Essential Research will end the silly season polling drought early next week, and we might also get a Morgan result if the precedent of last year is anything to go by. Newspoll is probably about three more weeks away, Ipsos maybe another week after that, and with Galaxy and ReachTEL you can never really tell. In the meantime, you can enjoy the detailed state breakdowns from BludgerTrack which I have taken to publishing on a quarterly basis. If you’d like commentary with that, you can read it at Crikey if you’re a subscriber, as you should be. If looming state elections are more your bag, check the two posts beneath this one for fresh polling from Queensland and New South Wales.
briefly,
You’re so old school that people don’t know that your hunch back is because you are still carrying your school bag.
Abbott and Shorten are both fulfilling roles to represent the rest of us at a very sombre occaission. Unlike you, I’m not particularly fussed and don’t see sinister or moral reasons why our political leaders should not attend the funeral. I hope you can learn to deal with alternative opinion one day. It will make you a better person.
None of that has anything to do with being sucked in by anyone. You should learn to temper your temper. If you want to dish it out, I’m always up for it.
Good luck with passing grade 5.
imacca@150
Thanks for that response.
Basically just an extension of what we do with pedestrian traffic in Melbourne suburbia.
In the last state election as in the past we get out to shopping centres at the weekend with the candidate and a few signs handing out leaflets. A few people will want to engage in conversation, but most don’t so it’s just smiles and a friendly greeting. Same to a lesser extent at railway stations in the morning.
Funerals?
Australia has some sort of weird trajectory where any and all funerals have the potential to become some sort of macabre political clickbait.
Pollies feel compelled to attend each and every death in our ever-lasting wars. What the politicians would do if our soldiers died at the rate of the muslims we are despatching year-by-year would be a vesking question.
The bizarre habit of some Australian test cricketers of looking skywards as if communing with some sort of real entity is another straw in the wind.
But there is one funeral that you will never find the Minister for Women attending: any of the 50 Australian women a year who are murdered in their homes.
No votes in those coffin trips, apparently.
BW,
I reckon your numbers understate the outrage which is women and children being murdered.
However, moves in Victoria and beyond show there is a will to eradicate this scourge from our society.
Abbott and Shorten appearing today at the funeral is part of that growing awareness and outrage that such murderous events can still occur in our time.
Again, I see it as a positive that political leaders are actually being prepared to associate themselves with this problem.
It’s not an overnight solution. But, it’s important to see our political leaders of any persuasion being onside.
I may be a little cynical but with the GST I reckon the plan is for the back bench and some of Cabinet to keep softening up the people for an increase while Abbott plays the innocent “I keep my promises, not until after the next election” line
I can’t remember whether that mother killed her children because of a drug habit or mental illness. Abbott may have gone to the funeral with his priestly mien, but his government is not increasing funding for any preventive medical schemes, AFAIK.
GG
Yes, it is probably worse than I have outlined.
Apparently domestic violence, including murder, assaults and sexual assaults, cost Australia around $8billion in 2003 according to some costings done by Access Economics. That figure is bound to have gone up.
I agree that the best solution would start with a national bipartisan policy based on a joint acceptance that we have a national calamity on our hands.
My main point is that funeral selection by the political class is, as one would expect, politically driven rather than driven by national interest policy priorities.
Some of the billions being spend on domestic security could actually be re-allocated quite usefully on… domestic security of Australian women and children who endure ongoing direct terror as a ‘normal’ part of their lives.
It would be nice to think that the Minister for Women and his Oppo in the Opposition make it a habit to attend jointly the funerals of all women (and men) murdered by their partners in their homes – thus making a political statement about those deaths.
I am not holding my breath.
Boerwar,
Politicians acting politically. I’m shocked!
lizzie
Apparently the murder charges stand.
I assume that insanity will be the defence plea. She showed lots of signs of religious mania and other abberant behaviours. I imagine that 99% of those who attended the funeral of the children today would have walked past her as she had maniacal conversations with Jesus on the street.
I can’t imagine anyone who is sane doing what she did.
I don’t know that waving at cars is such a good idea. Many drivers would be annoyed. Many wouldn’t be locals if it’s a main road. And distracting motorists could be a safety hazard. I think shopping malls, pedestrian plazas and railway stations would be the way to go.
lizzie,
What are you doing to help?
GG
I’m not. It is all they do.
There used to be something called the national interest in which politicians used to show some sort of passing interest.
lizzie@156
From published descriptions of her behaviour, she was almost certainly afflicted by mental illness of the psychotic variety. Some of her behaviour was just bizarre.
So just as in the Luke Batty murder, a person with very disturbing symptoms of serious mental illness was not receiving treatment or detained by the mental health system.
So will Newman and Abbott address this problem? Don’t hold your breath.
BW,
I agree that we have quite an ideological Government whose perception of National Interest is not what I would prefer. However, like a bad curry it will pass.
Being in Opposition sucks. Hopefully, those who put us there will learn that division and disunity will keep us there.
The Victorian Labor Govt has announced a $40Mn Royal Commission into Family Violence showing the Federal Minister for Women how he should have been doing.
He’s been well shown up by the Vic Labor
AA,
A Royal commission is more symbolic than anything else. A Judicial mindset is not the solution to the problem. I’m always underwhelmed by their outcomes.
But, as a symbol of a society girding itself to address the problem, it might have some merit.
It’s more than Abbott is doing…not that its hard to do more…
Perhaps the $40Mn would be better spent improving family violence services….
I had to laugh when I heard Premier Andrews being asked about broadening the GST base. He said there is no way school fees should have a GST added.
I imagined a few bludgers choking on their Weeties.
Who eats Weeties at this time of night?
Chris Kenny, still fighting the good fight against terrorism with his culture wars.
[Chris Kenny @chriskkenny · 1h 1 hour ago
Before twitter you would have to read green left weekly to get this level of delusion, hatred and ignorance.]
Waznaki
Weetbix with butter and Vegemite is a staple for dinner.
waznake,
I just had pizza!
Dio
It is fairly clear that the Libs lust for a higher GST.
I imagine that the Abbott/Hockey strategy is to keep screwing the states by starving them of fed revenues until they get together and scream for a GST rise.
Easy peasey.
fess,
Without Twitter, Kenny would be a backblocks journo without anything to whinge about.
I thought you were married, Diogenes.
William Bowe@175
Yes, shocking he won’t feed the wife and kids any better! 😆
bemused @ 147
Yes, you do get reactions from drivers, mainly a wave or a thumbs up, and of course sometimes the index finger up!! I now feel it is effective.
I was never originally a fan of this but it is something that is now widespread, I think incorporated from US style campaigning.
Steve777 @ 148
We are saying to people to mark all boxes eventhough it is OPV up here.
The way in which Abbott ambulance chases planes is somewhat linked to his penchant for chasing carefully-selected funerals.
I was trying to remember if this funeral-chasing is new. All pollies have attended the funerals of the rich and the famous for as long as I can remember. What may be new is the way in which pollies attend the funerals of every Tom, Dick and Harry.
What is not new is that they continue to avoid the funerals of the every Jane, Sally and Mary who is murdered in her home.
feeney@177
Thanks for your response.
So like so much else, it originates in the US. Didn’t know that.
What size signs do you use? For pedestrians in shopping centres and railway stations we just use the standard corflutes on an ‘A-frame’. I imagine something larger might be better with motor traffic.
[The way in which Abbott ambulance chases planes]
Bernard Woolley would love you, BW (and not just because you have the same initials).
Dio
As manufactured foods butter, vegemite and weetbix attract the GST.
No doubt OPV seemed like a good idea at the time. 🙁
OPV wasn’t making much difference in Queensland until Labor advocated a “just one vote” strategy at the 2001 election. Which also seemed like a good idea at the time.
Steved777 @ 160
On balance it is effective as you are drawing attention to your candidate as they drive by even if there is no acknowledgement.
We position ourselves on main roads leading in and out of the particular electorate so that, on balance, we are reaching out to the voters in that electorate.
We are usually positioned on a corner where there are traffic lights and the traffic slows.
I’ve always had concerns about safety issues, as you say, but having done it now a few times, at first reluctantly, any perceived danger is negligible.
Why, William, thank you.
That is the nicest thing you have ever posted abt yrs trly.
An observation from Bob Ellis.
[One Cairns mother has killed more Australians on our soil than ‘terrorists’ in a hundred years.]
William Bowe@183
Or was it ‘Just vote 1’?
William @ 183
Beattie thought he was being clever introducing OPV at the time as the coalition were separate parties and there were leakages of preferences as a result.
Now that the coalition is one party in QLD, it is now to their advantage as well.
I think a future Labor government will reintroduce full preferential voting.
GG:
Sometimes I wonder if his tweets are an attempt at satire.
[Or was it ‘Just vote 1′?]
This was right after the Shepherdson inquiry, so who knows.
bemused@163
Yeah, right. Wanker.
bemused
That is an interesting proposition.
The Coniston Massacre occurred within that time period.
Somewhere between 30 and 110 men, women and children were murdered by Australians*, in Australia. As far as I know, none of the perps was a muslim.
There were four possible motives. Any combination of all four was also possible:
(1) to have a bit of fun
(2) to kill them all for revenge
(3) to grab the land – that is to say, the motivation for killing was incidental to the real motivation
(4) to kill quite a few and frighten the rest.
It is reasonable to argue that ‘frightening the rest’ was one of the motivations of the murder party. There is ample evidence that the rest were very thoroughly terrified.
If so, then Ellis is wrong.
*Not generally mentioned in polite society is that one of the perps was a Gallipoli veteran.
Maybe, Player One, but you need to pick your fights a little more judiciously.
Fondly remember having weetbix with butter and vegemite….
William Bowe@193
Player One can’t handle facts.
bemused@195
Just as you can’t handle being wrong.
AA
But what about when a mouthfull gets sort of only barely semi-moist and adheres to the top of your mouth?
Player One@196
And your evidence I am wrong is?
bemused@198
Do you not know how to use Google?
Optional preferential voting puts the voter firmly in charge of where their vote goes, and that is far more important than convenience for political parties.