The second federal poll conducted for the Fairfax papers by Ipsos is somewhat less bad than what they’ve been accustomed to recently, while still giving Labor a lead of 52-48 according to preference flows from the 2013 election (up from 51-49 in last month’s poll) and 53-47 on respondent-allocation (steady). The primary votes are 40% for the Coalition (down two), 37% for Labor (steady), 12% for the Greens (steady) and 2% for Palmer United (down one). Ipsos was also about two points below trend on the Coalition primary vote last time, and landed a little high for them in its last poll before the Victorian election.
However, the poll corroborates other recent polling in having Tony Abbott’s personal ratings slumping, with approval down four to 38% and disapproval up eight to 57%. Bill Shorten is up three on approval to 46% and one on disapproval to 41%, and he now leads 47-39 as preferred prime minister after a 41-all result last time. The poll was conducted Thursday to Saturday from a sample of 1400.
[ MTBW
Posted Tuesday, December 9, 2014 at 4:01 pm | Permalink
I am actually starting to feel sorry for Abbott – the poor bastard doesn’t have a clue. ]
Don’t waste your effort – he has earnt all that he is getting and more.
He talked the talk and thats about all he has.
Inner Westie @841
Mr Abbott said the new version will still require parliamentary approval but it is a “better package”.
http://www.abc.net.au/news/2014-12-09/federal-government-dumps-gp-co-payment/5955012
[political_alert: PUP leader Clive Palmer calls government’s GP co-payment changes a “victory for Palmer United Party” #auspol http://t.co/zw2tPBgpfH]
Sounds to me like Clive will be supporting this latest brain fart. Pity.
Ta Question (for the answer!)
[ KEVIN-ONE-SEVEN
Posted Tuesday, December 9, 2014 at 4:01 pm | Permalink
The new plan is still idiotic. It puts totally unfair pressure on the doctors who will be forced to bill patients. So basically, if you are now a 100 percent bulk-biller you will have to start charging patients. ]
Real smart move – dumping/ announcing it to voters at Christmas.
inner Westie
Hockey may be distracted with his defamation case against fairfax
http://www.theage.com.au/nsw/joe-hockey-to-take-stand-in-defamation-case-against-fairfax-media-20141209-123dlm.html
warner out for 145
or was that 150? it is almost nearly 20% of 900
IW – if they play around with regulations the Senate will have a chance to disallow it, but that process has a 1 vote advantage for the government (assuming everyone is present, 38 votes would block legislation, but 39 votes would be needed to disallow regulation), and with the Senate as it is at the moment, 1 vote could easily be the difference between getting it up and not.
If Palmer is doing his tired routine of seeing some bogus movement from the government as a “win” so he can support the government now, the numbers are probably going to be close. Day and Leyonhjelm could well be supportive. X who knows. Muir who knows. Madigan maybe not. Lambie maybe not. I guess we’ll see how it all unfolds on the day.
And then there’s PUP itself … Lazarus seems to have decided he has a voice of his own. Could he be the next to depart the PUP umbrella?
The other issue that IF this happens, with PUP etc support… then there will be more than one group with a giant target on their backs in 2016.
850
briefly
[Posted Tuesday, December 9, 2014 at 4:28 pm | PERMALINK
policy mayhem…situation normal…bring on The Spill]
But JBishop has gone to Lima?!
I suspect that Abbott’s “A good government getting better and better” will be about as convincing as Julia Gillard’s “A good government that lost its way”.
@abcnews: The Federal Government scraps plans for an extra $7 GP fee but will cut the rebate paid to doctors. Have #yoursay.
http://t.co/hRAJiFfQPO”
Clive Palmer should have read this ABC tweet before he jumped the gun.
dave
I am sure you knew I was being facetious.
A government is immortal, an individual’s life is finite.
A government’s debt is held by vast numbers of bondholders who see the bonds as a safe, liquid way of parking money, and who are willing to just take the interest payment at maturity and roll over the principal time and time again. As long as the country’s productive capabilities are good and the political system is stable, a government can get its debt rolled over forever. An individual’s mortage debt is held by one bank or one non-bank mortgage provider who will not roll over your principal indefinitely.
A government can increase its income (tax revenues) at any time. An individual cannot raise his or her income just by choosing to.
A government issues a currency and influences inflation. If the debt it owes is denominated in its own currency, its position is much stronger than an individual debt holder’s. A government can impose a one-off tax on capital to pay down a significant amount of its debt. Another option is to use macroeconomic policy to bump up inflation and erode the real value of the debt over time. Individuals don’t have those options.
Tones getting further out in space.
You’re welcome IW,
I doubt the changes will shift the public opinion and the senate will have no problem blocking it.
[I should have used block quote for the ABC snip -test]
Anyway, without any legislation at all, that’s the end of Medicare. It’s all over folks.
Oops, maybe I’m mistaken and he does need legislation to cut the rebate.
858
A regulation standing in the event of a tied disallowance vote could well be subjected to a successful High Court challenge on the grounds that a disallowance motion failing is not passing in the negative.
Shorter Abbott:
“Huh… huh… ha ha… I is so clever! I changed it from $7 to $5 see? It’s a completely different number! That’ll fool everybody! And now, instead of the guv’mint taxing the poor, sick and defenseless directly, we’re going after the doctors instead. See, I is really smart cus’ everybody hates doctors!”
Geez, what a f*ckwit.
King and Shorten need to get in front of the cameras before 6pm EDT… time’s a tickin’
[860
victoria
850
briefly
policy mayhem…situation normal…bring on The Spill
But JBishop has gone to Lima?!]
There must be at least one person in the Liberal Party who can count. I think there will be a common New Year’s resolution in the LNP – a new leader and a new start!
J341983
Shorten has called a presser for 5pm AEDT.
[“@latikambourke: A wise coalition peep said to me a few weeks ago ‘what you will soon see is poll panic and backflip after backflip.’”]
Forever telling us what has happened but never what will happen. Hopeless.
Ok. This all makes even less sense. This is basically the exact same proposal as they put initially, except that concession card holders don’t pay the copayment (probably?). There is still a thing that is a copayment, although it is “optional” – except it was always going to be “optional” if the GPs and support workers were willing to wear the loss of $7 – now $5.
If they want to facilitate doctors “bulk-billing” but charging the copayment, then they definitely need legislation. I suspect if that faces defeat they’ll just use regulation to drop the rebate, and that they’ve been to-ing and fro-ing over that.
But saying that:
Seems entirely misleading. So it’s $5 instead of $7 – with that extra $2 coming from what the GPs were going to receive in the initial proposal and now will not receive…
It’s just a mess, and as others have said here the doctors are going to be furious and rightly so. Maybe this is payback for the AMA coming out against the original proposal. A Nelson Muntz Hah hah!
Kevin Rudd was supposedly on a plane on his way overseas last time a PM was rolled…
victoria @856
From the article:
Due to his bullying arrogance and risible failure to sell a nasty and vengeful budget, Hockey is inflicting upon himself these reputational injuries far more effectively than an two-bit newspaper heading ever could.
Tom Hawkins
Too true
Inner Westie
[Due to his bullying arrogance and risible failure to sell a nasty and vengeful budget, Hockey is inflicting upon himself these reputational injuries far more effectively than an two-bit newspaper heading ever could.]
Perhaps fairfax should include this in their Defence. 😀
Interesting to see that the libs haven’t given upon their most basic belief: they think we’re stupid.
Not only is this Government hopeless, but moves like this open them up to being called mean and tricky. Weren’t they the labels Howard tried to run away from in 2001?
TH 874 – Yes, that would have been such a good “zinger” about a week ago, but she wouldn’t do it.
No wonder her nickname in Canberra is “Libtika”
Ta Jackol
I wonder if there’s any danger for the government in serially circumventing* proper legislative process to get their reforms enacted?
Or at least appearing to be doing this as a matter of strategy.
JACKOL – Maybe they want to go the legislation route because they’re hoping that the senate will knocked off this plan as well. Otherwise, before the next election, a lot of people are going to have to start forking over money to a doctor.
INNER WESTIE – Don’t hold your breath thinking that Sweaty Joe will get into the witness box. That means he won’t be able to claim for pain and hurt, but he can still claim damages for defamation.
[ MTBW
Posted Tuesday, December 9, 2014 at 4:34 pm | Permalink
dave
I am sure you knew I was being facetious.]
You would be wrong then.
This from Bernard keane
[Nice test for the media, this – if they describe it as “dumping” the co-payment, they haven’t paid attention to what was announced.]
The Greens have passed the ALP, by 38 vote on preferences, in Prahran.
Mathematics abviously not the Daily Telegraph’s strength –
“TONY Abbott today bowed to more than 600 days of savage reaction from voters and his own MPs and dumped the proposed $7 GP copayment.”
http://www.dailytelegraph.com.au/news/national/tony-abbott-announces-changes-to-7-medicare-co-payment/story-fni0xqrc-1227150112844
600 days before today is April 13, 2013. As Abbott was still denying the GP tax before the Griffith by-election in February 2014, they are really clueless.
[“@latikambourke: A wise coalition peep said to me a few weeks ago ‘what you will soon see is poll panic and backflip after backflip.’”]
Coalition peep very wise indeed, to tell Latika. She’ll keep it to herself, and reveal only when everyone already knows.
vic
abc: failed
fairfax: failed
murdoch: failed
Senator X presser now
Tom:
[The Greens have passed the ALP, by 38 vote on preferences, in Prahran.]
Fisher in SA looking dicey too for ALP.
Kakuru
Yep the lib candidate is only a dozen votes behind in Fisher
“@ABCNews24: Nick Xenophon: The Government should be working with GPs not declaring war on them #auspol #ABCNews24”
Display Name
The msm is forked
[Inner Westie
Victoria
[Due to his bullying arrogance and risible failure to sell a nasty and vengeful budget, Hockey is inflicting upon himself these reputational injuries far more effectively than an two-bit newspaper heading ever could.
Perhaps fairfax should include this in their Defence.]
A media organisation once ran a defence to a defamation action by Greg Chappell along the lines he had no reputation to damage (presumably because of underarm bowling).
victoria
[Nice test for the media, this – if they describe it as “dumping” the co-payment, they haven’t paid attention to what was announced.]
Just five minutes after you posted that someone posted the Toilet’s Fail.
[“TONY Abbott today bowed to more than 600 days of savage reaction from voters and his own MPs and dumped the proposed $7 GP copayment.”]
Tom – shhh, BW might hear!
victoria
Worse than that – Lib ahead by 17 in Fisher, says the good Dr Bonham.
http://kevinbonham.blogspot.com.au/