Driven mostly by a dreadful result from top-tier pollster Galaxy, the Coalition suffers another substantial downturn in the BludgerTrack poll aggregate this week, to the extent of returning to the worst depths of the post-budget slump. The change compared with last week’s reading amounts to a clear 1% transfer on the primary vote from the Coalition to Labor, translating into a gain of five for Labor on the seat projection including two seats in Queensland and one each in New South Wales, Victoria and Western Australia. With new figures added from Ipsos and Essential Research, the leadership ratings show Tony Abbott continuing to plummet, while Bill Shorten matching his post-budget figures on both net approval and preferred prime minister. Abbott hasn’t quite reached his lowest ebb on net approval, but he’ll get there in very short order if the present trend continues.
kezza
[lots of men and women all end up looking like dessicated men, at the end, just as they do as babies]
Can’t argue with that, but sometimes it takes until they’re in their 90s. Smokers get there quicker!
Getting back to my earlier thesis:
WHO’S THE STUD-FIGHT BETWEEN??
MR VIRILITY ABBOTT vs MR VIRILITY HOCKEY (with a supporting cast of most of the back-bench)
Looking forward to the David Attenborough Chest-Butts (Threatened by Strong Women) Award for this new species of Emasculated Men.
And the Winner is . . .
Couldn’t separate the whingers. Tony Abott & Joe Hockey.
Joe was still heard whispering, “Dolly did it.”
[CBC News @CBCNews 6m6 minutes ago
UN climate negotiators pass watered-down deal in Lima http://ift.tt/1w5kys7 ]
Further to Just Me’s post a page or so back, there are a couple of things to ponder, if you have any time for Occam’s Razor.
First, as I’ve said before, if you regard the primary purpose of Tory policy as being to funnel public money into (a limited number of) private pockets, it all makes a lot more sense.
Second, as Just Me noted, a good recession keeps the serfs in check. If you’re cashed up, it also provides plenty of opportunity to make a great deal of money from the scorched earth capitalism of asset stripping.
Sure, there’s no long term benefit to the economy but since when was long term thinking part of the Australian corporate culture? Yeah, I know the government have received a few warning shots across the bows from their business mates but, I strongly suspect, this is less because of the likely economic consequences of their policies and more because they’ve laid out the dark heart of crony capitalism for the electorate to see. A once bitten, twice shy populace may be a whole lot harder to gull in future.
[1781
Just Me
Anybody running a book on Abbott being garrotted by his own tribe before Xmas?]
I’ve predicted a purge at the end of the Recess, prior to the return of the Parliament.
But sooner is always possible. After all, if you’ve decided to act, what is to be gained by postponement? Usually, there’s nothing to gain, only the initiative to lose.
Abbott is objectively stuffed. The best thing to do (from an LNP viewpoint) is to dump him and refresh.
confessions
Some medicos suggest that jogging, while healthy, is a factor in early ageing.
To me Bishop looks older, hard faced, and drawn.
briefly
You and I, though coming from sharply different perspectives, often agree substantially on matters of practical policy. Regrettably, your posts on why you vote ALP and not Green amount to a fairly limp tribalism.
In our system, as you would know, voting Green does not entail dividing those who are opposed to the LNP. It simply lends this opposition a particularly non-conservative inflection. You still get to choose an ALP regime in practice, if that is what you wish. Indeed, in practice, this is compelled for as long as most people in most seats who are opposed to the LNP give their primary to the ALP.
Your assertion that we Greens ‘pick the pockets of the ALP’ assumes, as other ALP tribals here do, that the anti-LNP voters are the ALP’s as of some ancient right. That of course is not so. There is an earnest and honest contest on our side to redefine what it means to oppose the usages of the LNP and to favour equity and inclusion. You may argue, as some do, that the struggle for inclusion, social justice and equity is a pipe dream, or premature, or that our pursuit of it is too aggressive and will engender effective opposition, but these are political claims to be argued rather than facts that are self-evident.
You are an articulate and erudite poster. Accordingly, as your post is at 1770 I would urge you to take the proverbial ‘Captain Cook’ at it and see if you can’t better articulate the rationale for your support for the ALP than you have.
[1801
lizzie
kezza
lots of men and women all end up looking dessicated…
Can’t argue with that, but sometimes it takes until they’re in their 90s. Smokers get there quicker!]
As do drug-users. I have known some since my youth who have used most of their adult lives. Somehow, they’re still alive, but have looked utterly wrecked since they reached their 40s.
sprocket_@1799
Turnbull is proposing, just as Labor did, for the Govt/NBN to BUY BACK the Telstra assets.
I too object to all the spivs of various types benefiting from this, but the assets are now owned by Telstra and its shareholders.
So what is your alternative, confiscation?
The only one I can see is to drive a much harder bargain. After all, once NBN is built, they will be stranded assets with approx zero value UNLESS the
crooksLibs persist with their Fraudband and use the copper.confessions@1791
Have you ever seen a happy jogger? I haven’t.
Interestingly , a fight between 2 women has always been referred to as a catfight
briefly
neither of my parents smoked, drank, took drugs, but at the end of their long lives, they looked the same, dessicated & helpless, just as we are at birth.
I thought it was funny that we start out as females, all of us, and end up looking like males, all of us.
I wasn’t making any other observation than that we are all same, human beings, underneath it all. If only we could afford each other that respect.
A few days ago a poster reported the odds at Sportsbet were $1.85 for both Coalition and Labor. That is currently still the the same.
However Centrebet has odds of Coalition $1.67 and Labor $2.20 currently.
it’s interesting what sort of bets are being placed at these two online bookies.
feeney:
I’ve never encountered a jogger who didn’t have hard planes and lines around their face. It’s a high impact physical activity that puts enormous pressure on joints and feet, so I’m not surprised.
don:
Me either. 😆
Labor wasn’t buying back the copper assets. Labor’s agreement was to a) force the retirement of the copper and HFC assets as the FTTP was rolled out, and b) to allow NBNCo to access the pits and pipes (not the copper).
This agreement appears to vary this in 2 main ways (according to the superficial stories I’ve seen today):
1) NBNCo has the option of buying particular copper/HFC installations – it’s not clear to me what happens if NBNCo chooses not to buy the copper/HFC in an area, perhaps it is still forcibly ‘retired’, who knows;
2) There is some Foxtel deal that allows continued use of the existing cabling to deliver these cable services even after they are taken over by NBNCo.
In itself those points aren’t particularly controversial, although the insertion of Foxtel into NBNCo’s operations is not a positive as far as I’m concerned.
However, Clare’s point about maintenance is a big one. If NBNCo choose to roll out FTTN they will have to ‘take over’ the copper in the area from Telstra. How are NBNCo going to manage the copper? Where are the pillarboxes? Who would know where the wiring is, how to connect/disconnect/test/troubleshoot etc? The Telstra people, of course, and NBNCo are going to have to pay Telstra every single time there is anything to be done with the copper. Telstra will be laughing all the way to the bank, and have no liability for anything – NBNCo is now entirely responsible for any asbestos remediation/compensation etc.
That’s at least how I understand what Malcolm has just announced.
fran
[You may argue, as some do, that the struggle for inclusion, social justice and equity is a pipe dream, or premature, or that our pursuit of it is too aggressive and will engender effective opposition, but these are political claims to be argued rather than facts that are self-evident. ]
I’m unaware of any Labor poster here who has mounted such a silly argument. The ‘light on the hill’ is all about striving for things such as inclusion, social justice and equity.
The main difference, I would suggest, is that Labor sees these as something you work for with people, and the Greens see it as things you impose upon them for their own good.
zoomster
These sorts of discussions are real for Labor and hypothetical for the Greens.
The reason is that Labor forms governments.
The Greens do not.
Citizen
The odds on election wins I think are just part of the great gambling PR game
Before the last election I recall one journalist writing about trying to have a bet. He found it very hard to actually get set. Even when he wanted to back Labor. You would have thought the bookies would have relished the chance to get money off a mug.
I think he eventually found someone who sort of confessed that the bookies weren’t really interested in taking bets on the election but every time they changed the odds they got another headline and promotion for the business from lazy journalists who turned the press release into news.
It will be a great day for Australia when somebody can do something about the proliferation of bookies. I am not holding my breath.
[Second, as Just Me noted, a good recession keeps the serfs in check. If you’re cashed up, it also provides plenty of opportunity to make a great deal of money from the scorched earth capitalism of asset stripping.]
Bankruptcy driven fire sales bring a spring in the step, a gleam to the eye, a quickening of the pulse, and a warm inner glow to the heart of the cashed up spivocrat.
The last time the Libs elected a fitness fanatic (Tony) proved to be a stupid move. Now they are considering another one (JBish). Also not a smart move.
Zoomster
[I’m unaware of any Labor poster here who has mounted such a silly argument. The ‘light on the hill’ is all about striving for things such as inclusion, social justice and equity.]
Variants of these objections appear regularly amongst those here who accuse us Greens of being ‘purists’ or ‘shags on rocks’ ….
[The main difference, I would suggest, is that Labor sees these as something you work for with people, and the Greens see it as things you impose upon them for their own good.]
That’s one of the sillier strawmen I’ve seen conjured here.
[2) There is some Foxtel deal that allows continued use of the existing cabling to deliver these cable services even after they are taken over by NBNCo.]
Does this mean Foxtel can use NBNCo cabling to install its product in people’s homes without having to pay NBNCo for use of its cabling in order to do so?
If so, that sounds pretty controversial to me.
Fran, I think the whole shag thing is wishful thinking from those who wish the Greens weren’t around so often as they are ;).
[If so, that sounds pretty controversial to me.]
Possibly corrupt, even. 🙁
confessions – I don’t know. I’m assuming that they’ve just negotiated to allow for Foxtel’s continued use of any assets that are transferred across, which is reasonable.
http://www.zdnet.com/article/nbn-co-and-telstra-sign-amended-11-billion-deal/
[1807
Fran Barlow]
You’re a very observant and thoughtful participant here, as, I’m sure, you must be elsewhere and I generally enjoy your remarks. You bring a lot to the screens of PB.
I do understand the Green contention that there is an earnest and honest contest on our side to redefine what it means to oppose the usages of the LNP and to favour equity and inclusion. I do not question the convictions of those who make these claims on behalf of the Greens.
However, the proposition is taken further too, to include the idea that Labor does not or cannot properly “oppose the usages of the LNP” – that it is a lemonade shandy where the LNP is a full-strength lager.
This sells Labor at a serious discount. It is essentially the same claim that the LNP make – that Labor are “illegitimate”, hinting that they were conceived on the wrong side of the sheets; that they are inherently not entitled to aspire to power.
These claims are not merely jibes against Labor, they mock all those people who have, still do and must in the future rely on Labor for their best chances. Labor has a very proud history of both advancing the interests its cohorts while also seeking to modernise the economy and the culture. This history is to be defended just as Labor’s mission has to be re-expressed as circumstances evolve.
We might all be regarded as merely tribal. I concede I may be a cheap hack. But undecided I am not.
My area is currently on the NBN FTTP map (build preparation). There’s been a lot of activity of late replacing pits. Nearby in an area more advanced (build commenced) new conduits are being installed. All this work doesn’t come cheap. Under the agreement negotiated when Labor was in power Telstra was responsible for remediating the “pits and pipes” to make it fit for purpose. From what I have read of the new agreement NBN Co will now wear that responsibility.
Now the management of NBN Co may argue that there’s a lot less to be remediated (they only need to run fibre to the pillars), but that’s still a not insignificant amount.
Josh Taylor’s article also contained the following quote from NBN Co’s head of strategy JB Rousselot:
So, NBN are basically paying for the copper even if they don’t use it. Then if NBN Co choose to use fibre instead they’ll have to pay for the remediation of the infrastructure themselves.
fran
[Variants of these objections appear regularly amongst those here who accuse us Greens of being ‘purists’ or ‘shags on rocks’ ….]
Er, no. They’re not equivalent.
The Greens are accused of being ‘purists’ because they don’t recognise human or political realities. This actually slows down the rate of achievement, rather than accelerating it.
If the Greens were impatient for achievement, they would show a better understanding of how to go about it. They put being right and virtuous ahead of actual outcomes, and as a result miss opportunities to actually achieve.
‘Shags on rocks’ is again a reference to the lack of ability to achieve.
One point I should make. Telstra don’t currently carry out any maintenance on their copper network themselves. They contract it all out. So there’s no reason why those contractors can’t just move over to NBN Co.
Of course one of the issues with the copper network is that the accuracy of the records has deteriorated since maintenance was contracted out.
NBN Co are probably going to go through a painful transition as they take on the task of managing the maintenance of the copper network. Generally speaking it’s the worst part of the copper network (the last mile) that they’ll be maintaining.
zoomster@1829
Good post, zoomster. Sums up my feeling as well. If the Greens were a little more pragmatic, they might achieve some of their aims.
As it is, they have very little hope of achieving anything without the help of the ALP, and are therefore simply bandwidth thieves – here on PB as elsewhere.
Jackol:
I guess as the experts pore over the amended agreement and assess its consequences, we’ll learn more about the implications of these details.
One thing that makes me suspicious of a under the table deal for corporates like Foxtel is the rank short-sightedness of the coalition’s policy approach. Sure they pledged it pre election and yes it’ll cost, once it’s done, it’s done. And it isn’t like they haven’t kept other pre-election commitments.
No govt could be that tuned out to the longer term cost of abandoning FTTP for Australia, surely!
Confused by the self-serving bulltwang coming out of the MSM on the Lima Climate Change talks? Don’t believe the Lying Friar’s Band of Buffoons?
Read the communique yourself – only 4 pages. A bit couched in UN bureaucracy-speak but you will get the drift
http://unfccc.int/files/meetings/lima_dec_2014/in-session/application/pdf/cpl14.pdf
[One point I should make. Telstra don’t currently carry out any maintenance on their copper network themselves.]
Nobody “maintains” the copper network, they patch up faults when they occur. I used to work for a comms company that did work for Telstra, it was common to find a 100 pair cable on the plan was actually only a 50 pair. NBN Co are in a world of pain trying to sort the mess out.
Rip it up and start again with fibre is the most cost effective method.
Plus wtf should a Govt worry about Telstra’s share price?
[The developer who partnered with the Aboriginal Housing Company to redevelop The Block in Redfern has been forced to explain why an advertisement for a development completed in 2012 stated that Aborigines had “moved out” of the suburb.
The owner and director of DeiCorp Construction, Fouad Deiri, says that the statement on the website of Sydney-based Great Fortune Investments had “not been worded correctly”. Great Fortune Investments was engaged by DeiCorp in 2010 to market Redfern’s 19-storey Deicota Apartments to local and international Asian investors.
But Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander Social Justice Commissioner Mick Gooda says that the developer is “guilty-by-association” and that the incident should lead to a rethink as to whether they’re the right partners for The Block.]
http://news.domain.com.au/domain/real-estate-news/aboriginal-leader-slams-slur-in-developers-redfern-advertisement-20141212-1262g7.html
I saw this story first reported in The Australian during the week, and was pretty appalled. This kind of casual, out there racism has no place in the 21st century if we’re to overcome some of the attitudes I saw on that SBS program (the name of which escapes me).
On the positive side, anyone who owns TLS shares should be happy tomorrow when the market opens.
Following on briefly excellent posts @ 1710 and 1724:
Simon Katich is entirely correct @ 1742 when he points out that LNP economic policy is secondary to the aim of entrenching privilege in the hands of the few. What economists (and many others) don’t get is that neo-liberalism is not an economic argument, but a moral one.
It argues that the rich are rich because of divine virtue (nowadays they’ve developed better words for this) and the poor must be punished for the sin of being poor, because they must be lazy and dependent (hence why drug tests and welfare cards are always promoted by LNP Governments, right-wing think-tanks and business lobbies alike). This contempt for anyone who is not in the capitalist class is why neo-liberalism demeans workers as little more than commodities to be exploited, and advocates they be thrown to the mercies of “the market”, because why should a wage reflect what is needed to live, when what you are only paying for an object?
Any government policies to enhance the wealth of the spivocracy (like privatisation, tax cuts and corporate handouts) are not seen as corrupt or market-distorting but as entirely morally justified, as they rewards the rich, because they’re the most “productive” and “efficient” – code words for referring to the right sort of people having all the wealth.
Briefly correctly points out that in normal circumstances, conservative governments cannot openly say this, as the serfs still make up a vast majority of the population. What they do do, is wrap themselves in the flag, in sports, and in phony wars with foreign countries that have little bearing on Australia. They also resort to naked appeals to the underlying xenophobia present in this country, as fear and ignorance are great motivators to vote LNP. The mistake of this Government is that they have made their agenda so transparent, and have failed to competently distract from it.
I’m sure it wasn’t first reported in The Australian.
[I saw this story first reported in The Australian during the week, and was pretty appalled. This kind of casual, out there racism has no place in the 21st century if we’re to overcome some of the attitudes I saw on that SBS program (the name of which escapes me).]
http://www.sbs.com.au/ondemand/video/350129219927/first-contact-sneak-peek
On the unhealthy jogging theme,
[IF THERE is a sadder example of Darwinism in action, I don’t think I want to hear it.
News this week a Melbourne toddler had died after being fed raw cow’s milk was all the more heartbreaking because of how utterly needless the death was.]
Should the parents be charged with abuse?
[I’m sure it wasn’t first reported in The Australian.]
That’s where I first saw that real estate agent story reported. However I don’t recall any mention of The Block in Patricia Kervalas’ report. Maybe I didn’t read far enough into her article.
Diog
It is an absolute disgrace that this dangerous raw milk is able to be sold the way it is. Lysteria and e.coli have a high probability of being present.
It mat be a fime point of law that selling it as “Bath Milk” is not necessariy meant to deceive the buyer, rahter it is the buyer “misusing” it. That would be the company’s defence one would think. It is an entirely cynical thumbing of the nose at the regulators who can only look at food safety per se.
briefly
[However, the proposition is taken further too, to include the idea that Labor does not or cannot properly “oppose the usages of the LNP” – that it is a lemonade shandy where the LNP is a full-strength lager.
This sells Labor at a serious discount. It is essentially the same claim that the LNP make – that Labor are “illegitimate”, hinting that they were conceived on the wrong side of the sheets; that they are inherently not entitled to aspire to power.]
This is an almighty leap, and it’s hard to see how it can be made, if it can at all. That may well b what the LNP assert but since when do ALP stalwarts like you have a care to what the buffoons in the LNP assert? Regrettably, many in the parliamentary team are bothered by what the LNP cohort have to say, as Rudd demonstrated repeatedly during his time before and during his time in the big chair.
However that may be, that’s not our claim or implication though. We simply assert that the parliamentary ALP long ago decided that tenure trumped principle and accepted that tenure entailed accommodation of the demands of the elite regardless of their impact on the ALP constituency.
[Labor has a very proud history of both advancing the interests its cohorts while also seeking to modernise the economy and the culture. This history is to be defended just as Labor’s mission has to be re-expressed as circumstances evolve.]
The sad reality lies in the persistent disconnect between those who mostly vote ALP and even your party members and the actual conduct of your parliamentary and organisational wings. Most of your supporters are perfectly genuine in their desire for a better world, but your parliamentary teams drain their morale and leave them scrambling to apologise for every rotten compromise. Green though I am, I do feel great sympathy at the burden imposed upon the loyal ALP foot soldiers.
[We might all be regarded as merely tribal. I concede I may be a cheap hack. But undecided I am not.]
Oh I’d never describe you as a cheap hack. Ideas are clearly important to you. You value integrity and scholarship. You take yourself seriously. You deserve respect.
I believe however that you are rather too emotionally invested in your party and its prospects, and according, have adopted a rather panglossian view of its conduct and its prospects for achieving the kinds of ends you and I would affirm.
The reality is that without the pressure from us on the left, your party would scarcely contemplate moving more than a hair’s width to the liberal side of the LNP. There would be no rationale at all for them to do so, since their supporters would have no alternative. Sorites would rule.
That’s why folk of your inclination really ought to vote for us before the ALP so as to send a message to them that accommodation of the right is not risk-free.
If only your political views were as dynamic and rigorous as the scientific fields in which you are so admirably engaged on an intellectual level.
The Greens exist and are building a significant base of seats in parliaments across the land because they represent voters who feel unrepresented by Labor and unrepresented by the LNP. Labor’s unwise embrace of neoliberal economic dogma since 1983 gives many voters pause; as does its tendency in the post-Keating period to waver on critical matters of policy at critical moments instead of making a robust case and pressing ahead (climate change being the most recent example); its wishy washy Third Way Blair Clinton idea of the role of the national government in the economy; the credence it gives to economically illiterate surplus fetishism; its failure to understand and explain to the public the role of deficit financing in times of less than full employment; its failure to understand that a government that finances its spending by issuing and selling securities in a currency it controls does not have a solvency problem, and that the term “debt” to describe total Australian Government Bonds outstanding is extremely misleading because the financial instruments and the accounting procedures involved have nothing in common with household debt or business debt; and its immoral policies on asylum seekers.
Diog
I found this article to be quite outrageous —
[Olive Health Foods owner David Redcliffe spoke out after the Victorian government requested a federal investigation into labelling of unpasteurised milk and a possible ban on its sale following the death of a toddler earlier this week.
Mr Redcliffe has sold raw goats’ milk for 29 years and said a number of his customers drank the milk and had never fallen ill.]
[..“I wouldn’t advise people against it,” he said.
“We point out a lot of people do eat it and we point out that it’s also not for human consumption.”]
In other words, he encourages people to drink it.
[Mr Redcliffe said the call to ban the products was an overreaction.
He said it should be the consumer’s decision whether they drink raw milk products if they were aware of the risks.]
Yeah, because the toddler had a choice…
[“In the old days people drank directly from the dairy.”]
And in the old days, people died from TB.
http://www.bordermail.com.au/story/2762388/poll-raw-milk-has-place-in-market/?cs=11
BK
It’s one thing for an imbecilic adult to drink it but to kill your kid just has to be illegal given it is specifically labelled not for human consumption. And the producers have admitted they know it’s being drunk and not used for a “bath”.
Why would ‘bath milk’ need to be unpasteurised?
[I believe however that you are rather too emotionally invested in your party and its prospects, and according, have adopted a rather panglossian view of its conduct and its prospects for achieving the kinds of ends you and I would affirm.]
fran needs a mirror.
Diog
Yes, you are right. These people are of the ilk of the anit-vaxers. It makes one ponder the need for poeple to require a licence to bring up children.
Z
I think the ball is now in Bilsons court and he has the option of banning the sale of raw milk.
Z
Very good question.