be close to the Iraqis when it comes to fighting, said James Brown, a former Australian army officer now with the Lowy Institute.
The government has maintained that the Australian advisers will not be on the frontline. But Mr Brown said they would need to be closely involved to be effective.
“You can’t get the trust of the Iraqis if you can’t get in there with them,” he said. “Whatever language the government uses, Australians will be exposed to combat danger.”
The former chief of army, Peter Leahy, meanwhile took issue with Senator Johnston’s assessment and cast doubt on whether the Iraqi government was ready to put the full resources into winning a counterinsurgency campaign, which typically involves a large amount of civil work to win “hearts and minds”.
“Rather than the Minister talking about counterinsurgency, I’d rather he talk about the re-establishment of Iraqi political legitimacy and restoration of sovereignty over its territory,” said Professor Leahy, who now heads the University of Canberra’s National Security Institute.
“That’s a task for the Iraqi government, supported by regional countries. The question is, are they up to it? The Iraqis have to win the allegiance of their own people.”]
Read more: http://www.smh.com.au/national/australian-commandos-to-build-up-iraqi-leadership-20141005-10ql8c.html#ixzz3FONaMIfY
http://www.abc.net.au/news/2014-10-05/government-looks-for-budget-savings-to-fund-iraq-mission/5791202
What the Senator should have said is we can’t afford to go to war.
The real strange thing about all this; as the farce unfolds Labor have put themselves in a firm position. We are one.
New thread.
I see no fathomable way to detain a person in a mandatory fashion without breaching their human rights.
The word itself is almost interchangable with, arbitrary, if applied to the type of small child or his father that future President of Australia and happy clapper Scott Morrison does not like.
We dissolve ourselves of the right to 600 years of constitution by permitting our public servants to physically abuse those born of the womb of a stranger by doing so.