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.
“@kevinbonham: #Essential poll 53-47 (-1) to ALP. primaries 40-40, Grn 10, PUP 2. #auspol”
[ “I earn a lot of money as Treasurer … I think I can I make more of a contribution,” he said. ]
Good on yah JoHo, i agree completely. Lets have a look at raising the medicare levy for high income earners and cutting some of the tax concessions they get then. 🙂
[Textbook unfacts abound. Around 6-7,000 humans in Australia are about to be coerced off their homeland centres onto the margines of urban hellholes that are every bit as bad as Manus. Aboriginal kids are going into another stolen generation. No Greens uproar on that one, either.]
I agree BW – its not good enough. The Greens should be raising hell about that.
There are terms for transporting people against their wishes — abduction, kidnapping, rendition.
In the case of criminals, or those being brought before a lawful authority based on well-founded charges, those with a communicable and lethal disease there can be warrant, but apart from such circumstances it should not be done. It is always wrong.
Whether Malaysia could have been made minimally acceptable simply isn’t our regime’s call.
What a bunch of shonks. They are NOT selling Qld state assets merely flogging them on 99 year leases and now we find……
[The LNP still cannot rule out that Queenslanders will have to buy back the state’s asset infrastructure at the end of their lease,]
http://www.brisbanetimes.com.au/queensland/queensland-state-election-2015/queensland-election-2015-state-might-have-to-buy-back-assets-20150119-12tlrm.html
Well, just by pure coincidence, Keane in today’s Crikey has a go at Manus. I won’t quote the whole article. If you want personal confirmation bias you should just support Team Crike with a subscription, but here are some final paras:
[…
But just as the Left’s moralising about asylum seekers could never wish away the core problem — the absurd refrain “let them all come” simply glossed over that that meant handing over control of Australia’s immigration program to self-selecting, well-resourced migrants and people smugglers — the government’s moralising about miscreant asylum seekers and irresponsible supporters can’t cover up and wish away the result of the Rudd-Abbott policy of punishing asylum seekers. The policy has, according to publicly available information, been effective in stopping maritime arrivals, but it leaves hundreds of detainees in Australian hands (however much we might pretend they’re PNG’s responsibility) in a tropical purgatory with a snail’s pace assessment process and release into the PNG community — which might be as dangerous as anything they faced in the countries they fled from — as the “reward” for those judged to be genuine refugees.
This isn’t a coherent policy. Its logical endpoint is that detainees will either give up and return to their countries of origin (which so far shows little sign of happening), kill themselves in detention or be killed by angry locals. Under the current policy, there is no rational path forward other than those options. For a policy founded on the alleged need to stop asylum seekers dying on the voyage to Australia, it makes no sense. And the results — violence, hunger strikes, self-harm — will continue at a greater or lesser tempo while it is in place.]
How can the Greens – or their supporters – simultaneously support a regional solution but oppose offshore processing?
Surely that would mean people getting here by boat, being processed here, and then being relocated to another country.
So it wouldn’t stop deaths at sea, or ‘repatriation’.
Worst of both worlds, I would have thought.
A sensible regional approach involves some sort of offshore processing, and one which does not guarantee settlement in Australia.
It still needs a stick to make it work (for example, tranfer of anyone who arrives in Australia illegally to the offshore processing centre), because those who won’t accept settlement anywhere other than Australia are still going to take the risk of coming here by boat.
Of course, we could go for the ‘bringing anyone who wants to come here in by plane’ option, which should see our population grow by several million in the next few years.
[ An unfortunate day, given that (a) Australia would have accepted more refugees, quicker, (b) Malaysia was at least theoretically willing to consider safeguards for their treatment of the refugees we sent there for processing and (c) Australia would actually have spent less per head. ]
And, while far from perfect it would have gotten a country at the head of the “pipeline” for movements through SE Asia to BEGIN to be involved in a regional solution that could, with some deft diplomacy have been built on. Once Malaysia had an involvement in a regional solution they would have had reason to be involved in making it work better over time.
The Manus situation disgusts me. I can see the reasoning for using Manus, its a deterrent, but it seems that we are very much NOT putting in the resources needed to care for these people and resettle them somewhere. And this will continue as long as there is so much secrecy around AS issues.
Fran @999:
I’m not. Of the outcomes on the table, the best was the Malaysia Solution (Mk.II). While I applaud the Greens’ principles, there comes a time to acknowledge that as a minor party, the Greens don’t formulate policy.
They had, under the Gillard Government, some level of negotiating power and every right to use it. But when it’s clear that the best achievable outcome (Gillard needed two conservative MPs to sign off on outcomes in the House, and my impression is that Oakeshott and Windsor had moved as far as they were ever going to) is on the table, they should have taken it.
Just my $0.02 worth – as a Greens voter who’s bagged the ALP rather often, here and elsewhere.
Diogenes@910
In this case the foreigners were taking drugs OUT.
Who in Indonesia supplied those drugs?
[Good on yah JoHo, i agree completely. Lets have a look at raising the medicare levy for high income earners and cutting some of the tax concessions they get then. :)]
If you want to destroy Medicare you could go that way. what you and Joe miss is that Joe and high income earners already pay for private health, and pay a massive Medicare levy which of course subsidies those with lower incomes who aren’t paying.
So I’m happy to pay at the medical facility so long as you take away the Medicare levy. If you want the Medicare levy to stay you and Joe had better not try hitting me more and in new places it is just ridiculous.
I fully support Medicare and the levy – but I don’t think Joe does. Economically it would almost certainly be cheaper to self insure.
Get rid of the private health rebate if Joe getting good healthcare without having to pay doesn’t make sense I would suggest it makes much much less sense for the Govt to refund some of Medicare levy to pay for a private expense.
Fran @ 997
1. I did not think the last ALP Government was worth saving. I certainly did not vote for it. I figured getting rid of one rotten apple was a start and I am optimistic that the other rotten apple is not going to be on his tree for much longer.
2. [If we were in government now…]
You are not. You never will be. This enables you to be a bunch of theologians in a conclave endlessly debating the ethics of this and the moralities of that.
It is not so much power without glory as a lack of power with ethical glory.
Mightlessness does not make right.
Matt
You can add to your list of pluses for the Malaysian solution the fact that the UNHCR said that even discussing the deal had lead to better treatment of refugees in Malaysia – even for those who were unlikely to ever come to Australia.
Matt
[They had, under the Gillard Government, some level of negotiating power and every right to use it. But when it’s clear that the best achievable outcome (Gillard needed two conservative MPs to sign off on outcomes in the House, and my impression is that Oakeshott and Windsor had moved as far as they were ever going to) is on the table, they should have taken it.]
That would have left the detainees without a friend in the parliament, and would have been a scandalous abandonment if principle, and spit in the eye for almost everyone who cast their primary for us. We would have had to expel every MP who voted for it, and I firmly believe that that is what would have followed. I don’t imagine it crossed anyone’s mind to go there of course.
[Matt
Posted Tuesday, January 20, 2015 at 1:19 pm | Permalink
Boerwar @988:
When voters have no practical ability to change electoral outcomes, it’s not a democracy. The UMNO’s largely commendable history of self-restraint in the use of its power does not make Malaysia a democracy.]
I hadn’t realized that UMNO was strong on self-restraint. Anyway, we might need to agree to differ on this one. It is, I believe, a difference in interpretation.
Your point is that there is no practical ability to change electoral outcomes and my point is that when UMNO fears just that, it changes its policy settings and its resource allocations… as well as, of course, popping the odd opponent in jail and muzzling the press and so on and so forth.
fran
[I don’t agree we can. Had my party gone completely mad and done that this would not have saved the ALP regime. ]
Wow, what a leap.
[The new regime would have implemented Manus citing the failure of the ALP policy to stop the boats..]
But if Malaysia had worked – and even in the early stages the signs were positive – then the boats would have been stopped and this wouldn’t have been an argument, therefore Manus would never have been implemented.
[We would probably be looking in the first instance to improve conditions at existing aggregation points so as to discourage preemptive resort to IMP, ]
Ah. Offshore processing.
[ We would have had to expel every MP who voted for it, ]
That would have been fun to watch. Instead they created the conditions that led to Manus Island and this is a better outcome how??
Zoomster
[How can the Greens – or their supporters – simultaneously support a regional solution but oppose offshore processing?]
This reflects the usage of the term ‘offshore processing’ to mean ‘indefinite longterm warehousing with view to forcing the return of refugees to their country of origin’. We are absolutely opposed to kettling or coercively rendering those seeking protection but have no problem with processing their applications at suitable off-shore aggregation points.
The trouble here is that ‘offshore processing’ is a misnomer in this context.
[ what you and Joe miss is that Joe and high income earners already pay for private health, and pay a massive Medicare levy which of course subsidies those with lower incomes who aren’t paying. ]
No WWP, i acknowledge that. I’m not sure that JoHo really knows thats how it works but what the heck, he’s only the Treasurer after all. 🙂
[ Get rid of the private health rebate ]
Agreed, or have it reduced or change the means test levels, so long as the coercive elements like “Lifetime Health Cover” go at the same time.
Boerwar @1014:
A governing party changing its governance in response to fears of defeat at the ballot box is just fine. When it starts muzzling the press and/or jailing likely opponents (as you’ve just acknowledged the UMNO does), that crosses the line into “not-democracy”.
BW
[Mightlessness does not make right.]
Ethical integrity bears no definite relationship to power, though privilege and power over others are frequently corrosive of it.
[ opposed to kettling or coercively rendering ]
Ok, Fran, going to call you on that as i think alluding to the making soap out of asylum seekers is getting a bit over the top.
Fran – I’ve often wondered why no-one points out that if we allowed refugees to apply for refugee status in Australia while they were still in Indonesia there would be no need for boats either.
Also no need for queue-jumpers if the queue forms in an orderly way at a convenient location.
Stopping the boats ain’t hard…
Indonesia is a way point in the movement of cocaine to Australia, some of that cocaine moves thru Australia to other places, the rest is sold here. The people responsible are foreigners not Indonesians but they allegedly pay off local officials.
It seems reasonable to assume that this is the case for other drugs as well.
Meanwhile Essential has shown essentially no change to the unpopularity of the COALition government.
[Agreed, or have it reduced or change the means test levels, so long as the coercive elements like “Lifetime Health Cover” go at the same time.]
That was why we got private insurance all those years ago a combination of the “Lifetime Health Cover” rules and a complete lack of trust that Howard wouldn’t scrap Medicare.
imacca @1021:
I read “kettling” as “jamming them together”, aka “sardines in a kettle” or similar.
Imacca
[Ok, Fran, going to call you on that as i think alluding to the making soap out of asylum seekers is getting a bit over the top.]
well yes, it would be …
fran
[We are absolutely opposed to kettling or coercively rendering those seeking protection but have no problem with processing their applications at suitable off-shore aggregation points. ]
Right. That happens now, in UNHCR camps all over the world. Yet it doesn’t stop refugees coming here by boat.
Matt
[I read “kettling” as “jamming them together”, aka “sardines in a kettle” or similar.]
I suspect Imacca knew that but was making a joke.
The term ‘kettling’ is often used in the context of police tactics against demonstrators where police barricades are set up to make a space as uncomfortable and hazardous for demonstrators as possible in order to induce them to disperse.
I actually thought that ‘rendering’ was the word being objected to.
I’m not sure what it means in the context fran uses it in – ‘renditioning’, perhaps?
RA @ 1022
This was part of the web of recommendations from the Expert Panel that reported to Labor in August 2012 with, effectively, something for everyone.
Labor was the only party prepared to implement it in its entirety – because they actually had responsibility. The Greens could stick to their principles, knowing that they would never lose a single vote and could well gain from it. The Coalition had to dump its principles because it wanted the boats to keep coming. So it only agreed to the bits that were in its policy despite the fact that they would not work and were subsequently proven not to work – re-opening Nauru and Manus.
I’m not a Green and I consider that their policy is dangerously deluded on this issue. But I do not blame them for sticking to their core principles.
It was the vile conduct of the Coalition on this matter that convinced me that it was a vile stinking moral morass that had no business governing this country. Everything that they have done since has just confirmed my judgement of their moral turpitude. The only thing that has surprised me is the sheer incompetence that has accompanied it. Like the schoolyard dumbo bully. No substance under the nasty intimidatory blunder.
Zoomster
[Right. That happens now, in UNHCR camps all over the world. Yet it doesn’t stop refugees coming here by boat.]
True, which suggests that either the facilities at the aggregation point or the apparent time lag in ‘processing’ are predisposing those taking flight from remaining there or even stopping there in the first place.
http://www.smh.com.au/federal-politics/political-news/tony-abbott-prepares-for-another-long-hard-slog-in-2015-20150120-12tvxk.html
[ Mr Abbott returned from holidays on Tuesday with a vow to push ahead with plans to introduce more price signals into the health system and deregulate university fees. ]
[ Mr Abbott said: “We got the fundamentals right last year. Yes, it’s been a long, hard slog with the Senate, and I dare say that long, hard slog will continue.” ]
They are Fwarked! 🙂
Signalling they will continue to play to their weaknesses and the ALP’s strengths while Abbott is in charge.
Seems that Hockey is serious about trying to base some appeal on the “intergenerational theft” theme he tried to run with late last year as well.
Going to make it hard for them to get rid of Abbott, and even harder to do a proper “reset” of their policy positions if they do. ALP strategists must be loving this.
It’s so funny! Obviously Peta’s line de jour is that Newman wants to “run his own race”. Abbott used it three times in one sentence!
He is such a magnificent orator!
fran
[True, which suggests that either the facilities at the aggregation point or the apparent time lag in ‘processing’ are predisposing those taking flight from remaining there or even stopping there in the first place.]
Right. So the solution you’re proposing exists now, in the real world, and it isn’t working. Which means it isn’t a solution.
[Fran – I’ve often wondered why no-one points out that if we allowed refugees to apply for refugee status in Australia while they were still in Indonesia there would be no need for boats either.]
And that appeals to xenophobic wankers how??
No you’re right. i’m just being a smartarse.
This is another one of the ALPs failures, and it belongs to the Rudd government (the first one). Not necessarily Rudd but that admin. This is the sort of thing they should have thought ahead and prepared for – that at some point in the future refugees in boats would become an issue for Australia.
This whole thing is more complex than the simplistic discussions/arguments it usually devolves into, none the less it should have been thought about more carefully 6 or 7 years ago. Whats the point of trying to think about and plan for the future (ie the – 2020 summit) if you don’t it properly.
Zoomster:
Render:
[f. To transfer (a suspect or prisoner) from one country to another by rendition.]
It’s a development of the more traditional usage cf: render unto Caesar that which is Caesar’s … which means ‘give up’ or ‘yield’.
There’s no need to backform a transitive verb from a noun in this case.
Of course Newman wants to run his own race. Why would you want to race with Abbott’s dead weight chained to your leg holding you back. Especially if the knee on your other leg is dicky anyway.
Zoomster
[Right. So the solution you’re proposing exists now, in the real world, and it isn’t working. Which means it isn’t a solution.]
No. It shows that it doesn’t exist now but needs to be implemented.
Jules
[This whole thing is more complex than the simplistic discussions/arguments it usually devolves into, none the less it should have been thought about more carefully 6 or 7 years ago. Whats the point of trying to think about and plan for the future (ie the – 2020 summit) if you don’t it properly.]
More like 22 years ago actually.
[Kettling (also known as containment or corralling)[1] is a police tactic for controlling large crowds during demonstrations or protests. It involves the formation of large cordons of police officers who then move to contain a crowd within a limited area. Protesters are left only one choice of exit controlled by the police – or are completely prevented from leaving, with the effect of denying the protesters access to food, water and toilet facilities for an arbitrary period determined by the police forces.]
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Kettling
[More like 22 years ago actually.]
Yes, fair point.
imacca – Please, please will someone ask this idiot why we don’t need “price signals” to combat climate change.
I suspect foreigners run the drug trade in Bali,
15 years ago I was traveling in India. Met a rather seedy Canadian who claimed to be a jewelry trader living in Bali. Something was just not quite right and we suspected he was using jewelry as a cover for something else. Showed an unhealthy interest in my two teenage kids and we were pleased to see the back of him.
“The decision was unanimous – we did whatever Peta told us to do that day (but we’ll still do our best to kill universal health care, medicare and bulk billing)”.
http://www.theaustralian.com.au/national-affairs/health/no-cabinet-split-over-medicare-policy-insists-tony-abbott/story-fn59nokw-1227190503081
The ALP have obviously decided to let the LNP stuff up all on their own, but I think they should be capitalising on the shambolic rabble – asking whether abbott is only safe in his leadership because of a lack of talent within the government.
[
imacca – Please, please will someone ask this idiot why we don’t need “price signals” to combat climate change.]
So easy – climate change isn’t real!
Didn’t know that TPOF, thanks. It was just something that occurred to me as being reasonably obvious.
The current debates about the location of processing seem to be missing the point, for me though. The single biggest thing to improve the lives of asylum seekers, and the bottom line of the budget, would be to process the asylum seekers efficiently.
I would prefer onshore processing, but could handle offshore processing if the refugees were actually being processed in a timely manner.
Why does it take years to sort out these claims? Eventually something like 90% of refugee claimants end up being offered asylum, so why aren’t any every found to be genuine refuges inside two months? Some cases must be tricky but there must be a pretty solid number of open and shut cases of clear refugee status.
And every day we keep asylum seekers in detention its very expensive. So why don’t we process them efficiently?
I see no other explanation for the current policies of the Government (and many of the previous Government’s too) than racial animus. Or trying to appeal politically to those with racial animus…
Matt
I’m not sure why you think human trafficking (forced relocation) is a winner for a 21st century democratic polity. The social license for that behavior should have expired long ago.
Also, it does not make sense for a political party to betray a defining commitment on the dubious ground that supporting bad policy and committing electoral suicide is pragmatic. The Malaysia “solution” was nothing of the sort and its purported benefits were delusional speculation. Malaysia has a bad human rights record and it is even more racist and ethnically stratified than Australia. It is not an acceptable place for refugees to build a new life.
No off-shore processing, and no indefinite detention of asylum-seekers on the mainland. That is the only workable and humane solution. It is workable for us because Australia’s vast distance from source countries means that the numbers who arrive would be manageable for Australia’s resources. The Labor party sold out yet again over a peak number of 30,000 asylum seekers in a calendar year – a number well within Australia’s capacity to resettle successfully. In reality not all of that number would be found to be refugees. Was it worth it? No. Labor is in no-man’s land on asylum seekers. A realistic sense of proportion about the numbers was entirely lacking in the LNP’s and Labor’s responses.
The best ways to reduce the number of arrivals are to persuade Indonesia and Malaysia to not issue visas on arrival to people from source countries; contribute to reducing the political disorder which pushes people to flee; and stop destabilizing source countries with ineffective interventions.
Indeed, Rates Analyst.
My strong impression is that the whole policy is based on FOAD some place else. It’s as simple as that. While the presence of a bigoted fringe moved by one form or another of socio-spatial angst or anomie is helpful from the POV of the boss class the whole field is an exercise in getting relatively marginalised people to vote against their interests for whomever they want. In this county, you only need about 5% to switch sides and you can have pretty much any public policy you want.
That’s pretty handy in wag the dog terms.