Roy Morgan breaks the New Year polling drought with its regular face-to-face plus SMS polling compiled from surveys over the two previous weekends, in this case with a sample of 2622 (Morgan typically gets about 3000, so this might be seen as an insight into the challenges of polling over the holiday period). It is a better result from the Coalition than the previous poll conducted in early December, which had a rogue-ish 57.5-42.5 headline lead to Labor, compared with 53.5-46.5 at the poll in late November. This time the Labor lead is 54.5-45.5, from primary votes of 38.5% for both the Coalition (up 3.5%) and Labor (down 2.5%), 9.5% for the Greens (down two) and 2% for Palmer United (steady). When preferences are applied according to the 2013 election result rather than respondent allocation, Labor’s lead is 53-47, down from 56.5-43.5 last time and back where it was in late November.
UPDATE (Essential Research): Certainly no sign of any Coalition recovery in the debut Essential Research poll for the year, which being the first deviates from normal form in not being a rolling average combined two weeks of results. The poll has Labor leading 54-46 on two-party preferred, compared with 52-48 in the last poll of last year, from primary votes of 40% for Labor (up two), 38% for the Coalition (down two), 10% for the Greens (steady) and 2% for Palmer United (steady). Also featured are Essential’s monthly personal ratings, and here at least there is better news for Tony Abbott who reverses a slump in December to be up five points on approval to 37%, with disapproval down two to 53%. However, Bill Shorten is up four on approval to 39% and down six on disapproval to 33%, so perhaps this is festive cheer talking. Shorten remains ahead on preferred prime minister, although his lead has narrowed from 36-31 to 37-35. Further questions relate to penalty rates, and bode ill for the cause of deregulation. Eighty-one per cent support penalty rates as a basic principle with 13% opposed, 68% would oppose cutting them with 23% supportive, and only 18% believe encouraging employment would be the more likely result of doing so, compared with 63% for business making bigger profits.
Sir Mad Cyril@196
It says it does not ship to my location. Damm
BB @ 189
‘So, after nearly 20 people are murdered in France, originating from a hideously misguided reaction to some poor-taste cartoons, the numpties of the Right here want to up the ante so that Australians can taunt ethnic and religious demographics in the same way?’
The far right in this country, exemplified by people like Sheehan, Akerman, Devine and Kenny are working together with Daesh to create conflict in our countries. Like all misguided ideologues, they somehow think that out of the carnage can come victory and that it would all be worth it at Armageddon time.
People of the muslim faith live peacefully in every Western democratic country. And even more people who no longer practice the religion but identify with it through family traditions and simple lineage. The vast bulk of non-Muslims would, quite rightly, not tolerate the violence and inhumanity of ethnic cleansing, so the only solution is to live together or live in fear of each other.
I know Daesh is desperate to create a permanent state of conflict between Muslims and non-Muslims in all places outside their ‘caliphate’ because they think their religion is so superior it must win. But I don’t understand where Murdoch and his minions here and in the USA think it will lead.
“Travel is fatal to prejudice, bigotry, and narrow-mindedness, and many of our people need it sorely on these accounts.”
So said the oft-quoted Mark Twain, having recently visited the Mediterranean and the Middle East. The American writer’s eyes had apparently been opened by his travels, his thoughts and ideas changed by the things he’d seen and the people he’d met overseas.
http://www.traveller.com.au/why-travellers-are-more-openminded-12gqt9.html
I never understood why they bother to have those expensive HDMI cables BB. Do people actually buy them? Surely they would sell more and build better customer trust if they just sold cables without the wank.
I don’t think I could survive without my right mouse button Lizzie. I would try a spurt of WD40 and then replace it.
Tim Wilson; Commissioner for the Rights of Bigots
http://www.abc.net.au/news/2015-01-13/wilson-calls-for-discrimination-law-changes/6013946
If this pathetic effort is not worthy of international derision I don’t know what is!
http://www.mediaite.com/online/ultra-orthodox-jewish-newspaper-edits-female-world-leaders-out-of-charlie-hebdo-march/
Socrates
Wiser political heads than mine often hold the view that John Howard might have preferred to have Labor state governments. I think the argument was He could beat up in them as much as he wished and impose whatever harsh policies he liked on them without fear of backlash from the state divisions.
BW –
[ I see the Greek citizenry is onto yet another ‘reason’ not to pay tax. Nothing changes except for the ‘reason’ du jour.
Apparently the ‘Leave the EU’ party is going to win the elections.
The Greeks may get what they want but they may also discover that actually having to pay your national debts – instead of being subsidised so to do by the rest of the EU – is unfunny. ]
Yep. The whole approach always was to get as much as they could from the EU etc, then default.
Wouldn’t give them another Euro.
vic
[“Travel is fatal to prejudice, bigotry, and narrow-mindedness, and many of our people need it sorely on these accounts.”]
Great quote!
[“Travel is fatal to prejudice, bigotry, and narrow-mindedness, and many of our people need it sorely on these accounts.”]
Wise words.
P.S. Bali and Phuket don’t count.
The number of comments from the right wing saying 18C should be repealed on another site is incredible. All based around the comments from the leader of Hizb ut-Tahrir Australia
BK
[http://www.mediaite.com/online/ultra-orthodox-jewish-newspaper-edits-female-world-leaders-out-of-charlie-hebdo-march/]
How disgusting!
What is wrong with all these people where does peace and dignity fit in with their lives?
Simon 205
These fools ignoring the fact while it would allow them to voice their bigotry it also allows the “other side” to voice their views just as strongly
[
It says it does not ship to my location. Damm
]
lol same here. Foiled again!
Zoomster
[They want the freedom to offend – that is, to throw insults around, regardless of whether there is a factual basis for them.
(If I say ‘you’re smelly’, and you are, then I’m exercising freedom of speech; if I say ‘you’re smelly’ and you’re not, I’m just being offensive).]
Indeed. A couple of points about the concept of ‘free speech’ should be noted.
1. In no jurisdiction in the world is freedom of speech/expression regarded as a licence to speak/express yourself as the whim takes you. It is not untrammelled speech. Every jurisdiction imposes restraints through the statute and the common law. Some of them are very onerous indeed. Some are designed to protect various forms of property. Others are conceived to protect national security, or privacy or the rights of vulnerable people. Speech acts are material acts and incitement to criminal activity is not protected. This very day a man here faces charges of having an inappropriate conversation with someone he imagined was a minor.
2. The right of free speech is simply one of the bundle of rights seeking to constrain unaccountable state power — what the once revolutionary Americans often called ‘tyranny’, but even they restricted the free speech rights of those seen as sympathetic to the British during the Revolutionary War. They saw ‘free speech’ as warranted in instrumental terms — as a weapon against the imperial power and any who might have leaned towards collaboration. A walk through the amendments to the US constitution affirms this. The much cited 2nd amendment beloved of the right has the conjuncture of contested power all over it. These days, activism around the 2nd Amendment in the US is confined almost exclusively to the far right, because the overheads of this form of fundamentalism are plain, but the 1st Amendment, nebulous feel good thing that it is, includes pretty much everyone on the left and a fair slice of those who aren’t.
I have never seen a poll on this taken, but I suspect if you ran a world wide poll on the cultural features most ostensible westerners associated with ‘western civilisation’ more than 90% of adults would cite ‘free speech’ right at the top of the features that would come straight to mind. Precisely because it’s so nebulous and feel good, it’s not commonly unpacked, and if it were, people would immediately start qualifying it.
What we have wound up with is a kind of secular fundamentalism around the concept when free speech really has no more significance than any of the other rights that are designed to restrict the unreasonable exercise of state-like authority. People also have a similar right to freedom of assembly, to privacy (in America it goes under ‘unreasonable search and seizure’, the 4th Amendment) the right to due process, and so on. The right to free speech makes no sense at all apart from the whole bundle of rights conceived to empower the citizenry to author governments that are ‘of the people, by the people and for the people’.
Here in Australia of course we have no formal bill of rights, but in so far as free speech is germane it goes to our ability to make sense of the world around us and bring our best judgement to our conduct as citizens so that we can identify coherently our own personal interests and how duties ought best be settled. Our laws offer ‘good faith’ defences for speech acts that may offend others but they don’t permit open slather. If one can show that one really believed something to be so and believed that one’s speech was aimed at a bona fide purpose then one is relieved from legal consequence.
Speaking as a leftist, it seems to me that there is a huge difference between exercising your speech rights to contribute to discussion of public policy or the behaviour of public officials, and more generally, of those exercising power over others, and on the other hand, exercising it to derogate groups that in practice are marginalised. The former often takes courage and may aim at better community, whereas the latter amounts to little more than piling on — bullying really — and serves to subvert community. As with any right, if one misuses one’s discretion, one ought to expect the imposition of constraints.
MTBW
[What is wrong with all these people where does peace and dignity fit in with their lives?]
Ultra-orthodox Jews are among the most intolerant people in the world. In terms of their attitudes toward women, there’s not much separating them from fundamentalist Muslims. The major difference is that the ultra-orthodox Jews don’t tend to inflict their hatred beyond the borders of their own country. But they are a menace toward secular and non-orthodox Jews in Israel.
MTBW @ 212 – they are fundamentalists. Islam does not own fundamentalists. Even religion does not own fundamentalists. They need to be held up to ridicule. And what is more ridiculous than pretending that women do not exist?
If you want stuff from the USA, and the site says “do not ship” there is a way around it.
There are companies in the USA that you can have the goods sent to and they will forward to your address. Mate of tells me he does it all the time.
He’s overseas ATM but I can ask when he gets back
kakuru @ 216
They also do not enslave women, rape them at their pleasure and murder them when they are seen to have breached the moral code. Nor do they practice female genital mutilation.
That said, it is utterly unacceptable and it is quite right to strongly criticise what we find unacceptable. It is not to defend them – just to bear in mind that there is a scale of awfulness and there would be few women, I suspect, who given only those two choices, would not rather get by in an Orthodox Jewish household than and fundamentalist muslim.
Then again, if offered a place in a fundamentalist Christian one, they may prefer that to either of the others!
[I never understood why they bother to have those expensive HDMI cables BB. Do people actually buy them? Surely they would sell more and build better customer trust if they just sold cables without the wank.]
Remember… the cable I was talking about was a simple co-ax, designed to carry low bandwidth SPDIF signals (digital audio signals) from a player to a decoder.
I made mine – 15 metres long – from parts sourced at Dick Smith. Cost: $5, plus 10 minutes of soldering and cursing. It’s been working now for 10 years going between two wall sockets passing through a totally un-friendly(i.e. spider web, damp and dust rich) environment beneath the floor of the house. Never missed a beat. No drop outs. Perfect reproduction every time.
To pay $390 for 2 metres of the expensive cable because the “sonics” and the “smoothness” of the reconstituted signal were better with this wanker cable is a travesty to me. The salesman either didn’t understand the principles of digital signalling, thought I didn’t, or did and was just bullshitting anyway.
People actually do purchase these things. That’s the amazing part.
AA at 213
‘These fools ignoring the fact while it would allow them to voice their bigotry it also allows the “other side” to voice their views just as strongly’
They are not that stupid. They will just use the defamation laws, which are heavily biased towards the rich and powerful (like all civil legal action) against their critics. Just look at the absurd Chris Kenny hypocrisy with the Chaser!
[ AussieAchmed
Posted Tuesday, January 13, 2015 at 12:53 pm | Permalink
If you want stuff from the USA, and the site says “do not ship” there is a way around it. ]
Of course, Australia Post also have a service, for a fee –
https://shopmate.auspost.com.au/our-services/how-shopmate-works
If they won’t accept an Aussie credit card, just get a prepaid credit card –
http://www.smh.com.au/digital-life/computers/blog/gadgets-on-the-go/need-a-us-credit-card-try-the-post-office-20130520-2jqg5.html
kakuru and TPOF
No wonder we have wars and assassinations they all need to put their egos back in their pocket and accept that we all deserve a free society where one race is not afraid of another.
Peace isn’t hard to behold.
Section 18C of the Racial Discrimination Act makes it unlawful for someone to do an act that is reasonably likely to “offend, insult, humiliate or intimidate” someone because of their race or ethnicity.
Section 18D of the Racial Discrimination Act contains exemptions which protect freedom of speech. These ensure that artistic works, scientific debate and fair comment on matters of public interest are exempt from section 18C, providing they are said or done reasonably and in good faith
The courts have consistently interpreted sections 18C and 18D as maintaining a balance between freedom of speech and freedom from racial vilification.
The courts have held that for conduct to be covered by section 18C, the conduct must involve “profound and serious” effects, not “mere slights”.
The courts have also found that section 18C is an appropriate measure to implement Australia’s obligations to prohibit racial hatred under the ICCPR and ICERD.
Complaints relating to racial vilification under the Racial Discrimination Act can be lodged with the Commission.
During the 2012-2013 financial year, the Commission received a 59 per cent increase in complaints under section 18C.
Fifty-three per cent of racial vilification complaints in 2012-13 were resolved at conciliation.
Four per cent of complaints made under section 18C were terminated or declined for being trivial, misconceived or lacking in substance.
And less than three per cent of racial hatred complaints proceeded to court.
@216
Expect, perhaps, if you happen to be Muslim
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Baruch_Goldstein
” He is known for being the mass murderer[2] who perpetrated the 1994 Cave of the Patriarchs massacre in the city of Hebron, killing 29 Palestinian Muslim worshipers and wounding another 125.”
Two of the suspects in the kidnap and murder of Palestinian teenagers in July 2014 had ultra-orthodox backgrounds:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Kidnapping_and_murder_of_Mohammed_Abu_Khdeir
OOPS
http://www.perthnow.com.au/news/special-features/f-35-in-new-dogfight-over-chinese-russian-stealth-technology/story-fnknbeni-1227177399053
bakunin @ 225
Goldstein has been a standout exception in civilian violence by Israelis against Palestinians. In the second case, there was only one Arab teenager, not plural (I assume the error was due to fat fingers) in a classic example of evil responding to evil (the random murders of three young Israelis). In both cases the evil was reviled by most Israelis, although some extremists do fetishise Goldstein, as they do the murderer of Yitzhak Rabin.
You also need to distinguish between ultra-Orthodox and political extremism. Some ultra-orthodox sects do not even recognise Israel because the Messiah has not arrived. Many extremists are not particularly religious, while others are very religious, but not members of the ultra-Orthodox sects that airbrush women leaders out of photos.
poroti from yesterday
Obviously this “expert” doesn’t know what he was talking about.
Got this link from Reddit which says that there are nearly as much Atheist as there are Muslims in Birmingham. Both are outnumbered by Christians, which make up nearly half the population.
http://www.citymetric.com/politics/charts-birmingham-has-nearly-many-atheists-muslims-633
I guess for Fox News, atheists aren’t that much different from Muslims.
Just rang my local council to see if they offered any kind of service in arranging possum barriers on electrical wires that run from the street to the home. My wire and the neighbour’s wire are super highways for possums at night.
As expected the answer was a (very polite) “nothing to do with us”. The fellow also said he thought the electricity companies used to help but don’t any more, which also didn’t surprise me.
I have seen these devices in other areas when I drive around but nothing around here (City of Banyule in Victoria) .
Can anyone suggest where I might get some help in acquiring them and having them fitted. I really need to find a way to get rid of some of the annoying little pests.
After proudly boasting that I was going to read Richard Carrier’s book, The Historicity of Jesus (which claims he was a myth) I gave up after forty pages (only seven hundred to go) since I was way out of my depth. I’d have more chance of critiquing string theory.
However, here is an interesting review. I think the basic thesis is that the Jews had long been expecting the coming of a messiah (e.g. the Old Testament), so they clothed that expectation in flesh (via the gospels).
http://www.raphaellataster.com/articles/review-richard-carrier2014.html
confessions
Unlike some young partisan’s attempts of illegally stealing or sabotaging electoral signs, this is actually legal, I think. Correct me if I’m wrong.
Darn
Try your local State Member.
darn
Possums are well and truly settled in the city of banyule. I recently witnessed a whole family of five traversing along the power lines from the house to the street. Last week, one huge possum was on the ground at the back of my place. When it saw me, it did a mad dash for the back fence and disappeared amongst the foliage. You can call the “possum man” to help. No idea what the cost though
[Unlike some young partisan’s attempts of illegally stealing or sabotaging electoral signs, this is actually legal, I think. Correct me if I’m wrong.]
Would be interesting – if it is within the appropriate definition of election material it might require a ‘written and authorized by’ notation.
bemused
[Rundle: so many questions from Sydney Siege, but no adequate answers
GUY RUNDLE
Crikey writer-at-large]
Crikey today!
darn
[Place collars around the trunks of trees that give access to the roof. Use 60 centimetres wide sheet metal or perspex and fit 60 centimetres above the ground.
Contact your electricity or telecommunications companies for advice on possum proofing transmission cables.]
http://www.depi.vic.gov.au/environment-and-wildlife/wildlife/wildlife-management/possums/possum-relocation
[ if it is within the appropriate definition of election material it might require a ‘written and authorized by’ notation. ]
I suspect it is the kind of thing that if done by someone with a defined connection ( member, signed up volunteer ) to a party it may need that authorisation.
But if its just some dude putting up a sign and then they or someone else bunging the photo on twitter, then its simply public comment or satire even. 🙂
[After proudly boasting that I was going to read Richard Carrier’s book, The Historicity of Jesus (which claims he was a myth) I gave up after forty pages (only seven hundred to go) since I was way out of my depth. I’d have more chance of critiquing string theory.]
‘Zealot’ is better. Claims Jesus existed, but was embellished by the gospels.
Essential ALP 54 LNP 46
William
Paddy Manning reports on an Essential Poll in today’s ‘Crikey’.
A 2 point TPP move on essential is huge! must be rogue 🙂
From Crikey on Essential.
[Voters resoundingly denounce changes to penalty rates, while Bill Shorten surges ahead in politics of personality.]
Question
Agreed.
Vic,
(unreliable memory) Didn’t Essential get to 46-54 in the last parliament and pretty much sit there until the election? Let’s hope the it does the same for the LNP.
Raaraa
[I guess for Fox News, atheists aren’t that much different from Muslims.]
For Fox atheists are much worse. The heathens are so hard to spot as they mingle with god fearing ‘Mercans
Confessions and RaaRaa
Can’t help but notice there’s not much in the way of branding on Ros Bates’ sign either. I’m assuming she’s LNP but he “Can Do” slogan (assisted by the MP – that’s got to skew the averages…)
Are the LNP running without admitting they are the LNP again? Such things happened in some of the closer seats here in Melbourne.
[But if its just some dude putting up a sign and then they or someone else bunging the photo on twitter, then its simply public comment or satire even. :)]
You could be right and I haven’t looked at the qld act. Now I have and the regs and there doesn’t seem to be a blanket exemption for placards.
Question
I cant recall. But movement with Essential is usually very slow
AA @ 226
[ OOPS
http://www.perthnow.com.au/news/special-features/f-35-in-new-dogfight-over-chinese-russian-stealth-technology/story-fnknbeni-1227177399053 ]
Dont believe all that you read on the F35. The “gun issue” seems is pretty much a media beat up and the assertions about its “competitiveness” against Chinese and Russian designs are, well, somewhat arguable. There is an awful lot of hype both ways about the F35 program but interestingly a lot of lower key stuff reporting out there that indicates its actually shaping up as a pretty good jet of its type.
Interesting program to follow will be the FA-XX that is in its early stages at the moment. That may shape up as a true F14 replacement for the US navy in the mid 2020’s and could be well relevant for Australia since by then we will have a mixed fleet of F18F and F35 with the F18F’s being considered for replacement. US navy requirements are often more closely aligned with RAAF capability needs that USAF or European ones.
[ Essential ALP 54 LNP 46 ]
Har Har! 🙂