What will presumably be the last Newspoll of the year records no change on a fortnight ago, with Labor’s two-party lead at 54-46. Labor grabs the lead on the primary vote, moving up two points to 39% with the Coalition up one to 38% and the Greens down one to 12%. For the first time in a while, Tony Abbott’s personal ratings are not appreciably worse than last time, his approval steady at 33% and disapproval up one to 58%. Bill Shorten is respectively down two to 37% and steady at 43%, and the size of his lead as preferred prime minister is unchanged, being 43-36 last time and 44-37 this time.
”I also want to see Abbott’s role in jailing Hanson properly investigated. And I don’t even like Hanson. But something seriously stinks about all that.”
He is a vindictive nasty piece of work!, most of what he has done in government shows that.
Anyways, I see no-one can answer why Abbott didn’t just pick up the bloody phone and talk to his fellow lunatic; tell him he’d be on the first plane to Sydney as long as when he got there, the idiot would let the hostages go.
Jeez, if Lindsay Thompson could deliver a ransom to the Faraday kidnappers, then the least Abbott could do was “pretend” he was going to talk to the guy.
BUT, I suppose it was the dicks in security that told him “NO”.
Just like they did on Australia Day at that silly Canberran cafe, when they made Julia Gillard look like an idiot, as well as Abbott.
Julia Gillard could have been a hero if she’d stopped to talk to the people who were furious with Abbott’s stupidity about the Aboriginal Embassy having had its day.
Why do our pollies listen to the “security arseholes”? It always ends in tears.
And I believe Credlin had a lot to do with it!.
Quote:
”Her authority within Abbott’s office is absolute – and extends far beyond it. She’s worked closely with Scott Morrison on asylum seekers and George Brandis on the pursuit of Craig Thomson.????
Perhaps because they trust them to do their jobs properly. I certainly would imagine that those with specialist security knowledge would know better about what to do in a hostage situation that I would.
Says the man who profiteered through embedded journalism. What a disgrace.
Bemused:
This 2002 paper might help. It does leave your question open. http://bjp.rcpsych.org/content/180/2/110.full
The analogy with obesity used in the paper is a good one. That is, we do not medicalise everyone who is obese even though it can lead to a range of medical conditions that might subsequently need medical treatment. Likewise we do not medicalise people with personality disorders although the disorder might lead to a range of medical conditions – like depression or anxiety.
Although personality disorder might lack the sense of free will ordinarily associated with those who are obese (i.e. one “chooses” to be fat by overeating but one doesn’t choose to lack the empathy required of a psychopath) nevertheless the same idea of free will underpins regarding people with personality disorders as just being extreme examples of “normal”. Thus we can “choose” to be “bad” (psychopathic) as we can “choose” to have another donut in each case without being thought to be sick.
Whether there is such a thing as free will is a much more difficult discussion but for most of us our intuition is that it is real. And if we regard free will as real then people who are not sick will do “bad” things.
How many ‘security experts’ do ABC24 need to say endlessly that lone nutters are harder to detect than organised groups …
@abcnewsSydney: #Sydney florists sell out as tributes to flow in for #sydneysiege victims in #MartinPlace http://t.co/kqxKNX2X7w http://t.co/MJBL6JSDc4
If I were writing “the siege” in a novel, I would have the hostages try to creep out when the perp falls asleep at around 2pm. One hostage makes a noise. Perp wakes, sees what is happening and starts shooting. Manager tries to get gun away and is killed. Police storm the building.
Could have happened that way.
Rates Analyst i think this is essentially what happened in Egypt nearly 4 years ago. The Muslim brotherhood was one of the least oppressed of the opposition groups in that country that is why they had the most effective organisation at the first elections following Mubarak’s ousting. That is my understanding anyway.
http://www.theguardian.com/australia-news/2014/dec/16/barrister-convicted-of-tax-offences-in-line-for-queensland-magistrate-job
Apoligies if already posted here.
Itep
Name one time when listening to security, when a pollie’s involved, has ended well.
Don’t forget these people want their day in the sun, what with all their specialist sharp-shooting training.
As someone mentioned, on social media, if Channel 7 could get a clear headshot of the bloke, why didn’t a “specialist security person” just take him out? This was an hour or so into the siege.
I don’t want anyone killed, but if they’re going to be killed anyway, just get on with it – and save the civvies.
CTar1
Who the fcuk needs to get and “expert” to tell them such bleeding obvious.
i know kezza, its sad.
But during the anti CSG stuff in the Northern rivers (NSW) over the last few years there definitely seems to be some coming together of farmers and blackfellas, and some acknowledgement of that history.
re your comment @ 1485:
Well said – good on ya.
Kezza2
I was wondering this myself
The CIA also concluded that the likelihood of the British and French attacking the Egyptians in 1956 was low. The Israeli’s involvement must have come as a real surprise.
Eisenhower was not amused with the CIA.
WTF?!?
Talk about vindictive obsessives. Also poor political judgement if they think there is much mileage left in Thomson’s case.
victoria
Perhaps at that stage it was not clear if there was more than one hostage taker ?
http://www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/2014/dec/16/sydney-siege-dont-call-man-haron-monis-a-terrorist-it-only-helps-isis
iAs someone mentioned, on social media, if Channel 7 could get a clear headshot of the bloke, why didn’t a “specialist security person” just take him out? This was an hour or so into the siege.
At that time they were still unsure if he was acting alone in the shop.
I guess all the armchair experts making comment with the advantage of hindsight will be espousing their expertise.
They will create more problems with their self importance and adherence to their belief they know better than the people who have spent their working lifetime training for these type of incidents
I’m sure on a number of occasions. The general public are hardly likely to receive regular updates on what security advice has been provided to the PM. It is their job to display an abundance of caution because the risks are often high.
poroti
The Septic ‘intelligence analysists’ will be here for 6 months and conclude same.
I’m guessing here, but:
The perp had made mention of explosive devices both in the cafe and in other locations in the city. While it would have been obvious at the time that that was probably a lie, the police et al couldn’t take the risk. A well prepared hostage taker, with actual explosives, could easily rig up a ‘dead man’s switch’ resulting in a detonation if the perp is killed/loses consciousness.
It was unlikely, but it was still a possibility that they had to consider that to knock out/kill the guy could result in the deaths of everyone in the building.
poroti
When the first hostages escaped, police would have been able to glean from them exactly who and what was going on
That’s my theory as well lizzie.
Jackol
Good point. I had forgotten about this
– kezza
-Itep
They certainly failed to do their job properly at that incident in Canberra. Unless their job was to stop the PM talking to the blackfellas there, which I suspect was the case. Gillard would have been fine if she’d spoken to that group of people, at least according to the ones I knew who were there. They would have loved to hear her speak.
What happened that day was just what Abbott wanted, as was obvious from the moment he made the comment with the sly shitstirring grin on his face.
Tony and Margie have laid wreaths at the “memorial” spot.
Bloody hell…Abbott had Margie with him in Martin Place.
He either needed a real human with him or ha shirt/tie ironed
AussieAchmed
Too many think there is a connection between reality and Holywood action movies.
Actually, not wreaths, sorry. I was copying the commentators. They were bouquets.
As if to emphasize the terrible tragedy, the SMH has this headline:
Sunrise host Natalie Barr overcome with emotion.
And if that’s not tragic enough for you:
‘He’s threatening to kill us’: Marcia’s horrific Facebook posts
What with horrific Facebook posts and tearful talking heads, we have, as a nation, run the whole gamut of emotion from A to B.
From the camera footage they had multiple opportunities to shoot the guy. If they’d wanted to/felt the need they would have.
Whether what you say is a factor or not i’m glad the cops tried to resolve the situation peacefully. It says something important about our society that they chose not to just kill the guy even tho they could have.
I don’t really like cops much but the fact they didn’t kill him before it went to shit, despite opportunities, does put them in a good light imo.
shellbell@1437
Actually that is the only case I can think of where such a claim may have a shred of credibility because it went on for so long before police arrived.
lizzie
Tony and Margie could do the country a favour and ride off together into the sunset..
victoria@1515
Me too
Kezza, my understanding is that its actually quite difficult for a sharpshooter to reliably target a person through a plate glass window. In this context its a very precision business. First shot has to kill the target because of the danger to the hostages and its possible for the glass to deflect the line of the bullet as it penetrates.
Can apparently be done with two shooters. First round breaks the glass and the second follows up a second or so later through already weakened glass, fragments or suchlike. But its still chancy and i cant see the coppers wanting to take that risk early in a siege when negotiation hasn’t really begun.
I think that’s the most likely explanation. They would not have had definitive info around that until those people who escaped in the afternoon were debriefed.
Too many people watching Bond/Arne/Bruce Willis action movies and getting reality confused with the fantasy of a movie.
The shot would have been through glass, this could cause the bullet to deflect. Using a heaving bullet to “prevent” deflection would possibly passed through the hostage taker.
Given that no-one knew what was in the backpack that could have caused an explosion, or killed a hostage.
I spent 32 years working in prisons and over 17 years training and studying for all type of incidents that occur in prisons, including hostage taking.
After every incident the reviews were carried out by armchair experts with hindsight as a ‘tool’. Very little of any use came from the reviews by these “drips under pressure”.
the best reviews were our own team reviews
Especially since:
SURE. Who’s this Mr Craig Stoker, with three children, from Eastlakes.
Obviously an angry bastard who abuses someone gratuitously for ‘bumping’ into him.
Sounds so real. NOT.
And what happened to the two accomplices? Oh, funny that, they didn’t exist.
Our security experts should be trained to filter out the dross. And our PM should have enough integrity to override bullshit. Not get caught up in the drama.
FULLY UPDATED: Abbott’s wreckage list increased by 25% today. It’s now up to 403 with 38 broken promises
http://wp.me/P48vlR-1S
From that article by Birmingham:
Yup, i think there is something worth considering in that.
And even if that had been the case (a very, very debatable case) the price would be hundreds of additional gun deaths from all of the additional massacres, random shootings and suicides.
BC
Aside from the shooter, I assume.
The NRA meme is that “the best defense against a bad guy with a gun is a good guy with a gun”. Sounds great, but it rarely (if ever) works in practice.
NRA lore has (alleged) accounts where innocent bystanders carrying a firearm have deterred or taken down a shooter. Upon examination, most of these accounts don’t hold water.
Like the Clackamas, Oregon mall shooting in Dec 2012 – here a bystander carrying a concealed weapon claimed he deterred the shooter from further bloodshed – despite the bystander not actually firing his weapon. The police later called bullshit on his claim. But the NRA stands by this guy as a hero.
Do we know over what period the Essential Poll was taken? I was wondering if a part of it may have been taken yesterday during the hostage crisis.
imacca & aussie achmed
Of course I know that. It would have been stupid to do that at that time.
But seriously, why couldn’t Abbott have just said he’d speak to the fucker instead of all the hours of bullshit drama with the ending being two much-loved people dead.
While all Abbott did was a press-conference indicating terrorism, instead of what is was, a twit wanting to speak to a fellow twit.
Anyway, we now have another crisis on our hands. Perhaps Jihadis think Julie Bishop is at DFAT.
New thread.
Kezza2
Honestly, things were so much better before this mob got into govt. 😀
Anyhoo talk later
Jules – yes, the same dynamic plays out over and over again.
The other reason not to take the shot through the glass is timing. Remember the Seven studies are opposite the café. If the shooter went straight in the seven cameras would have been there well before the police. The fact the cameras were then in time to take a shot doesn’t mean the police sniper was.
Can someone here give me a definitive answer to the question of whether a disallowance motion in the Senate that ties, succeeds in disallowing the regulation.