The latest monthly ReachTEL automated phone poll of federal voting intention for the Seven Network ticks a point in Labor’s favour, putting their two-party lead bang on BludgerTrack at 53-47. The biggest mover on the primary vote is Palmer United, who have slumped from 5.1% to 3.1%, with Labor up 1.2% to 38.7%, the Coalition up 0.1% to 40.2% and the Greens down 0.4% to 11.1%. Also featured are leadership ratings and attitudinal results on the G20 and, entertainingly, whether Jacqui Lambie should leave the Palmer United Party (43.4% yes, 17.6% no).
I’ve said it before — Abbott thinks of himself as a reformer, who has to endure the slings and arrows of the ignorant and narrow minded but who will ultimately be vindicated by history — a sort of right wing Gough Whitlam.
As for the lying, I think he probably confesses it all, and then thinks that means he’s free to lie again.
DN
[Goodwill is far too warm a word for Abbott.]
Arguably, but its allusion to commerce lies in the measurable and sustained custom that a business has acquired in the course of its trading life. That’s pretty close to to how the term is used in politics.
zoomster,
I think Abbott is a borderline sociopath who simply doesn’t understand the moral dimension of lying. Its just another tool for him to get what he wants and it only matters if he gets caught. He’s also suffering from the delusion that getting caught doesn’t matter because Murdoch has always covered for him.
Fran
I dislike implying that goodwill is something to be actively bought, sold and traded. Capital is appropriate because it conveys cold, hard, rationalism.
Abbott’s promises before the election were cynical manipulations of goodwill always intended for trade once in government – though I’m sure he intended to be far cleverer with his trades than he has been.
Cud chewer
I believe Abbott does understand the moral dimensions of lying. He prosecuted the case against JGillard for the carbon tax lie extremely well
I notice that Sarah Henderson is also demanding that her area, Geelong, should be shielded from ABC cuts, but in everything else agrees that the ABC is wasteful.
victoria
Not the moral dimensions, such the politically advantageous ones 🙂
DN
Goodwill, from ‘Investopedia’
[The value of a company’s brand name, solid customer base, good customer relations, good employee relations and any patents or proprietary technology represent goodwill. Goodwill is considered an intangible asset because it is not a physical asset like buildings or equipment. The goodwill account can be found in the assets portion of a company’s balance sheet.]
zoomster
[ who has to endure the slings and arrows of the ignorant and narrow minded but who will ultimately be vindicated by history]
Something possessed in spades by many a religious nutter . The slings and arrows taken as a literally heaven sent chance to demonstrate how pious they are.
Malcolm Turnbull, more popular with the Greens and Labor, may have jumped the shark with his performance on Monday re the ABC cuts.
http://www.themonthly.com.au/blog/mark-bahnisch/2014/21/2014/1416521960/end-affair
Morning all.
I too don’t understand the public backlashing against Obama’s speech from cabinet ministers. There was an FTA signed with China during the week, something the govt actually did. Surely that is worth discussing rather than a speech given by the POTUS?
The Vic state election outcome will have a fair bit to do with the Abbott factor. Victorians are not at all impressed with Abbott and his govt. Napthine is going to pay the price for it.
GG
In my view Malcolm has lost what little credibility he had left
Off to the shops. Talk later…..
poroti
this is because they believe they have a direct line to God and are doing His will.
Firstly, this means they don’t take any criticism personally, because their deeds are not their own.
Secondly, they can’t learn from criticism, because God can’t be wrong.
Thirdly, as you say, they welcome persecution (“Blessed are the persecuted…”) as A Cross They Have To Bear.
Ironically, Rudd was much the same, for the same reasons.
(I write this as someone who spent all of their misguided teens as a ‘born again Christian’ — I know the type very well…)
Newscarp commentators react to Obama’s bullocking of Abbott’s lack of action on climate change.
https://twitter.com/wrb330/status/535922666360688640/photo/1
Fran
I’ve just explained that “good will”, to me, comes with more flavour than “capital” and that extra flavour influences how I choose to (not) use it. I’m not sure what quoting extra definitions is supposed to achieve.
CC
[I think Abbott is a borderline sociopath who simply doesn’t understand the moral dimension of lying. Its just another tool for him to get what he wants and it only matters if he gets caught. He’s also suffering from the delusion that getting caught doesn’t matter because Murdoch has always covered for him.]
In purely instrumental terms, that’s not a delusion. It really doesn’t matter if he gets caught lying if Murdoch’s assistance (or that of some other combination of parties) effectively makes it non-decisive in a sufficient number of voters’ minds for them to assess his regime on other criteria.
Speaking purely for myself, while I am always scandalised at seeing people lie, and especially when matters of great importance are in play, were Abbott scrupulously honest I would still regard his regime as execrable. So for me, his lies are non-decisive, much as they deepen my disgust at the regime.
Abbott’s regime makes John Hewson’s putative one seem almost pleasant at this temporal distance — which is troubling.
But …but …but, I thought Tony Abbott was a political genius…
[In my view Malcolm has lost what little credibility he had left]
Wait till the shit really hits the fan for fraudband.
Plainly DN, you can attach whatever connotations to goodwill you think apt. I merely point out that your sense that it ought to be at arms’ length from trade is not corroborated in the usage of the community from which the term capital is drawn. Capital is tangible, and goodwill intangible.
That is the purpose of quoting definitions. These show us how apt metaphors are because they describe common usage.
This doesn’t make them right of course. Definitions are more descriptive than prescriptive.
GG
Thanks. And another in the Monthly. Tom Swtzer defended Abbott [What might have seemed to many observers “defensive, embarrassing, insular, cringeworthy” was for Switzer evidence of Abbott’s “down-to-earth quality”, of his charming and unpolished bluntness.]
. . .
[For a man whose worldview is not all that dissimilar to the DLP’s half a century ago, Abbott made a very grave error when he allowed his economic policies to be outsourced to the right-wing think tanks (like the Institute of Public Affairs, with which Switzer is associated). It’s meant that on both social and economic issues, Abbott is for middle Australia a kind of extremist, albeit one who seems pleasant and blokey enough in person.
Tom Switzer is just one of an army of right-wing commentators whose function is to protect Abbott and his government from too much negative interpretation, to insulate him from it by building around him a fortress of bullshit. Most of them are at News Corp, an entity whose writers go to extraordinary lengths to present Abbott as “statesmanlike” in his international dealings.
There’s an irony to their efforts. A statesman – according to dictionaries a “disinterested promoter of the public good”, a political leader who “exhibits great wisdom and ability” – is precisely the opposite of what Abbott is: yet another insular, domestically focused political leader who sees foreign policy and international engagement as a way to earn cheap domestic points. He’s the type of leader Peter Hartcher laments in his book The Adolescent Country. If we weren’t so deeply in the thrall of the free market, one might be forgiven for seeing something of the old Soviet spin in Team Abbott’s methods.
But in the end, Abbott’s attempt to co-opt the G20 for domestic ends didn’t work. His delivery, all Midnight Oil hands and missed beats, was truly cringeworthy. And it came among too many gaffes. ]
http://www.themonthly.com.au/blog/russell-marks/2014/20/2014/1416451166/cringing
Fran,
The point I was getting at is that Murdoch/News Limited providing such a protective shell for Abbott and his friends has encouraged them to think even more within the bubble. And in Abbott’s case, he used to be more careful about not getting caught for lying but as time went by he clearly got more brazen about it.
Fran
A further elaboration.
My use of “warm” should have suggested that there are some subjective, fuzzy, perhaps not entirely rational, feeling-type things going on with my choice of words.
Laurie Oakes is typically forthright.
[The blatant breach of an unqualified election pledge overshadows arguments for efficiencies and cost savings at the national broadcaster, just as much of the budget was rendered unsaleable because it was seen to breach the “no cuts to health, no cuts to education, no changes to pensions” undertaking.
Also, the Government is again proving remarkably inept at the marketing task. After Turnbull’s announcement a Liberal sent me an SMS: “I expect it will be another ham-fisted sales job from us.”
Almost immediately came news Education Minister Christopher Pyne had started an online petition against any cutbacks in ABC TV production in his home state of South Australia.
A torrent of ABC defenders signed on simply for the purpose of leaving messages attacking the Government and ridiculing Pyne. He had been too smart by half.
And Turnbull underlined the hypocrisy of Pyne’s position by pointedly noting that all Cabinet members — including the Education Minister — were committed to the funding cuts.
Finance Minister Matthias Cormann also distinguished himself by saying of reductions in the ABC and SBS budget: “They’re not cuts.” It was another example of the minister treating voters like fools.]
http://m.heraldsun.com.au/news/opinion/abc-funding-cuts-a-tough-sell/story-fni0fha6-1227131226603
Fran and DN
A way around the usage thing. Say political capital.
guytaur
I am totally fine with using goodwill when I feel like it. It doesn’t suit my feelings w.r.t. to Abbott, and all the rational arguments in the world anyone wishes to throw at me are not going to change that.
DN
I understand that. The consolation for us is the polls showing we are not alone.
I don’t think the Loon did this justice–
http://www.theaustralian.com.au/opinion/editorials/the-abbott-government-is-doomed-without-narrative/story-e6frg71x-1227131169889
(If the link doesn’t work, google ‘The Abbott government is doomed without narrative’ and you’ll find it).
On the G20
[Amid all the glitz and clamour, one thing is clear: Australia is seen by the major powers as a country that counts..]
We’re part of the G20. We attend the meetings. Hosting one doesn’t mean anything other than we’re part of the G20 and attend the meetings.
(If there’s any credit for the event being on Australian shores, it should go to Julia Gillard. Strangely, this seems to be forgotten).
[The nation has not witnessed such a prestigious cavalcade since the Asia-Pacific Economic Co-operation forum in Sydney in 2007.]
And how did that work out for the PM of the time?
The editorial then bags out Obama for being all oratory and no action (something, I will point out smugly, I predicted before he was elected as President…) and then does a neat backflip with pike –
[No successful modern leader can be aloof from the requirements of communications and storytelling. ]
So they bag out Obama for being all talk and no action and then hint that Abbott is no talk and no action.
[Witness how the Coalition mishandled ABC funding cuts; Labor and its friends have defined it as a “broken promise”, rather than a fiscal imperative..]
It could be both, of course. Or one and not the other…
[Too often the Abbott government maddeningly vacates the media space. Bill Shorten, broadcaster Alan Jones and populist stunt man Clive Palmer too often set the national agenda.]
Did we ever read an Oz editorial which criticised the Rudd/Gillard government because “Tony Abbott, broadcaster Alan Jones and Clive Palmer set the national agenda…’ (and anyway, I thought ‘The Australian’ was supposed to do that).
Apparently the media sits helplessly by and lets itself be railroaded into reporting the schenanigans of the trio.
[..Mr Abbott should be aware of the power of words and images. Yet his linguistic prowess has been diminished. Other than in some formal set pieces, he has lost his authoritative voice. ]
Oh, please, I beg you, great and glorious Oz editorial writer – give us some examples of the authoritative voice he has lost? Where is his equivalent of the misogyny speech? (I don’t mind if the context was wrong..)
You can’t lose something that never existed.
[The Prime Minister’s Office is too dominated by Peta Credlin, his chief of staff, including on media strategy.]
Ah. Andrew Bolt was saying this only the other day. Credlin would be wise to be very, very nervous.
[To be sure, a hostile, distracted, Twitter-obsessed media is a hindrance; superior language, aimed directly at voters, could overcome this.]
It’s all the media’s fault. (Strange, when Labor spruikers suggested the same, they were howled down…)
Just as well this writer isn’t part of the media, hey?
(Interesting question – is any journalist actually part of the media? None of them seem to think it has anything to do with them).
[As various leaders admonished Russian President Vladimir Putin for his belligerence in the Ukraine and his indifference to the outrage over the MH17 slaughter, Mr Abbott seemed to have inspired their words.]
Either that, or a horrendous event tends to inspire the same reaction from everybody.
[Where is the intelligent Rhodes scholar who has an easy rapport with Australians in any setting?]
I think Hawkie is currently living in a mansion on Sydney Harbor.
[The Coalition’s failing media strategy is damaging its electoral standing and making it difficult to bed down policy responses to problems it was elected to address. ]
Yep – it’s the sales pitch, not the product, that’s defective.
[Voters are left with the impression that Mr Hockey’s May budget was a litany of broken promises, designed to inflict severe pain on low-income workers and the poor, and that the deficit crisis was not as acute as the Coalition presented it.]
Well, yes. Funny about that.
[In an act of immense self-harm, the Abbott government brought on the faux fairness debate over reform measures in the May budget via its ill-judged levy on top-bracket taxpayers…Never mind that one group pays most of the nation’s tax ..]
Ouch. I guess the editorial writer is paying a bit more tax this year than he expected.
[It is true that the conservative side of politics does not trumpet its successes in the manner of the Left.]
Perhaps that’s because they don’t have as many to trumpet..
[Mr Abbott was right to recognise that the electorate had lost patience with the extravagant verbiage of the Rudd-Gillard era..]
Oi – I thought the editorial was suggesting that Abbott wasn’t doing enough verbiage? Can it at least strive to be internally consistent?
[While Mr Abbott is just as intelligent as his predecessors, he is languishing and looks flaky.]
Of course, if one disagrees with the first part of the sentence, the second part makes sense.
[The Coalition needs skilful media personnel and new roles for its best ministerial performers; it must communicate like a team that knows what it is doing. ]
Once again, it doesn’t need to know what it’s doing, it just needs to sound as if it does…
[Mr Abbott must regroup, trust himself and speak with purpose. Right now, his insipid default setting is losing the people.]
Only a month ago, they were writing exactly the same stuff about Bill Shorten.
IMO one of the reasons against using “capital” is that it implies a fund available for spending. Who measures the increments of expenditure? It’s too vague.
[111
confessions
Morning all.
….There was an FTA signed with China during the week]
In fact, there was no FTA, merely an intention to enter into one sometime in the future.
[The Prime Minister’s Office is too dominated by Peta Credlin, his chief of staff, including on media strategy.]
It has always been thus, even when Abbott was LOTO, and even to ridiculous levels that Abbott became tongue tied when he wasn’t given sufficient lines to spout! Yet it wasn’t a problem then because they were leading in the polls and cruising towards an election win.
And therein lies the real reason they have no narrative: they never made a case for electing the coalition to govt other than a return to Howardia, ‘we’re not the other mob’.
I have no sympathy that they are reaping what they sowed now.
zoom
Ugh, more “narrative”. I’m starting to think there’s something fundamentally flawed in the way journalists are trained.
Morning all. The polls are remarkably consistent in being bad for the government lately. Then again, the public performances of Abbott, Hockey and now even Bishop have been much the same. As for policy, their only idea seems ton be to make it to the Christmas break without further embarrassment, having been rebuffed at their ultra-conservative gambit, and having no idea what else to do instead.
briefly:
Jeez, they can’t even get that right! No wonder they stopped talking about it.
This article about a tanker standoff in Geelong, as it says, highlights our dependence on foreign shipping and foreign refined fuel, with minimal local storage well below our obligations as a member of the IEA.
http://www.theage.com.au/national/tanker-standoff-highlights-australias-foreign-shipping-and-fuel-dependence-20141120-11qrr4.html
Unfortunately it also highlights something else – the abysmal lack of competitiveness of any ship with an Australian crew paid under Australian awards. So much so that a country with a long coastline, concentrated population and good harbours still finds it cheaper to send things interstate by road or rail. It used to be partly because of the inefficiency (high cost, high crime/losses) of Australian ports. Yet they have improved a lot in recent years, while our shipping is still in decline. Are our maritime sailors paid too much? Yes! I do not expect them to work for what a Fillipino earns. But even countries like France, Germany, Holland, Denmark and Norway have effective local shipping with local crews, and reasonable safety standards. Our wages should be comparable to theirs, not much higher. Our crews are so expensive that frankly, they have done themselves out of a job.
Have a good day all.
[102
Fran Barlow
Goodwill is far too warm a word for Abbott.]
In business valuations, there is also the concept of “bad will”, describing factors that impinge on reputation:
Negative experiences as a result of investors and shareholders finding out about something a company has done which is not considered a good business practice. Badwill is not calculated in dollar amounts, but it can and usually will result in decreased revenues, loss of investors, customers or suppliers, decreased market share and if the badwill was a crime – criminal prosecution.
Read more: http://www.businessdictionary.com/definition/badwill.html#ixzz3JkPtkeAF
The analogy with politics is very clear, reflected in loss of voter support.
[Where is the intelligent Rhodes scholar who has an easy rapport with Australians in any setting?
I think Hawkie is currently living in a mansion on Sydney Harbor.]
Zoomster@129
Bewdiful!! Should have been a tweet to Sheridan last night when he mentioned it on Lateline. His results in Oxford seem to show that Abbott’s intelligence is tied up with his brawling abilities.
Internal polling must be rotten for Sheridan to be so openly telling his mate what to do.
The bit about Credlin is interesting. Is she for the chop?
[135
confessions
briefly:
Jeez, they can’t even get that right! No wonder they stopped talking about it.]
It’s another sham.
Zoomster and confessions
Interesting that the News Ltd cheer squad are mentioning Credlin in unflattering light.
Might be more than ministerial casualties in the anticipated summer reshuffle.
Credlin was supported in spite of her managerial style when Tony was ahead. Perhaps the grumbles of the backbench are getting louder.
lizzie Thanks for the Banisch link. We watched Q&A on Monday and you could almost feel the love for Turnbull disappearing up his own cloud of bulldust. It was an interesting night.
http://www.themonthly.com.au/blog/mark-bahnisch/2014/21/2014/1416521960/end-affair
Even Dennis Shanahan was critical of the Government this morning on 2UE along with the two jocks who do the program.
They are solid Libs and were down on Abbott for his performance at the G20 and in Parliament.
It was noted that Abbott has been behind in the last seventeen polls.
Getting interesting!
rossmcg:
It seems somewhat unfair that Credlin is being criticised when she’s done the best she could with what she had to work with with Abbott!
I am catching up on a bit of Jazz Tremlow on the Guardian. Kinda hooked after, earlier in the year, he described Abetz as being as welcome as a piece of sweetcorn in a Jacuzzi.
This recent bit caught my eye;
[By the time Joe Hockey took to Insiders to reject, like an addict in denial, that global warming would impact the economy, G20 was on track to become a superpower intervention: “Look, Australia, we’ve been talking. We think you have a carbon problem.” Now, there’s a TV show I’d watch: Celebrity Carbon Rehab.By the time Tony Abbott said he was “standing up for coal”, I was happy the G20 doesn’t run all year. You get the impression that if the Titanic were sinking and world leaders were arranging lifeboats, Tony Abbott would be the only one wanting to discuss damage to the iceberg.]
I like.
http://www.theguardian.com/tv-and-radio/2014/nov/17/g20-beauty-and-the-geek-battle-tv-review
BK
I don’t say this often enough but thank you for all your work in posting the links.
How is your grandson – hope I got that right – are things getting better?
Have PB’s Abbott t**d-polishers given up?
Bet Credlin goes before Abbott.. Looks like she’s being lined up..
http://www.smh.com.au/federal-politics/political-opinion/it-took-only-two-days-for-abbotts-conversion-to-climate-change-to-be-exposed-20141121-11rimq.html
Hasnt Credlin been there from the start (2009)? Tony isnt capable of continuing without her. Any MP grumbling would surely be aware of that.