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.
I will say this for PUP. Lots of diversity in the people sitting behind Bjelke Petersen
[Troy Bramston @TroyBramston 40m40 minutes ago
#OnThisDay 10yrs ago Mark Latham’s ALP leadership spectacularly imploded + he quit politics – @australian’s report
https://twitter.com/TroyBramston/status/556613137307148288/photo/1 ]
Newman entering for his launch now
guytaur
When is Qld Labor doing their campaign launch?
victoria
I do not know. However it looks like Labor gets last and thus the advantage. Greens are launching today or tomorrow I think
This will be a big story today. May overshadow campaign launches
@JasonSobelGC: Full story. RT @WillGrayGC: Details on Robert Allenby, who was kidnapped from a bar, beaten and robbed Friday night: http://t.co/sPbpNgSgFr
Edwina StJohn@22
Nice to see you actually saying something sensible that I can agree with Edwina.
Shooting to death 2 out of the Bali 9 has some interesting issues surrounding it:
(1) First they get a ferry ride, then a trip into the jungle. The executionee can choose to lie down, kneel or stand. They wear a white gown-like thing with a red heart pinned over their hearts. They then they get 10 bullets more or less to the heart. The resulting loss of blood flow to the brain means that most, but not all, executionees are unconscious, if not dead, by the time they hit the ground. If ten bullets are not enough to kill the executionee straight away then the presiding officer completes the task with a bullet to the head. There is no need to think about organ harvesting because the high powered bullets pretty well wreck everything.
(2) The investigation into the Bali 9 included, as I seem to recall, assistance from the AFP. There was a bit of disquiet, immediately after the arrest, about the AFP assisting Indonesian police on matters that involved the death penalty. Post-execuation, will there be an enquiry into the role of the AFP and/or other more secretive and less transparent intelligence agencies? Does the Abbott Government subscribe to the principle that it will not assist in cases, or potential cases, involving the death penalty. Given that such cases now routinely include terrorist activity which is subject to the death penalty in Indonesia, does the Abbott Government now and will it in the future co-operate in such matters? Clearly, the policy settings are skew whiff.
(3) The Abbott Government is conflicted. It needs high levels of co-operation from Indonesian police and other more secretive agencies to assist with (a) stopping boats from setting off and (b) nipping terrorist events in the bud. But the Indonesians are hardly going to be satisfied with one-way intelligence traffic on the basis that we will not give them anything because they might execute someone using the material.
(4) All the good people who have been explaining what a wonderful relationship the Abbott Government has with the world’s largest muslim nation will now need to explain why our Foreign Minister extraordinaire and our globe-trotting Prime Minister cannot stop the execution of two Australians. You can bet one thing for absolute certain: the Coalition Government will not risk cattle sales on a matter of death penalty principle.
(5) I don’t expect an outcry from most Australians over the forthcoming executions. There are some attempts from human rights folk and anti-death penalty folk to get it started. But most Australians wouldn’t give tuppence for large scale heroin smugglers. And besides, they don’t even look like real Australians. If they were, say, young, white, comely and female the uproar might jag up a decibel or two. I’m thinking Corby. Or if they were a white journalist in Egypt busted for nix, say, the noise be a lot louder.
But the Bali two don’t tick any of the major uproar boxes.
As a parent of a son who fell into drugs sometime in the last year at school to the early years of university before dropping outing in year 1. He has now passed his 40th birthday and has never worked a job that paid tax. Living totally on the government teat and now living in a bush humpy with a girl who has a total disability pension. (Pays better than the unemployment benefit!)
I feel as a parent who has faced these disappointments for more than 20 years I am qualified to say that drug users should be given assistance not punishment, but anyone in possession of a trafficable amount of drugs should be given long custodial sentences reflecting the quantity and class of drugs involved. It’s an evil trade.
Yes! We always will love our son, but so much promise has been wasted.
I will say this for Bramston – he jumped the shark, jumped the divide, and still manages to turn a quid.
Is he related to Mavis Bramston?
pom@109
That is such a sad post, but stories such as that are far too common.
I wish you all the best in those tragic circumstances.
A large portion of the Liberal base, probably a majority, seem to favour the death penalty.
pom
What a sad story and one I suspect many parents could relate to – there but for the grace of God go I.
At least you appear to have contact with your son even if only occasionally.
[I feel as a parent who has faced these disappointments for more than 20 years I am qualified to say that drug users should be given assistance not punishment, but anyone in possession of a trafficable amount of drugs should be given long custodial sentences reflecting the quantity and class of drugs involved. It’s an evil trade.]
I would agree with you and you take care.
http://blogs.crikey.com.au/pollbludger/2015/01/12/morgan-54-5-45-5-to-labor-4/?comment_page=40/#comment-2113179
Pendant,
The answer to that is blindingly obvious.
ARISE, DAME GINA. For services to
liberaBusiness[94
guytaur
WWP
Truth is a free for all legal drug market would cause less harm than having them illegal and having criminals in charge of the production…]
This is an easy assertion to make but is not proven. There’s no doubt that the use of addictive substances causes a great deal of harm to individuals, their families and society more generally. This being so, the issue is how to contain and reduce the damage, and how to pay for it.
The idea that there should be free trade in addictive substances is not new, of course. It has an inglorious history:
[Opium Wars, 1839–42 and 1856–60, two wars between China and Western countries.
The first was between Great Britain and China. Early in the 19th cent., British merchants began smuggling opium into China in order to balance their purchases of tea for export to Britain. In 1839, China enforced its prohibitions on the importation of opium by destroying at Guangzhou (Canton) a large quantity of opium confiscated from British merchants. Great Britain, which had been looking to end China’s restrictions on foreign trade, responded by sending gunboats to attack several Chinese coastal cities. China, unable to withstand modern arms, was defeated and forced to sign the Treaty of Nanjing (1842) and the British Supplementary Treaty of the Bogue (1843).
These provided that the ports of Guangzhou, Jinmen, Fuzhou, Ningbo, and Shanghai should be open to British trade and residence; in addition Hong Kong was ceded to the British. Within a few years other Western powers signed similar treaties with China and received commercial and residential privileges, and the Western domination of China’s treaty ports began. In 1856 a second war broke out following an allegedly illegal Chinese search of a British-registered ship, the Arrow, in Guangzhou.
British and French troops took Guangzhou and Tianjin and compelled the Chinese to accept the treaties of Tianjin (1858), to which France, Russia, and the United States were also party. China agreed to open 11 more ports, permit foreign legations in Beijing, sanction Christian missionary activity, and legalize the import of opium. China’s subsequent attempt to block the entry of diplomats into Beijing as well as Britain’s determination to enforce the new treaty terms led to a renewal of the war in 1859. This time the British and French occupied Beijing and burned the imperial summer palace (Yuan ming yuan).
The Beijing conventions of 1860, by which China was forced to reaffirm the terms of the Treaty of Tianjin and make additional concessions, concluded the hostilities.]
Read more: Opium Wars http://www.infoplease.com/encyclopedia/history/opium-wars.html#ixzz3P8TNVRu4
I am never in favour of killing in any circumstances and am very glad that Australia has abolished the death penalty. But the question remains: if I commit a crime in a foreign country, can Australia step in and demand that their laws be ignored?
Sir John Howard?
briefly
See American Prohibition. Its clear cut. Proved it once and for all.
Moonshine was the illegal product with all the problems that entailed.
strike 1!We neither have to reinvent wheels or indulge in wild speculation about the outcomes of drug legalisation – we have an actual example of a real country which decriminalised the personal possession of drugs over a decade ago, and we have plenty of evidence to show both the best way to proceed and the likely outcomes.
There are multiple articles etc on the issue, but here’s a taster —
http://www.tdpf.org.uk/blog/drug-decriminalisation-portugal-setting-record-straight
[The reality is that Portugal’s drug situation has improved significantly in several key areas. Most notably, HIV infections and drug-related deaths have decreased, while the dramatic rise in use feared by some has failed to materialise.]
Nothing will be achieved by the execution of the 2 Bali nine members. The mules get busted, the drug lords rarely if ever do.
zoomster
But-but-but- Our model is always America and secondly Britain. Can’t see the Libs taking any notice of Portugal. :/
Edwina StJohn@121
The Libs protect their own.
briefly @ 115
The Opium Wars were about British exploitation, not about the decriminalising drugs. The British actually needed the Chinese to buy the drugs so they could buy tea from them. The British trading companies were drug pushers for financial gain, nothing more or less.
The equivalent would be to actually licence bikie gangs, mafia and triads to sell drugs on street corners and through tobacconists.
Nobody interested in decriminalisation is proposing that. Prohibition in the USA is a much more relevant example of the pros and cons.
True Bemused, no one “knew” about Keith Wright did they?
Edwina StJohn@125
So he was a ‘drug lord’? I never knew that.
bemused @ 123
Everyone protects their own.
Yes bemused he gave the kiddies pills.
TPOF@127
Do they? Well count me out.
Edwina StJohn@128
You seem to have inside knowledge.
MTBW nd Confessions 81 and 85
Sorry went for a swim to cool off re Canteen defunding and other worthwhile support groups.
Yes Twitter many have complained about it, a few of us are going to go online to see if we can donate ,which in one way annoys me more as we are “helping ” a callous government
MTBW nd Confessions 81 and 85
Sorry went for a swim to cool off re Canteen defunding and other worthwhile support groups.
Yes Twitter many have complained about it, a few of us are going to go online to see if we can donate ,which in one way annoys me more as we are “helping ” a callous government
PTMD @ 114: For services to bulimia research, surely.
Steve777 @ 117: I doubt that very much. He’s got too much sense, and anyway, he’s already got an OM, from which an Abbott knighthood would be a definite step backwards.
In the police reports bemused , happened in the opposition leaders office, but no one knew it was going on.
Edwina StJohn@134
Well fancy that. I never read anything about him being a major ‘drug lord’. Do tell more.
And they almost named a seat in qld “wright” a few years ago
[120
zoomster]
Possession of small quantities of drugs for personal use is not a criminal offence in Portugal, though trafficking still is….
http://www.spiegel.de/international/europe/evaluating-drug-decriminalization-in-portugal-12-years-later-a-891060-2.html
“@AlboMP: Vale Paul O’Grady – friend, political activist, supporter, Parliamentarian, brave leader who embraced life to the full- will be sadly missed”
ESJ
[William have you ever thought of commissioning your own national or Crikey poll?]
I don’t think WB has that kind of money.
Sure, some blogs make quite a bit of money through advertising but he’s a PhD student, not an internet celebrity.
WWP
[Alcohol is pretty much a free for all notwithstanding some really backward countries having antiquated retail regulation for alcohol and of course age restrictions and criminal offences.
What is you model for pot, heroin and cocaine. Would you have pot in supermarkets, or would you have it in the same category as heroin and cocaine and have special regulated ‘hard drug stores’? Would you allow advertising “prices slashed this week on all heroin products, buy more than $500 worth and you get a free Jim Beam.” ]
I’m no drug de-prohibition advocate, but if we do ever go down that path, it’ll probably be similar to tobacco regulation where discounts cannot apply to cigarettes.
But the question remains: if I commit a crime in a foreign country, can Australia step in and demand that their laws be ignored?
by lizzie on Jan 18, 2015 at 1:32 pm
No, but what they could do is put a provision on any assistance given in an investigation, that the death penalty will not be imposed.
This is also true in extradition case’s where we will only allow the extradition to proceed if the receiving country agrees not to enforce the death penalty.
Thank you, Barney.
Discounts can be applied to cigarettes Raaraa. The retailer just can’t advertise when they are on special. Which kind of defeats the point in a way but I suppose it rewards the loyalists.
[124
TPOF]
It doesn’t really matter whether an organisation were called a triad or an Imperial trading company, they were engaged in the same thing – the creation and supply of a market in addictive drugs. The North Koreans still participate in the same trade.
Even in those jurisdictions where possession of drugs for personal use has been decriminalised (either in law in or practice) the organised commercial-scale production and trading in these substances for sale to consumers (afaik) is still subject to prohibition in every jurisdiction.
The reason is really plain. If there were an open-entry, free market in drugs, producers would find ways to promote their use in the same way that gambling, tobacco and alcohol producers also find ways to promote their output.
The argument is, really, we have enough problems. Why add to them?
Decriminalisation of possession is favoured because it removes some of the taboos on drug use and makes it easier to reduce harm to individuals. That is, the purpose of it is to limit and then reduce drug use.
The removal of prohibitions on production would likely have the opposite effect – it would increase consumption. In that respect, the removal of prohibitions on production and distribution would be counter-productive.
WWP from numerous previous posts:
I really hope you are not a member of the Labor party, or any other progressive party. Your cavalier attitude to the very cruel execution of drug traffickers in Indonesia shows a complete lack of understanding that it is the working class who end up on death row, used as pawns by the wealthy and corrupt, those who make the real money out of drug trafficking. The execution of some dozens of drug mules will make no difference whatsoever to the drug trafficking networks, but the shooting deaths of the people in Indonesia will appease those calling for “Tough drug policies”. So, some people like you will feel that a blow has been struck to the international drug trade, and will feel pleased at the executions. But, nothing could be farther from the truth. The executions will not stop 1 gram of heroin or other illicit drugs finding their way into Australia or any other country.
The debate re drugs has gone on for a fair while. This from 2006 marked a 50th anniversary. The UK even after making heroin illegal enabled registered addicts to be prescribed and given heroin by doctors. It may have been a coincidence but when ,after US heavying, the UK outlawed the practice over a decade later the number of addicts sky rocketed.
[The Case for Heroin” – so ran the headline for the Times leader column of Tuesday, 14 June 1955.
….start of it becoming criminalised, 50 years ago this week. …………In the course of a short, lucid article the newspaper which had long been the mouthpiece of Establishment Britain set out its argument in favour of heroin.
In the context of all that has happened since, from heroin’s link with violent crime to the transfer of HIV among users who share needles, as well as countless other social ills, such an article today would seem unthinkable in all but the most libertarian of newspapers]
http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/uk_news/magazine/4647018.stm
ESJ @ 22 and 60
Thank you for your excellent posts on the matter of the 2 of the Bali 9 who will probably be cruelly put to death soon. I wholeheartedly agree with you sentiments.
Interesting point you raised by lizzie.
The government of the country I was born in think it can persecute its citizens in a foreign country for consuming prohibited substances outside of its own borders.
145
Douglas and Milko
…it is the working class who end up on death row]
I’m opposed to capital punishment in general, not merely in cases involving the bourgeoisie…
Douglas and Milko@147
If Australia is to be consistent, it should not just plead for its own citizens to be spared the death penalty, it should oppose it in principle and oppose ANY executions.
This means we would have opposed the execution of the Bali bombers which many, otherwise opposed to the death penalty, seemed to say little. At the time, that probably included me.
If Australia did not oppose the executions carried out in Indonesia yesterday, then we have been opposed as hypocrites and our credibility on the subject reduced.