Unless ReachTEL has something up its sleeve in the next few days, this week’s BludgerTrack reading is the last for the year, and it finds no indication that the rapid momentum away from the Coalition is tapering off. Indeed, the current output of the model has the Coalition in a worse position than at the height of the budget backlash, when Labor’s two-party vote peaked at 53.8%. Now it’s at 54.2%, following a 0.3% shift since last week that has also delivered seats in New South Wales, Victoria and Western Australia on the seat projection. Palmer United is also showing no signs of bottoming out, a remorseless downward trend since the mid-year Senate changeover having sent it from 6.3% to 2.3%.
A new set of leadership ratings from Newspoll this week knocks the froth off a recent improvement for Bill Shorten, and in doing so reverts his trendline to its remarkable picture of stability throughout the year, interrupted only by some particularly strong ratings in the immediate aftermath of the budget. Tony Abbott’s net rating slips slightly further, but this is due to the momentum of the trend rather than the effect of Newspoll, which was no worse for him than last fortnight’s. Newspoll also suggests the surge to Shorten on preferred prime minister is levelling off, albeit that he retains what from Abbott’s perspective is an alarmingly big lead by the normal standards of an Opposition Leader.
[ “@davrosz: So much easier to understand Abbott’s repeated gaffes now. He was just plastered!” ]
Same as when the Parliamentry debates on measures to address the GFC were taking place – passed out from a bout of booze and sleeping.
@smh: Ray Hadley attacks Tony Abbott’s response to Martin Place siege during fiery interview. http://t.co/UZp0H1qKRT
http://kevinbonham.blogspot.com.au/2014/12/poll-roundup-2014-year-review.html
Poll Roundup: 2014 Year Review
My aggregate: 53.7 to ALP (+0.3). (I think that’s rather conservative this week actually – just happens that all the assumptions line up in that direction; I’m not surprised BT is higher.)
Article includes various summary stats for the year including that Bill Shorten has set a new all-time Newspoll record for consistently mediocre net satisfaction ratings!
Haha Abbott in Hadley school gets a D Minus 👿
[Same as when the Parliamentry debates on measures to address the GFC were taking place – passed out from a bout of booze and sleeping.]
Please Please PLEASE! Get a Labor spokesperson to get out and remind people of Abbott’s actions … or lack of in fact.
When I mention Abbott’s admission to people most claim to have never heard of it. I don’t think Labor pressed the attack on Abbott anywhere near hard enough in his first year as OL and look where that got us.
lizzie@16
Rudd/Gillard?
Labor/Greens?
[President Barack Obama has praised the #illridewithyou social media movement during a phone call with Tony Abbott at the same time one of the Prime Minister’s own backbenchers derided the idea as a “pathetic”, “hating whitey” campaign.]
http://www.smh.com.au/federal-politics/political-news/president-obama-praises-illridewithyou-to-tony-abbott-as-liberal-mp-slams-hating-whitey-campaign-20141217-129icc.html
George Christensen strikes again!
Abbotts eagerness to shoot this one over to Labor will cause him more pain than he imagined.
He didn’t restrict himself to apolitical questions, which were quite legitimate, but raised patently politically loaded ones, such as how Monis was granted permanent residency and how he was given citizenship.
Unfortunately for him, Monis came into the country almost certainly while the Liberals were in power in 1996, was granted residency under Howard’s watch in 2001 and had citizenship bestowed upon him by the Liberals in 2004.
Paul Sheehan tiptoed around this in his faux concern article in the SMH today, while bizarrely referring to Rudd, intimating Rudd, and therefore Labor, bore some responsibility.
The facts speak of something very different.
@chrispytweets: 3AW reporting that Julia Gillard is to join the board of @beyondblue. A great appointment! #mentalhealth #mhoz https://t.co/GeUTRPNfjd
Fantastic!! We know Julia Gillard will do hard work and not just be a name member that does little
Houston, do we have a problem ?
[@latikambourke: PM Abbott says he mixed up interviewer’s name on live television because he was hungover, ]
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[- OPPOSITION Leader Tony Abbott warned breakfast radio listeners this morning that he’s a bit of a “grog-monster]
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[TONY Abbott missed the key economic vote of the new Parliament – the $42 billion fiscal stimulus package – because he fell asleep after a night of drinking witnessed by MPs from both sides of Parliament. ]
Abbott should do everyone a favour, and resign. He is not fit for purpose.
Yes, the Armani dress was fabulous on a slim figure, the heels were so high only a muscled leg could wear them safely, but there was a disconnect with the aging face. And why didn’t this organised FM buy the chocolates earlier.
[Ms Bishop said she would be spending Christmas with her family in her home city of Adelaide: “They all live in the same street. We allocate tasks and mine is normally to buy the chocolates. I have to get into the line at Haighs on Christmas Eve. That’s not easy; it’s a zoo.”]
Julie Bishop one of those otherwise attractive women with a face as hard as flint, rather like an older version of Victoria Beckham.
Abbott’s “inquiry”, asking questions about refugee status, citizenship and social security payments … all of these are awarded based on public service assessment of a set of criteria. Abbott seems to be saying that one of the criteria for rejection for all of these things should be “might one day commit a terrible criminal act that we have no specific evidence for but will take a guess at because he seems a bit dodgy”.
Of course that’s not how any system that claims to be impartial, evidence-based can work, and Abbott must know this. He can only be feeding his RWNJ audience. Questioning how Monis was granted refugee status, citizenship, welfare … ugly ugly ugly.
She could have tried Lindt’s in Sydney earlier in the week ….
Problem
Fucked nation
Cause
Ideological intelligence void
Fix
Election
Result
Bliss
“@Kate_McClymont: Bombshell of sorts just dropped: appears that former head of NSW Maritime is the Crown’s key witness against his ex friend Eddie Obeid #icac”
Which fool in the PMO’s office set up a Sunrise appearance after the Christmas Party? Or – doesn’t the PM have any self-control?
[ I don’t think Labor pressed the attack on Abbott anywhere near hard enough in his first year as OL and look where that got us. ]
labor did run with this at the time and at various other times, but the media weren’t interested, they had their hero tony at that time and it was all about the vibe. Policies and other stuff didn’t get mentioned.
Voters would have seen it at the time and they still voted for him.
Suckers!
JBishop’s family have solid taste in chocolates. Haigh’s are my favourite and the absolute best chocolate IMO.
Re: Abbott the ‘grog monster’ – also, keep in mind that there’s a significant portion of the population that would applaud a PM who doesn’t mind a bit of a drink. From the opposition’s point of view I doubt it’s helpful to be seen as a bunch of wowsers.
Personally I don’t care if he (or any other politician) gets plastered occasionally, but if it does affect his ‘day job’ he should be pulled up for it. I just don’t see a lot of political mileage in it though, and some potential negative image problems for anyone pursuing it vigorously.
Although, having said that, Abbott’s admission to drinking shandies was pretty embarrassing, and Shorten has shown no hangups about pursuing him about that.
Jackol
I doubt Shorten or Labor will go Abbott for being a piss head. They will continue to concentrate on the main game. It has served them well to date
lizzie:
I don’t even know why he’d admit to it in the first place. I’d only ever share with people I couldn’t stand that the reason I kept forgetting their name is that I was hungover. Bit of a slap in the face for Kochie – no wonder he revealed.
It’s official! Leyonhjelm IS an idiot!
http://www.abc.net.au/news/2014-12-18/senator-leyonhjelms-pro-gun-push-rejected-by-opposition-greens/5975210
Re Grog monster: Plenty of mileage in it in my view.
While Rome burns: Abbott hungover, Hockey & Cormann smoke cigars.
twitter has come up with #pissedPM
Did Leyonhjelm spoke to each one of those Sydney Siege victims and did any of them told them they wished they had a gun during the incident? No?
AMA presser now
“@ABCNews24: .@amapresident: We have received angry emails from GPs in relation to new co-payment proposal #Medicare #auspol”
Abbott the grog monster?
So the “light beer shandy with lots of lemonade” from the 2010 election campaign all night marathon was a lie too.
[@BernardKeane: The fury of the Right that their terror toy has been taken away from them by #illridewithyou is palpable, isn’t it?]
Shorten should assign an attack dog to pursue the ‘grog monster’.
Was Abbott pissed when he announced the changes to medicare. They are a bloody disgrace!!
Brian Owler of the AMA is absolutely scathing of these changes made by the govt
[ Fulvio Sammut
Posted Thursday, December 18, 2014 at 10:31 am | Permalink
Abbotts eagerness to shoot this one over to Labor will cause him more pain than he imagined. ]
I just listened again to that clip of abbott asking ‘questions’.
The main one is why the hostage taking was taken off watch lists in 2009.
Labors ‘fault’ according to abbott ?
Same old, same old.
Owler this is a $3.5 billion dollar hit to patients
Guytaur @ 109
Hopefully she is replacing that disgusting former Premier of Victoria, a man whose polices were responsible for a spike in mental illness in his state
You are going to love this:
Eddie Obeid has just appeared in Court while a choir outside was singing “Hark the Herald Angels Sing” and “Jingle Bells”.
How appropriate is that and what timing.
Re Victoria @132: the usual suspects have trawled the web looking for something to discredit the originator of the hash tag and came up with a quote they took out of context and twisted. Apparently those on the right they believe that Muslims as a group need to be punished for the actions of a deranged madman claiming their faith, although of course they won’t actually say that.
hostage taking = hostage taker
Steve777
Yep. Says a lot about their agenda.
lizzie@14
BB
Prevention
Frequent nude bathing in the sea. Find nearest Unclad Bathing Area at the beach.
[confessions
Posted Thursday, December 18, 2014 at 9:25 am | Permalink
There should have been an acknowledgment that no decent Australian would take out their anger on innocent Muslims, or tolerate anyone else who did.
On what basis does Savva simply assume Abbott has it in him to offer this kind of unity? Nothing we’ve ever seen from Abbott suggests that he does.]
Quite so. In fact he would see such an appeal as handing over his trump card. For Abbott the dog whistle is an all important part of his attack at all costs mentality. If a few innocent Muslims are hurt in the process that is just some unfortunate collateral damage.
I’m angry. Just been informed that the University have retrospectively reduced the points for each subject by 25%. My son now has to spend an extra year at Uni to get the required points for his Law degree. We thought last year was his last but now another year
guytaur@109
Not quite as depressing as Kennett chairing it. 😐
kakuru @ 80
[Among Hispanic Americans in the US, Cuban Americans are exceptional in that they strongly skew Republican. However, younger Cuban Americans are not as polarised as their parents. They helped Obama carry Florida in both presidential elections.]
Any influence that this issue will have in Florida in 2016 will be dwarfed by the ‘Hillary Effect,’ if she runs, which seems almost certain now.
If Hillary Clinto runs, she will win the Democratic nomination virtually without opposition, and the subsequent Presidential Election could be a landslide, given the much larger proportion of women voting in US elections than men.
AA
How can they just drop that change now?
AA
It sounds like your suggestion that hostages making a run for it caused the gunman to start firing. Sounds like he was increasingly agitated and they were being herded into groups and thought he was going to kill them.
[AA
How can they just drop that change now?]
Wouldn’t it affect a whole year some of whom would already have jobs lined up?