The mad scramble to catch up on the surprisingly early Queensland election has left BludgerTrack unattended to, despite the publication last week of the first polls of the year on voting intention from Essential Research and Roy Morgan, together with a bonus Morgan phone poll on leadership ratings (supplemented by these findings on preferred Liberal and Labor leader, which find Tony Abbott is now in third place behind Julie Bishop as well as Malcolm Turnbull). My normal practice of updating this overnight on Wednesday/Thursday will resume henceforth.
The latest reading records a pretty solid shift to the Coalition since the last result in mid-December. In comparison with the in-depth state-level reading I put together after The Australian published Newspoll’s quarterly state breakdowns at the end of the year, the Coalition is up two seats in New South Wales and one each in Victoria and Queensland. But if you want to hold off for polling not conducted during the summer break before taking the results too seriously, I won’t judge you.
Closely inspect the scatterplot on the sidebar (located lower down than usual thanks to the Queensland election poll tracker) and you will observe the disparity between the results from Essential Research and Roy Morgan, the latter of which appears twice as I break it down into two separate results to reflect the fact that it is conducted over two weekends. As you can see, the trendline seeks to split the difference between the two sets of results, and considers last year’s polling to be old news. The two pollsters’ headline two-party figures were in fact much the same, but came out very differently once the meaty bias adjustment to the notoriously pro-Labor Morgan series was applied. Similar caveats should be applied to the Greens vote, which is now in single figures for the first time since who knows when. This may well be accurate for all I know, but the wisest course would be to consider the jury out for the time being.
The leadership ratings are arguably a bit more interesting, since they encompass a result from Roy Morgan’s low-sample but otherwise high quality phone polling, together with the monthly reading from Essential Research. Both leaders are found to be up quite substantially on net approval, consistent with the notion that the summer break tends to soften the public mood. Bill Shorten had remarkably static ratings throughout 2014, outside of a bump in his favour following the budget, but on the current reading at least he’s moved into the black. Tony Abbott has also moved in a positive direction for the first time since Coalition polling started heading south again in October. On preferred prime minister though, the leaders’ gains cancel out, leaving Shorten’s lead much as it was before.
Good morning Dawn Patrollers.
Peter Martin – We’re living longer. Get over it!
http://www.smh.com.au/comment/were-living-longer-get-over-it-20150117-12rewp.html
Charming!
http://www.smh.com.au/national/education/international-students-forced-to-work-for-just-8-an-hour-20150117-12rwuo.html
Bring in the copayment and this will get even worse!
http://www.smh.com.au/national/health/fiveday-stay-in-hospital-emergency-department-raises-condemnation-questions-20150117-12ry92.html
And even Mesma’s not needed in Queensland!
http://www.smh.com.au/queensland/queensland-state-election-2015/queensland-election-2015-bishop-skips-lnps-campaign-launch-20150117-12sgbx.html
The ABC “Hunger Games” continue.
http://www.smh.com.au/federal-politics/political-news/abc-maternity-leave-workers-vie-for-jobs-in-hunger-gamesstyle-redundancy-process-20150117-12r808.html
Some information from the Martin Place siege inquiry is coming out.
http://www.theage.com.au/nsw/questions-over-martin-place-siege-command-as-joint-investigation-nears-completion-20150117-12sbjy.html
Kirsty Needham says that truth is more important than blame with this and the Coronial inquests.
http://www.smh.com.au/comment/sydney-siege-truth-more-important-than-the-blame-game-20150117-12rz33.html
Charles Waterstreet ponders over the whole extremism thing.
http://www.smh.com.au/comment/charles-waterstreet-true-test-of-humanity-is-to-embrace-the-enemy-20150117-12rshx.html
Can-Do’s feeling the heat.
http://www.smh.com.au/queensland/queensland-state-election-2015/queensland-election-2015-newman-feels-heat-as-poll-figures-make-sticky-subject-20150117-12sd2k.html
And a former LNP minister makes it even hotter for him with a blistering attack where he uses words such as “sociopath”.
http://www.theguardian.com/world/2015/jan/17/former-lnp-minister-launches-scathing-attack-on-newman-government
Section 2 . . .
A thoughtful article on freedom of speech from Nick Cohen.
http://www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/2015/jan/17/punching-pope-francis-doesnt-understand-charlie-hebdo
What a dysfunctional rabble! Worse than Rudd perhaps?
http://www.adelaidenow.com.au/news/national/tony-abbott-insisted-on-20-cut-to-medicare-rebate-in-heated-clash-before-backflip/story-fnii5s40-1227188083875
Medicare’s growth isn’t out of control. It’s actually slowing. The article is full of factual information that this government seems to eschew.
https://independentaustralia.net/politics/politics-display/medicares-growth-isnt-out-of-control–its-actually-slowing,7267
The three worst things the Liberals did yesterday.
http://www.ellistabletalk.com/2015/01/18/the-three-worst-things-the-liberals-did-yesterday-171/
What a bunch of precious pansies baseball players are!
http://www.adelaidenow.com.au/sport/adelaide-bite-relief-pitcher-troy-scott-hit-with-six-week-suspension-and-fined-undisclosed-amount-for-brawl-at-norwood-oval/story-fnia3gmi-1227188154563
The Coalitions climate change policy is under fire after 2014 was the hottest year on record.
http://www.theguardian.com/australia-news/2015/jan/17/coalition-climate-policy-under-fire-after-2014-shown-to-be-hottest-year-on-record
How Australia squandered the mining boom.
http://thenewdaily.com.au/money/2015/01/15/australia-squandered-mining-boom/
William have you ever thought of commissioning your own national or Crikey poll?
Edwina StJohn@3
Eddie have you ever thought of commissioning someone to write your blog posts?
Good morning
@Bowenchris: Lib ministers falling over themselves to deny responsibility for Medicare backflip chaos: http://t.co/vgQCoDTHyr
No Player One unlike you I can think for myself.
Medicare Unstainable?
[
http://www.dailytelegraph.com.au/news/nsw/tony-abbott-insisted-on-20-cut-to-medicare-rebate-in-heated-clash-before-backflip/story-fni0cx12-1227188083875?nk=037633f1efd166f66ae78ff7d877c770
]
Healthcare costs as a percentage of GDP:
Australia: 9.1% (slight fall)
United states : 17.9% (slight rise)
http://data.worldbank.org/indicator/SH.XPD.TOTL.ZS
Life expectancy Australia: 83 years.
United States: 79.8
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_countries_by_life_expectancy
If ever there was an example of facts trumping ideology, this is it.
Re Frednk @7: The LNP-IPA-Murdoch definition of ‘unsustainable’ is any Government program that transfers money to those in need, or pretty much anything else they don’t like and want to attack.
With that definition, the Government’s actions make sense.
Morning bludgers
[Constant Lurker
Posted Saturday, January 17, 2015 at 11:37 pm | PERMALINK
It is a very very long time since I have posted here, but as my name suggests I do read the posts.
Maybe poll bludgers will be interested to know that, in the church liturgical calendar, today is the feast of St Anthony, Abbott!]
Perhaps this year, we will hear more from you. 🙂
Yep the Coalition ministers are falling over themselves to lay the blame at Abbott’s feet. I remember it was not that long ago that Abbott even tried to dump the 7 co payment and was apparently overruled by Hockey, Bishop etc. wtf is really going on?
ESJ
That was a lame come back. Unlike you. Are you ok or has someone hijacked your account?
Or have you started having doubts? Come over to the progressive side, welcomed with open arms, a Chardonnay and a latte.
Can someone tell me why we r not expecting a mid jan fed newspoll? There was one in 2013. Wasn’t one in 2014 but understandable as post election.
Costs? Unreliable time of year? Qld election looming? Waiting for Abbott to have a good week?
Saint Anthony Abbot, when young ‘…decided to follow the words of Jesus, who had said: “If you want to be perfect, go, sell what you have and give to the poor…” ‘ (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Anthony_the_Great)
That guy was obviously a socialist. Our Tony must have been named after another Anthony.
[Or have you started having doubts? Come over to the progressive side, welcomed with open arms, a Chardonnay and a latte.]
Isn’t chardonnay 10 – 15 years out of date, don’t we do SSB now?
[
Steve777
…
With that definition, the Government’s actions make sense.
]
The government’s action makes no sense; they are trying to re-fight the battles of the 80’s. They lost then for dam good reasons.
In the 80’s there was no historic data to support the change and it was a change and yet they lost; this time there is historic data and relative statistics that show their loss resulted in a better outcome.
Give it up and move on would be the only sane advice.
It’s pretty clear – big majorities make for arrogant governments that believe their own propaganda. In hindsight pretty obvious this disease afflicted the Qld and Federal governments in the last 2 years.
I saw this in relation to Martin Luther King Day. Eloquent and still apt …
http://twitter.com/foomeister/status/556567227780980737/photo/1
What are you saying Fran? Your frustrated that people don’t accept you?
The Where-To-Be-Born Index
http://www.ritholtz.com/blog/2015/01/the-where-to-be-born-index/
ESJ
[What are you saying Fran? Your frustrated that people don’t accept you?]
Come on Edwina. You surely know the distinction between the 2nd person possessive adjective and the contraction of ‘you’ and ‘are’. Show respect for the language.
Indonesian Execution of Brazilian Triggers Ambassador Recall
http://www.bloomberg.com/news/2015-01-17/indonesian-execution-of-brazilian-triggers-ambassador-recall-1-.html
V.sad about the executions this morning Dave. It does seem like the Bali nine (2) are likely to be executed/killed very soon unless something short of a miracle happens. When you look at their Facebook page and see photos of chan as a baby you realise how cruel and inhuman execution of another human being is.
[@NickMcCallum7: Reports Tony Abbott went against advice from Hockey, Dutton to implement the $20 Medicare rebate, now dumped. 10am “Sunday Morning” @3AW693]
All roads are leading to Abbott and his Credlin-led PMO. Building on the zero goodwill the PMO has accumulated through its micromanagement and regular stuff ups, they now have to deal with leaking from senior cabinet ministers and Murdoch flexing his king (or Queen) making power.
Abbott/Credlin/Loughnane edifice is crumbling before our eyes.
sprocket
As i mentioned earlier, wasnt it Abbott that dumped the $7 co payment but was forced to keep it by hockey and others?
sprocket
I will venture over to 3aw after 10 am to see what melbourne right wing radio has to say about the Abbott
Samantha Maiden article that BK linked to was originally titled
“PM’s ‘crazy’ GP fee sparked Liberal war”
They must have thought it too descriptive of real state of play. All out war within government, that has just been stoked again by leaks from ministers to Sam.
[V.sad about the executions this morning Dave. It does seem like the Bali nine (2) are likely to be executed/killed very soon unless something short of a miracle happens. When you look at their Facebook page and see photos of chan as a baby you realise how cruel and inhuman execution of another human being is.]
Not nearly as sad as the disgraceful way we are treating human beings who haven’t committed a vile criminal offence to make lots and lots money.
And that entirely innocent guy we effectively executed through inadequate medical care?
Meanwhile in the depths of the Murdoch evil empire, someone has been changing the headline of Samantha Maidens dump on Abbott.
It was
[PM’s ‘crazy’ GP fee sparked Liberal war]
And has now been changed to
[Tony Abbott insisted on $20 cut to Medicare rebate in ‘heated’ clash before backflip]
By the end of the day it will be something like
[Abbott shows strong leadership on Budget repair, after being let down by indolent ministers]
PVO reckons this is how it went down
[Yep this is what happened. Others didn’t want to make the damaging change, PM insisted. He was warned, didn’t listen. m.dailytelegraph.com.au/news/nsw/tony-…]
WWP@27
We can and should be sad about both as they are not distinct but instantiations of the same paradigm of coercive authority in defence of unwarranted privilege.
NB: I reject the characterisation of trafficking in heroin as ‘a vile criminal offence’. While it is a criminal matter, it ought not be.a criminal matter,. In a slightly more rational world, people would have safe ways to self medicate, and trafficking in heroin would be as likely as trafficking in alcohol. We could still deal with those who had problems managing their mood states effectively.
Deary me. I dont think I can handle listening to the drivel on 3aw. John Michael Hewson is giving me the bloody pips
Fran Barlow
[Show respect for the language.]
Speaking of which. I recently came across this site and thought it may interest you . Soooo in case you have yet to come across it here it is, a thesaurus covering the best part of a 1,000 years.
[The University of Glasgow Historical Thesaurus of English
…..initiated by the late Professor Michael Samuels in 1965, and the first full version of the Thesaurus was completed in 2008 under the direction of Professor Christian Kay. It contains almost 800,000 words from Old English to the present day arranged into detailed hierarchies…]
http://historicalthesaurus.arts.gla.ac.uk/
3aw continues to be a mouth piece for the govt. All about medicare being sustainable etc and Sussan Ley being the perfect person to handle the portfolio. That was it. Cant handle anymore of this crapola
[PVO reckons this is how it went down]
And all this happening while he’s supposedly on leave. While the cat’s away etc…
We cannot stop drugs getting into prison. Executions do not deter people risking their lives for the money.
We can help reduce the executions by legalising it here and getting medical controls in place by taking the money out of the business model.
The current business model saw ecstasy change into ICE. Now the criminal money is moving into artificial maarijuana. There has already been lives lost.
We know prohibition does not work the United States proved that comprehensively with alcohol a more dangerous drug than the illegal ones.
Remember the war on drugs was strarted by one Richard Millhouse Nixon who was not exactly a paragon of Presidential virtue.
You realise just how balanced ABC radio is, when you listen to the crap on 3aw. Nick McCallum is okay, but that John Michael Hewson who was the bloody clown on that ABC show all those years ago, is an idiot
Despite the seeming rightwards drift of UK politics, a recent poll of Scottish and rUK voters showed that the majority were still more “left wing” than any of the major parties.
[People across Britain want to see utility companies and railways nationalised, they want more renewable energy and less nuclear, they want electoral reform, higher wages and less snooping from the security services.
….
With no remotely electable party offering a truly left-of-centre manifesto, such policies simply don’t feature on the radar of printed or broadcast public debate (particularly given the predominantly right-wing media), because what’s the point of debating something that isn’t going to happen because no party stands for it?]
http://wingsoverscotland.com/keeping-on-keeping-on/
victoria:
Do you mean John Michael Howson?
confessions
Oops yes
The drug issue is of extreme relevance to the Queensland election.
Legalise the drugs take the money away from the Bikies without shredding freedom of association which is not going to stop the drug trafficking anyway.
victoria
Perhaps people who have commercial radio on all the time simply don’t know that there is a more balanced alternative. Or perhaps the ABC suffers from the myth that it is “too intellectual” to be listened to. It has made a big effort to cater for all tastes now.
[NB: I reject the characterisation of trafficking in heroin as ‘a vile criminal offence’. While it is a criminal matter, it ought not be.a criminal matter,]
Drugs are part of a vile social problem round the world, and while I agree with you that the ‘war on drugs’ was obviously a total failure about 20 years ago, if not earlier, and an alternative approach should be embraced, at present there isn’t an alternative and the trade is a vile criminal trade and these people have voluntarily joined a vile criminal trade for profit having taken the risk into calculation (as guytar points out they aren’t very good at the calculation).
I oppose the death penalty but can’t work up excessive sadness for the two Australians or the 6 over this weekend, there is so much more deserving anywhere you look.
Legalise chemical drugs to control them, and you’d remove the “look at me, I’m a cool rebel” factor.
WWP
The only way to stop drug trafficking being a vile criminal trade is to make it legal to take the criminals out of it. See Alcohol prohibition.
lizzie
For all its faults, the ABC does a good job, and I am looking forward to the return of Jon faine tomorrow morning. He has been sorely missed
confessions
According to Michael John Howson, the age of entitlement is over and we are going to run out of money sooner than later. Apparently, he was privately educated and has private health insurance and therefore not a burden on the govt. Can you believe the crap. Why no one calls him out is beyond me
victoria
The only problem with the ABC is the erosion of funding over time and stacking of the board to emasculate it.
I agree given the circumstances the ABC does an outstanding job still. Even though that is but a pale reflection of what it was when funded properly and truly independent.
The people most responsible for drug-trafficking are in powerful positions in governments, militaries, police forces, and criminal gangs around the world. The people who actually carry the stuff and take the most risk are at a low level and get a tiny fraction of the value of the trade. When we think of those people as “vile human beings” who deserve life imprisonment or even execution, we play into the hands of the big fish.
I believe that the Australian Government should always play whatever cards it has to secure the release of Australians sentenced to death. This should not only happen when the prisoner is white and photogenic. If we don’t push extremely hard in all cases we betray our values and weaken our effectiveness in negotiations (because people can rightly point to the cases where we did very little).
In the case of Indonesia I think the Australian Government should talk about the higher ups in the drug trade and bring the subject uncomfortably close to home for the Indonesian Government. We can’t play along with the false frame that the heroin traffickers are evil personified and they are why the the trade exists. Degrees of responsibility, levels of command, and amounts of ill-gotten wealth should be laid out in detail. The politics and economics of the heroin trade should be demystified so that people understand why the Bali 9 are the smallest of small fish.
If Indonesia doesn’t cooperate we should be willing to disclose to them what we know about powerful Indonesians in the drug trade. We could say that such people will not be permitted to travel to or hold assets in Australia and that we will share our information with other governments.
We could threaten to organize an international investigation into the structure of heroin-trafficking and into protocols for inter-governmental sharing of evidence and prosecutions of higher ups. The threat alone could be enough to get what we want. If it isn’t, actually do it. At the very least it shows serious intentions and it publicizes the frame of degrees of responsibility.
The New York Times is a seriously good newspaper. How the young French terrorists were radicalised is analysed through evidence.
[Much remains unclear about their lives. But thousands of pages of legal documents obtained by The New York Times, including minutes of interrogations, summaries of phone taps, intercepted jailhouse letters and a catalog of images and religious texts found on the laptops of Chérif Kouachi and Mr. Coulibaly, reveal an arc of radicalization that saw them become steadily more professional and more discreet.]
http://nyti.ms/1zoE31x