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.
When a cynical journo asked whether Morrison was really suited to welfare, Abbott answered that he was a nice guy who had two children. So there! 😀
Ah yes. Deregulated education. Just what we need more of!
http://www.abc.net.au/news/2014-12-21/private-training-colleges-accused-of-targetting-poor-areas/5981752
SK – This Govt still doesn’t think it has done anything wrong. The problem has been the messaging. That his why this is all just window dressing. Long may that continue.
[Pyne is left in place to continue to lose the government votes every time he opens his mouth.]
As is Hockey.
[Peter Dutton, being an absolute log, will be unable to maintain Morrison’s manic control of Immigration and it will all start to turn to shit very quickly.]
That is extremely demeaning of logs, ajm!
Obama and the US Sec Council
and Israel
_______________________Noted Israeli writer and commentator Uri Avernery,writes today of the possibility that for the first time the US Pres might NOT us the veto in the Sec Coluncil to save Israel from resolutions affecting it
Obama has had endless triuble with Netanyahu…now in splendid isolation ,as more and more nations recognise Palestine as a sovereign state.as the Euro P’ment has just done
Now a US resolution to give Palestine full UN membership,is before the Sec C,and only the S Veto can stop it
It’s known that Obama loathes Netanyahu,and wants to teach the Israelis a lesson and so may for the first time..withhold the veto
says Uri Avernery…” Israel is now in splendid isolation…will Bishop continue her support for Israeli over the West Bank..regardless
times running out for the Israelis on many issues
http://www.veteranstoday.com/2014/12/20/uri-avnery-splendid-isolation/
[1584
AussieAchmed
Posted Sunday, December 21, 2014 at 4:05 pm | PERMALINK
I’m sure Morrison will paint the unemployed, disabled and pensioners as a sovereign risk]
It will be interesting how he treats the OAPs who are some of the shock jocks’ core listeners.
A very poor presser, considering that it was supposed to be a reboot. No real policy plans except trying to get his unfair budget through, and when under pressure he immediately reverted to his old “we have stopped the boats, etc etc”. Lots of lip smacking and repetition.
Privatising stuff:
We should offer Scrot for sale.
The US Tea Party may make an offer.
I guess 2015 will see in a barrage of lurid stories about “lazy” “rorting” welfare recipients from Mordor papers , shock jock land.
Another effect of global warming.
[Known as ciguatera fish poisoning, the illness has been mostly tropical. Early Pacific explorers described it as far back as 1606 and even in 1776, during the second voyage of James Cook. More than 1500 cases have been documented in Australia since 1965 and the number appears to be rising.
The toxins are produced by marine microalgae, particularly the gambierdiscus genus. As fish graze on the algae and are then eaten by other fish, toxins accumulate up the food chain to levels harmful to humans.
This year, NSW had its first cases of the illness from fish caught in the state’s waters, with Food Authority NSW documenting four at Evans Head – including Ms Hollis – and Scotts Head, also in the state’s north.
Researchers, including Shauna Murray from the University of Technology, Sydney, have also detected gambierdiscus as far south as Merimbula for the first time.]
http://www.theage.com.au/environment/fish-poisoning-spanish-mackerel-case-a-wakeup-call-for-spread-of-deadly-toxins-20141221-12ajhy.html
So, now they are going to give ‘Arbeit Macht Frei’ a trot over at social security.
Boerwar
Well Abbott did say it is all about “workforce participation” next year.
[Grattan : “This could be the restart the Abbott Government needed going into the new year or it could prove a mere reshuffling of deck chairs on the Titanic”]
This is a joke comment, right? Ol’ C.B. didn’treally say this did she?
C’mon… whoever write this, fess up. It’s not funny.
As has been pointed out elsewhere, Morrison wanted Defence.
Instead he got SS.
No doubt more welfare cuts are coming & he’s been given the hospital handpass by Abbott to kill off his ambitions.
[lizzie
Posted Sunday, December 21, 2014 at 4:33 pm | Permalink
Another effect of global warming.]
Yeah. Year. Climate science is crap.
Once you eat the wrong fish, the toxin has one somewhat unusual quality: it can be spread by sexual intercourse.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ciguatera#Signs_and_symptoms
If you are uncertain whether a fish you have caught might have ciguatera, cut a bit off and feed it to your neighbour’s mongoose.
It your neighbour does not have a mongoose, cats work fine.
All those empty immigration centres not used because everyone in in Manus can now be used as boot camps for the unemployed, overseen by Angus Campbell.
[poroti
Posted Sunday, December 21, 2014 at 4:35 pm | Permalink
Boerwar
Well Abbott did say it is all about “workforce participation” next year.]
Morrison has demonstrated that he will stop at nothing to assuage his power lust.
There is a bit of a Catch 22 in the old workforce participation trick: if they get that up they will only get their unemployment stats up.
Boerwar
Very funny.
The list of fish which might contain it is a bit of a worry. I’m a bit partial to quite a few of them.
I trust someone in the ALP is doing a bit of due diligence on Mr Dutton, like going through his old twitter feeds to check if he has ever said anything really nasty and stupid, like his friend from Dawson, about foreigners and/or “ethnics”. I had a feeling there was something like that some time back, could be wrong though.
Mr Morrison’s appointment is interesting. He’s acquired a reputation for effectiveness to date, but largely because he was monstering foreigners whom few cared about, and because for that reason he had the political authority to get a lot of his stuff through. He will suddenly be much less popular if his nastiness is targeted on a domestic audience; and if the Senate knocks back his nasty stuff with impunity, which it might well do, he will also come to look ineffectual. All things considered, I think Mr Abbott has deliberately handed him a poisoned chalice. (And of course, his dream of being a great national security czar has been well and truly kiboshed.)
poroti @ 1590
[According to Scrot’s fellow happy clappers Dog wants us all to be rich, being rich is a sign you have pleased him. Which of course means being poor must mean you are unworthy and sinful, displeasing to the sight of Dog. What a guy to look after the disadvantaged on our society.]
Precisely! and Happy Clappers hymn book 101.
Sky now spending more news time on the story about the anonymous call warning ASIO that Monis was a big risk and Abbott’s defence of ASIO’s response to the call.
Who would have thought that the Great Islamophobic Dog Whistler and War Monger was going to be bitten on the bum by a crazed nutter psuedo sheik?
I wonder why the enquire TOR DO NOT INCLUDE WHETHER ABBOTT SHOULD HAVE PICKED UP THE SIEGE PHONE AND TALKED TO MONIS.
After all, Abbott was big on advising Rudd and Gillard to just pick up the phone and…
K17
So a claytons reshuffle for a claytons restart. Smoke a mirrors.
Surely some of them are starting to wake up in the mornings thinking ‘what’s that awful stench….oh, its me’.
[1582
Greensborough Growler
briefly,
Better to do that now than in six or twelve months with an election looming!]
Sure, he has to try to “reset the narrative.” He has foreshadowed this in his statement today:
Mr Abbott said the reshuffle “will put jobs and families at the heart of our political agenda for 2015. This is a ministry for jobs and families and it is a sign that this is a Government which wants the economy and the budget to be front and centre in the coming year.
“I have said all along that this Government’s whole mission is to build a strong and prosperous economy for a safe and secure Australia and this new ministry which I announce today will help to make that absolutely true in the coming year.”
http://www.theage.com.au/federal-politics/political-news/tony-abbott-sacks-defence-minister-david-johnston-moves-scott-morrison-and-kevin-andrews-20141221-12bm85.html
Unless Abbott can turn things around soon, he will almost certainly lose the next election. It’s pretty clear that voters are not heavily invested in the Abbott government and will not feel any deep regrets about switching sides again.
Abbott is talking about re-arranging the spending/social policy mix in the coming year. Surely this is aimed at his own party as much as at the public. In any case, this is the easy bit. Spending is always easy. The hard bit is revenue. Unless measures are taken to lift revenue – measures that do not rely on siphoning income away from the lower 3 quartiles of income earners – the LNP will have nothing in the kitty.
If they can fix the revenue, keep growth on a firm track and deliver positive social spending policies they can retrieve their situation. This means they have to land the trifecta. In the context of a weak economy, this is a huge ask of such an incompetent and lazy bunch of misfits and ideologues.
Bob Hawke, Paul Keating, John Dawkins and John Button were able to do this in the 1980s. It’s far from clear that this Government has anything like the talent needed to repeat Hawke’s achievements.
Sales of Tineafax and Canestan have gone through the through the roof.
[Victorian Kelly O’Dwyer will be parliamentary secretary to Treasurer Joe Hockey]
Will O’Dwyer become the first female to hold a significant finance portfolio in the Commonwealth Government?
If Bishop rolls Abbott, she would have to be a chance.
Boerwar
Not if you reclassify as “employed” the unemployed you force to provide free/cheap “work for the dole” labor at their mates’ sweatshops.
Briefly
Sharman Stone was either Treasury or Finance parl sec before being exiled to the back bench, I believe.
poroti
Ah. Arbeit does macht frei, after all.
The Abbott Government is destructive. I want their ‘reform’ agenda blocked at every turn. I don’t want it to do anything other than keep the wheels of Government turning until we can boot them out and start repealing any reforms they do manage to implement. So in that sense, it doesn’t matter how Abbott has rearranged the deck or how competent or otherwise the new team is.
Briefly
Penny Wong was minister for finance
They reckon that Defence is a ministerial graveyard.
I reckon that Andrews has jumped the gun.
1628
Boerwar
Posted Sunday, December 21, 2014 at 4:48 pm | Permalink
Briefly
Sharman Stone was either Treasury or Finance parl sec before being exiled to the back bench, I believe.
Yes, and Margaret Guilfoyle was Fraser’s Minster for Finance for a while…
Question from the floor without notice. Need a quick answer Thanks in advance.
What was the actual name of the Bill that Andrews presented to the Senate re reforms that was knocked back and was it the Bill that because of the vote was ruled in the negative and lost completely
Boerwar
Andrews does bring to mind an undertaker
Hmmm…
Sky has just put the killing of the two Brooklyn cops squarely in the context of the protests against cops killing blacks.
Are they making shit up? Or do they have something we don’t know about?
Boerwar
Apparently the guy who shot them posted a message about “taking two of them” for one/both the recent publicized deaths.
Yes Boerwar – it is funny old world isnt it with Sky. …. that is why the offender killed his girlfriend prior to killing the poor unsuspecting Police Officers.
Every cop killer in the US always bumps of his GF or a family member before doing the job.
Looks like Sussan Ley’s former gig of child care and early childhood ed has been split between Morrison and Pyne.
So instead of a Minister looking after kids, Abbott has axed the position.
p
Quel idiot.
rua @ 1639
It is a very peculiar thing. Who got what? Giving young kiddies to either Pyne or Morrison hardly bears thinking about.
I assume that Morrison has been given the task of morphing the PPL into a childcare thing?
Is everyone else’s PB page peppered with adverts for increasing testosterone, or just me?
From the NY Times. He doesn’t look to have gone after “white” police officers.
[Two N.Y.P.D. Officers Are Killed in Brooklyn Ambush; Suspect Commits Suicide
The officers, Wenjian Liu and Rafael Ramos.
……..Mr. Brinsley, who had a long rap sheet of crimes that included robbery and carrying a concealed gun, is believed to have shot his former girlfriend near Baltimore before traveling to Brooklyn, the authorities said. He made statements on social media suggesting that he planned to kill police officers and was angered about the Eric Garner and Michael Brown cases.]
http://www.nytimes.com/2014/12/21/nyregion/two-police-officers-shot-in-their-patrol-car-in-brooklyn.html?hp&action=click&pgtype=Homepage&module=a-lede-package-region®ion=top-news&WT.nav=top-news&_r=0
lizzie
I’m getting advanced digital technology stuff.
Wanna swap?
[child care and early childhood ed has been split between Morrison and Pyne. ]
What a frightening thought.
Boerwar
Yes, swap please. 😀 I’m sick of pics of old wrinkly men and pieces of rather pornographic ginger.
Hi all, a quote from Ellis’s stream of conscious rant, which might have an element of truth…:
[Obama recognised Cuba, and Murdoch’s columnists said not a word about it…
Their menacing Moloch, Murdoch, had not yet told them what to say]
Thanks to BK for the link,
Dawn Patrol is never assumed, always appreciated, and often delightful.
Hmmm. Now it’s swapped to anti-wrinkle treatment.
Crikey knows my age 😮
What a joke from the Tiser
[
New roles
PM doubles women in Cabinet ]
lizzie
Since you put it that way, no cigar.
I’ll stick with the digital stuff.