Another rough weekend for the conservatives (vid. the Fisher by-election) gets even worse with the latest Galaxy poll for the Sunday News Limited tabloids. This one has Labor leading 55-45 on two-party preferred, compared with 51-49 in the last such poll in early October, and 41% (up five) to 38% (down four) on the primary vote. The poll also finds that 41% would prefer Malcolm Turnbull be Treasurer against 21% for Joe Hockey.
Next cab off the rank should be Ipsos in the Fairfax papers this evening.
Fisher the secret by-election. Maybe MSM do not think it best talked about? Does not fit the ‘Tony hit the re-set’ button narrative. And implications far too dire for dearly beloved toxic Tony.
lizzie@400
I saw Dr Sharman Stone advocating quotas on TV recently.
They have their defects, but I can think of nothing better and they have worked for Labor.
The submarine contract is a big issue in SA given its reliance on car manufacturing ang already high unemployment, so in Fisher federal politics will have played a biiger part than usual in a state by-election.
MSM are going to avoid negative talk about any big business friendly party.
OT, but why are the MSM hijacking trolling to mean bullying, nothing wrong with a Troll, so long as they’re good at it.
OK hit me – but it seems many of these outfits are becoming less sustainable than the auto manufacturing industry.
http://www.abc.net.au/news/2014-12-07/rising-farm-debt-focus-of-crisis-summit-in-west-queensland/5949948
Haydn 334
Meanwhile at the alternate universe of Piers Akerman he is telling his readers that “…the record shows the Abbott government finished the year well ahead of its deluded opponents. “
rossco 379
Did the Fisher by-election really happen? Watched Insiders to see what they had to say about it and not even a mention. Only a minor state by-election I know but surely has serious implications at a federal level
I actually enjoy this game. It usually means that Akerman is scared witless about what is going on and his response is to publish “Comical Ali” accounts about how brilliantly everything is going.
The longer anyone in the Coalition believes this stuff the better – the electorate is slowly being pulled out from under them like a rug, and when they realise that Akerman and co are in la la land it will be too late.
That is why the likes of Bolt Jones and Albrechtsen have changed tack. They realise that what they have been spewinh=g forth has become unbelievable even to their own readers.
abc had 4 polical commentators on reviewing the year for libs and labor. 2 were from news ltd and said labors primary vote in newspoll had not seen any increase of significance. Previous newspoll showed it at 39% from the election of 33.4%.
It would be helpful at times in the abc challenged these bland statements.
A large failing I see is allowing biased views thru without any challenge as they did with the Australian Vaccination Netwotk and Monktons statements on climate change.
The abc has a large degree of trust in the community and I am all for reporting different viewpoints as any media organisation should.
But this does not mean that wild claims and statements should go thru without challenge or qualification, otherwise it gives the view that the abc sees it as an fact.acceptable
BK – 404 – I have seen first hand in my farming relatives the sometimes folly of not treating the farm sector as another business.
And it is never better illustrated when various state and federal governments hand out largesse in difficult droughts/floods, very much directed to the primary producers in those areas who account for generally 10% or less of the total population. Other locals who are not primary producers but are also often badly affected never get quite the same treatment.
Given a choice between
Scott Ludlam, Adam Bandt, Richard Di Natalie
and
Eddie Obeid, Ian McDonald and Joe Bullock
Boerwar will vote for the latter every time.
Contrary to what Bemused thinks, any party that keeps producing Obeids, McDonalds and Bullocks are the true LOONS.
Yes, Lance – I think the media (ABC and Fairfax for e.g.) are in denial about what has happened to the Libs this weekend. They think that if they ignore it, it will go away. The problem for the pro-tory media, however, is that the very people they are trying to hide events from are the ones who took part. The only people the ABC and Fairfax are fooling are themselves.
With the Greens hand in hand with Abbott on the unfair and unaffordable PPL, I wonder if they are going through with the back-flip too.
Not seen any announcements from them.
Bemused re quotas
I think those against quotas are afraid that “unworthy” candidates may be selected over other “just because they’re female”. Given the quality of some male Coalition MPs, and the rather frightening similarity between some of the Lib females in parliament, I don’t think the current selection process is working out to their advantage.
OTOH there are some excellent Labor women, who I hope will soon outnumber the Obeids of this world.
DG
[Contrary to what Bemused thinks, any party that keeps producing Obeids, McDonalds and Bullocks are the true LOONS.]
I find the term ‘loons’ unhelpful on a number of grounds. Putting aside the blurring of the lines between the cognitive and the ethical, which is lazy, it is also implicitly offensive to those with some clinically measurable cognitive disability. Those of us who favour inclusion should avoid such language, IMO.
The ALP’s problems don’t stem from some corporate cognitive disability, but rather, from their institutional topography and attached usages. This persistently leads them to avoid speaking truth to power and instead, to try winning lowest common denominator contests in which the rules are set by those who oppose the interests of the bulk of their supporters. Their supporters resent Murdoch, but their politics is in his image.
DG
[Given a choice between
Scott Ludlam, Adam Bandt, Richard Di Natalie
and
Eddie Obeid, Ian McDonald and Joe Bullock
Boerwar will vote for the latter every time.
Contrary to what Bemused thinks, any party that keeps producing Obeids, McDonalds and Bullocks are the true LOONS.]
Fortunately, no one has given me such a choice.
However, when previously confronted by a somewhat similar choice: two rotten apples on the one hand, and a set of powerless and marginal people on the other, I made what was the only serious choice possible.
IMHO, the lack of criminals in the ranks is a clear sign of the Australian Greens Party’s marginalisation and general lack of capacity to make much difference.
There is not even much of a point to being a crook in the Australian Greens Party.
Boerwar
We all know by now that you hate the Greens – enough already.
Time to move on!
BW
What a twisted logic. Better to vote for crooks that have a chance of forming government than honest candidates who won’t be able to form government.
BK and RR
There was a graph in one of the Weekend papers, forget which, and it had two lines. One was farm income. The other was farm debt. The former was arithmetic. The latter was logarithmic.
Here are the things you will not hear:
(1) Many farmers over capitalised, either by paying too much for their original farms or by borrowing too much debt to service.
(2) You will not hear about climate change, which is crucifying farmers in many regions.
(3) You will not hear that the live cattle export industry completely failed its responsibilities to ensure that Australian stock are not treated cruelly overseas.
(4) You will not hear that Abbott’s sanctions of Russia are biting into Australian dairy exports and Australian kangaroo exports.
They are blaming everything (the banks, the weather, Labor) except themselves, climate change, and sectoral mismanagement on a huge scale.
The same government that chased the car industry out of Australia is spending hundreds of millions smooting the pillow of a dying industry.
C’est fou.
As for the banks: far from ravaging broke farmers, they are actually a bit wary about foreclosing on all the properties that are security for all the non-performing loans because it would smash the values of their mortgages and make a very nasty dent in their accounts.
DG – He doesn’t care about logic. He just likes to annoy people. Yawn.
Dan Gulberry – it is true that being a party of Government makes the Labor Party susceptible to corruption. However corruption, which is the explicit channelling of public funds to private profit, is absolutely antithetical to Labor values. So Labor must do all it can, reform-wise, to stamp out any opportunity for corruption to take place within the party. But I would argue to my dying breath that while there are corrupt individuals in the Labor Party, the party itself is hostile to the worldview of those corrupt individuals and will always seek their removal.
The Liberal Party, on the other hand, sees no problem with Government action to benefit it’s rich mates. It does not accept, in it’s ideological heart, that corruption is wrong. So, Dan, you are targeting the wrong party for your ire.
If Ipsos is indeed being released this evening… it will be a good indicator of its house-effect.
Ipsos 99-1 to Libs.
[BW
What a twisted logic. Better to vote for crooks that have a chance of forming government than honest candidates who won’t be able to form government.]
Of course I would not vote for crooks, regardless of the party they infest. I don’t vote for rotten apples, which meant that I did not vote for either Labor or Liberal in the last Federal election.
And I don’t vote for pretend non-parties who pretend that they are going to make a difference when everyone knows they are nowhere near forming government.
BK
it was mildly amusing to note that, in the government’s recent paper on agriculture, the example of a ‘family farm’ was one where several families had amalgamated their properties and acted as a board of management.
Local farmers – admittedly post tobacco – bewail the fact that they can’t make a living from 300 acres.
The successful ‘family’ farms locally are just that – two or three families operating together (generally brothers), wives out in ‘real work’ (nurses, teachers).
The romantic idea of the family farm is dad, mum and the kids. I had several friends who grew up farming that way, and they speak of their childhoods with resentment. They were not only permanently poverty stricken, but they worked far harder than their peers.
One man I knew was permanently estranged from his family because of the way he was exploited as a child. He felt he wasn’t valued as anything more than a unit of labour.
There are, of course, successful ‘family farms’ – but they are business operations, with very little romance about them.
The thing I found so fascinating on Insiders this morning was just how dismissive the panel was about possible future political upsets.
Abbott couldn’t possibly be moved-on, Newman will likely win Ashgrove etc etc. Has the past four-and-a-half years taught them nothing?
BW 416 – And the sad irony of Climate Change denial being strongest in the rural National and Liberal parliamentarians, like their rural Republican mates in the USA.
Of course one day those same parliamentarians will be queuing up at Canberra demanding “Climate Change Compensation” for their constituents.
Z 422 – one of my relatives felt very much the same and told me years ago that he made a ledger recording every thing his kids ever did on the farm, and he paid them what he could for it. Because he himself never got paid at all by his own father. He really had no choice but to continue farming as that was all he had done all his life (unpaid)
Puff, the Magic Dragon Posted Sunday, December 7, 2014 at 1:31 pm @ 308
I’m not sure that ‘debt is bad’ is the mantra of modern economic practice. It does seem to be the mantra of some modern conservative parties and their boosters. However, that just seems to be cover for them to lower taxes on the wealthy whilst reducing services to everyone else.
In many cases austerity policies seem to have increased debt rather than reduced it.
j341983 – It’s just a flesh wound
– The Black Knight, Monty Python and the Holy Grail
Eventually as limbs get hacked off they may not be so surprised!
Ipsos poll tonight? Well, if its bad for the Fibs then maybe they can slope off for the xmas break and just hide an ignore it??
Ahhhh..but then again MYEFO is out on the 15th isn’t it? 🙂
Remember when Virginia Trioli or Mark Simkin could barely contain their excitiment when Gillard Labor copped a 55/45 poll against it?
These same characters are stony silent today when it comes to polling in reverse…
The ABC is getting its just desserts.
J341983
I just caught up with insiders on iview. Phil Coorey is sticking by his story re JBishop being peeved with the Abbott for arranging ARobb to “chaperone” her
Jimmy
Nicely put. There needs to be serious reform in any organisation that allows vermin like the aforementioned to rise to the top.
It isn’t so much ire as sadness that a party of which I share many values allows such a thing to happen.
As far as federal elections go, I have been blessed to live in electorates that have had Labor candidates that do reflect my values (and yours by the look of it).
Perth – Ric Charlesworth, Stephen Smith
Grayndler – Anthony Albanese
Perth (again) – Alannah McTiernan
Voting Labor in those cases was a no-brainer. However in the WA Senate re-election, I couldn’t put Labor as #1 after they knocked a decent candidate (Louise Pratt) down the ticket in favour of Joe Bullock.
In that particular case voting #1 Greens was also a no-brainer given the calibre of their top candidate, Scott Ludlam.
Although I’ve voted Labor all my (voting) life, I don’t really see myself as a Labor voter per se. I vote for candidates who best represent my left/progressive view of the world. As Labor continues to do that they will get my vote. If they don’t I’ll vote Green providing they put up quality candidates who reflect my viewpoint.
In the unlikely event that neither of those things happen, i don’t know what I’d do as I’ve never had to face that kind of choice before. I do know however that I will never vote for a Liberal candidate no matter how “liberal” they are.
[ Ahhhh..but then again MYEFO is out on the 15th isn’t it? ]
Think its due ‘after’ the 15th, so it will be interesting to see if they play around with the release date, ie push it forward into the next week containing Christmas.
We shall soon see. And hear the excuses, ie Labor.
Dan Gulberry @ 431 – fair enough. I entirely agree with what you wrote. I would not have voted for Bullock either.
[ I just caught up with insiders on iview. Phil Coorey is sticking by his story re JBishop being peeved with the Abbott for arranging ARobb to “chaperone” her]
And people laughed when I told them about the Liberal plan to accept Julie B as “PM Regent”, giving Abbott a ceremonial role, and Turnbull as “official guide” to the PM Regent!
This is the sort of thinking in that place. Chaperoning is merely the first step.
Ipsos poll?
http://www.canberratimes.com.au/act-news/trust-to-key-to-abbotts-slide-20141207-1221la.html
I think the fifth paragraph infers a 52-48.
[Now, based on preferences at the 2013 election, Labor holds sway by four points, Abbott’s disapproval is at minus-19, and Shorten has an eight-point lead as preferred PM.]
Darren Laver – it’s still a laughably silly idea that won’t work.
A 52-48 after… everything, would definitely suggest a pro-LNP house effect.
Darren, Jimmy
[it’s still a laughably silly idea that won’t work.]
Which means the Libs are bound to try it. 😉
Dan Gulberry – good point :/
lizzie@411
Well you may have identified the problem that some have, but it is not mine.
A quota is easy in theory, but when you get to implementing it, practical difficulties emerge, particularly when you get down to the level of individual seats.
Which seats will be reserved for women? But what if a seat nominally reserved for a female candidate has a very strong local candidate, with overwhelming local support, who happens to be male? Why that seat and not another allocated to a woman?
Even with the best will in the world it is difficult to implement.
But, that said, I do support it, as no-one has come up with a better idea, and it has worked in the ALP.
[Which means the Libs are bound to try it. :wink:]
Exactly
I wouldn’t rule out any of the Libs whacky plan Bs (and Cs and Ds) — they’ll be needed far sooner than they think.
Re. The brouhaha about the Greens from BW etc. calm down fellas. The Greens aren’t going away anytime soon. Especially as it has been harder and harder to distinguish between Lb and Lab for ever so long now. It is easy to decry sticking to principle as a weakness. But that is exactly how the slide down to the kind of generic foulness we now have as our politics comes into being. Think Whitlam and then look at how his party is now. Without the Greens holding the line they may well be where the Mad Monk is now.
Dan Gulberry@408
Thanks for ‘outing’ yourself as a Green aka LOON.
For the record, I have never voted for or supported any of the 6 individuals you name.
I regret not having been in a position to actively oppose the latter 3 and I look forward to seeing Obeid and McDonald dealt with by the law.
So organised crime got a foothold in the ALP. Well now they are out and ICAC has done us all a big favour.
IIRC, you are from WA so Joe Bullock is your problem, not mine.
bemused – presumably the best way to implement a quota is by looking at each seat in context:
– a seat with a strong female and strong male potential candidate should go for the female, but an argument can be made for simply going on merits.
– a seat with a weak female and weak male candidate, should go to the female.
– a a seat with a strong female and weak male candidate should go the female (and this one is especially a no-brainer).
– a seat with a strong male and a weak female candidates should go to the male.
I would argue that in most cases this is what happens in the Labor Party anyway, precisely because of the quota system.
bemused – I don’t think DG generally votes Green. He’s indicated he’s voted Labor multiple times in past, except where there is a noxious candidate, which is exactly the same position as Boer.
pritu – if you can’t distinguish between Labor and the Liberals, then you’re not paying attention.
One point I’d like to make is that just like Labor’s decision to switch leaders, you won’t be able to predict what the Liberals do next based on what you think is the most rational decision or the best decision for their electoral survival.
Indeed the factors you should be looking for are ambition, panic, right wing ideology (such as climate denial) and what Murdoch wants. Somewhere in there you’ll find a solution.
As much as I am loathe to post a link to Andrew Dolt’s show, his ripping Pyne a new one is worth watching.
http://tenplay.com.au/channel-ten/the-bolt-report/2014/12/7
bemused
Joe Bullock is not my problem. Nor is he WA’s problem.
He is the Labor Party’s problem.
Dan – but Bolt calls Pyne’s uni reforms ‘good public policy’, so he’s still a RWNJ where it counts.
Dan Gulberry@448
The WA Branch of the ALP inflicted him on the rest of us.
You are in WA and I acknowledge you have disavowed being a Green and identify as mainly a Labor supporter.
It is up to Labor members & supporters in WA to deal with him.