The BludgerTrack poll aggregate finds the Coalition retaining last week’s big gain without significantly adding to it, except to the extent of a 0.4% increase on two-party preferred and a gain in New South Wales on the seat projection. Coming after this week’s unexpectedly strong result from Ipsos, Coalition-supporting readers of this blog (I know you’re out there) might have been hoping for more. There are two reasons they don’t have it, the first being that Ipsos has had the Coalition tracking solidly higher than its rivals over its four published federal polls, and a bias adjustment is being applied to account for this. So far as BludgerTrack is presently concerned, the Ipsos poll had Labor on 52.5%, rather than the published 51%. The second factor is this week’s Essential Research result. As is so often the case, Essential’s published fortnightly rolling average recorded no change this week. However, BludgerTrack is privy to Essential’s weekly numbers, and while I ordinarily don’t give anything away about them, dedicated observers of BludgerTrack could ascertain for themselves that a stronger result for Labor was concealed by fortnightly smoothing and possibly a little rounding.
It’s a different story on the leadership ratings, where Ipsos’s numbers have caused a particularly large movement in Tony Abbott’s favour on net approval, albeit from a disastrously low base. There are also two data points now to indicate that things might be going a bit awry for Bill Shorten, who long seemed to be tracking just below parity, but is now approaching minus double figures. Abbott has accordingly made up ground on preferred prime minister, which reflects voting intention in being back to where it was before Australia Day. But so far as net approval is concerned, Abbott remains well south of his previous low point after the budget.
GG
Now you’re talking!
zoomster
We do not know. With the deal Greece is seeking they could get back on their feet and get people employed again so there are taxpayers which you need no matter how efficient or not your tax system is.
Then Greece might be able to earn income enough to pay back loans
Anyone got cable and tuned into PVO (which just started apparently)?
zoomster
I also agree with Nicholas if Greece does default. Its their only option but will take a lot longer to haul itself out of the hole
BK,
The real sealer is the Stradivarius Fender Air Guitar Joe played on Budget night last year.
GG
Or framed autographed mountings of Joe’s discarded cigar stubs?
But, the jury is out on that.
On the one hand, the Budget says he inhaled.
On the other, he claims that a cigar is not a smoke.
[1777
Nicholas
…while Greece does need to develop a decent tax system in the years ahead, this is not the top priority when 25 percent of the workforce is unused.]
Yeah, sure. The greater problem is that no-one will want to transact in drachma. No-one really wanted it in the good old days. They would want it even less now. Even within the MMT schema, if no-one can be obliged to pay their taxes, drachma will be converted in the informal market into other currencies which will then vanish abroad, just as used to happen in the pre-Euro days. Depreciating drachma would circulate, always chasing the chance to be exchanged for Euro or dollars.
The drachma would only hold its exchange value if Greece were to run genuinely “hard money” polices – to create an Aegean G-mark.
The highway heading South out of Sydney down the coast and on to Melbourne has always been called the Princes Highway for as long as I can remember. It is named as such on maps. People occasionally misname it the ‘Princess’ Highway, but they are mostly from out of town.
[1798
guytaur
briefly
EU extended the loam. I think you have no point.]
You should pay more attention. The EU agreed to extend the bail-out subject to certain conditions. Syriza have balked at the conditions and have submitted some alternatives, which have apparently been rejected.
I am one of North Sydney’s few Labor voters. I see little campaigning at or between elections in this seat for Joe, Labor or anyone else. The money Joe raises must be mostly spent elsewhere.
[George Megalogenis @GMegalogenis 1h1 hour ago
What’s wrong with Australian politics, in 14 characters.
https://twitter.com/vanOnselenP/status/574823399693795328 … ]
😀
Nicholas
They’ll be fine as long as they don’t have to buy a thing from the outside world. Once they do, they’ll find the money isn’t worth anything.
people correcting others grammar on social media is SO funny
politics 101 this aint
Geoffrey,
There’s a famous cartoon about not going to bed because someone is wrong on the internet.
That urge infests PB.
Unfortunately, the Federal Court is not a gentleman’s club. Evidence of malice (which this wasn’t, it was common or garden frustration and anger at Hockey’s tactics) in a defamation case is only one aspect of it, and not too important if the story is found to be true.
Hockey has admitted to slagging off many other people in his tweets, for which (presumably) he was prepared to take the credit. But when it came to more embarrassing circumstances, he hived the responsibility off to (again, presumably) a staffer. He doesn’t understand that principle of the publisher being liable for what is published under his name or banner.
Hockey is patently being disingenuous when he says he didn’t really know very much about the North Sydney forum. He had plenty of opportunity to ask them to take down the photos, and the begging for donations to his electoral campaign. He needn’t have offered himself for intimate dinners with high-paying donors. It wasn’t necessary that he reserved rooms in Parliament House just before the Budget, so his donors could get the inside skinny on the speech he was about to deliver.
But you could understand how his donors might be pissed off that he was so casual about their $22-grand that he forgot whether he met them, forgot who they were, and forgot what they wanted from him. In fact he claimed not to know why he was involved at all, except for some waffle about a “North Sydney Chamber Of Commerce”.
Incidentally, one already exists. Here is its web site: http://www.northsydneychamber.com.au/
And there’s Joe, on the front page, endorsing it! Just a year ago last month!
He’s not in Parliament now. He doesn’t have a fawning Press Gallery saying how wonderful he is and how vital is his austerity Budget (well OK, they haven’t been saying this for a while now). He can’t rely on Bronwyn Bishop to protect him, and if he thinks Tony Abbott’s endorsement is all he needs, then he should have a quiet word with Peter Reith, or Arthur Sinodinos.
If TBA thinks a couple of editors, faced with the prospect of losing millions of dollars off the back of a story they think has legs, and being angry about it, is conclusive, then he should think agaion. This isn’t talkback radio. It isn’t Question Time. It isn’t a footrub interview with Leigh Sales.
It’s the Federal Court of Australia where evidence must be truthful and all questions must be answered fully, on pain of prosecution for perjury. Shrugging his shoulders and chuckling out of the corner of his mouth is NOT an answer.
The truth, and nothing but the truth, is.
[1803
guytaur
zoomster
We do not know. With the deal Greece is seeking they could get back on their feet and get people employed again so there are taxpayers which you need no matter how efficient or not your tax system is.
Then Greece might be able to earn income enough to pay back loans]
This all misses the point. Debt held in the Greek economy is no more than that held in the Australian economy. It may well be less than the debt burden supported by this economy. The issue is not the quantum of debt. It is debt service obligations, which are no more onerous for Greeks than they are for us.
The Greeks have the misfortune of having a public sector with high debts and a private sector with at-least matching but hidden savings. They need to shift those savings from private accounts to the public sector. They need to impose and carry through deep and far-reaching fiscal reform. If they can capture those private savings they can reflate consumption and meet their debtor obligations too.
Rather than appealing to use the savings of their neighbours, Greeks should use their own savings. Then their problems will ease very quickly.
[people correcting others grammar on social media is SO funny]
It was talkback radio in Sydney, not social media.
Omitting the “apostrophe-s” from place names was strong cartographic policy in the early 1960’s. I remember the arguments about “Wilson Promontory” and “Brown Creek” in particular! Most places lost the “s” completely, but Wilsons Promontory has remained.
And there was the other argument with the cartographers about that ocean south of Warrnambool. I has learned it as “Southern Ocean”, but the cartographers insisted it was the “Indian Ocean”. The Southern Ocean has been officially reinstated. The status of the water south of Australia and north of 60 degrees south is still ambiguous – see Wikipedia
Re WWP @1795:
[If Joe wins the case the law needs to be changed]
The law needs to be changed anyway. Defamation laws nust protect the venal and the stupid among the rich and powerful.
[Incidentally, one already exists. Here is its web site: http://www.northsydneychamber.com.au/
And there’s Joe, on the front page, endorsing it! Just a year ago last month!]
Good find. Surely someone will bring this up in questioning Hockey’s testimony today.
Re. Joe wanting to set-up a “North Sydney Chamber Of Commerce”… it already exists. Here’s it’s web site:
http://www.northsydneychamber.com.au/
Complete with Uncle Joe’s endorsement on the front page, from February 2014. Apart from that, he doesn’t seem to know very much about what’s going on in North Sydney.
Nothing about having to ante-up $22k either, in fact the price of admission is pretty cheap:
Here’s part of its mission statement:
It’s been in existence since at least 2009, as this invitation testifies:
There is also an image doing the rounds on twitter of Joe Hockey sitting with the Chair of the North Sydney Forum, and said Chair’s message endorsing the Forum on behalf of Joe Hockey, encouraging people to join it.
Not sure if it’s genuine or not.
https://twitter.com/WhereMyOstrich/status/574857171147456512
Newspoll further shift to Coalition
Looks real:
http://www.northsydneyforum.com.au/
Re Oceans – it’s all relative to where we are. From here, the Ocean South of Warrnambool is the Southern Ocean. Traditionally, the Chinese had the Eastern (Pacific) and Western (Indian) Oceans. And the Mediterranean is the sea at the centre of the world of those who inhabit its coasts.
It’s true. Abbott is over this way.
[Rick Wilson added 6 new photos.
Just now ·
I was honoured to welcome Prime Minister Tony Abbott MP to Northcliffe today to be briefed on the recovery efforts after the fires and meet with the volunteers who were so integral to saving Northcliffe. Thank you to everyone who attended and to the Prime Minister for not forgetting the little towns that are so vital to my electorate.]
https://www.facebook.com/RickWilsonMP/photos/pcb.340830536118545/340830189451913/?type=1&theater
@nathan28423118: Unbelievable @StevePriceMedia say on @2GB873 The Newspoll is bad for Abbott again so the #libspill2 will start up again
Michael pascoe spells it out for the Yiries on Joe’s latest brainwave of using superannuation to help young people into the housing market
Pouring petrol on the fire he says.
http://www.smh.com.au/business/the-economy/super-ideas-pour-petrol-on-fire-in-the-housing-market-20150309-13z1up.html
Yiries? Tories.
Apple’s predictive text really is a worry. It’s not as if Tories is a word I don’t use very often …
Presumeably the members of the North Sydney forum told Joe they dudn’t want to pay tax, didn’t want to be regulated, and wanted to screw down the wages and conditions of their employees. But then, he probably knew that already.
Joe’s mentioned on every freakin’page of the North Sydney Forum. It’s whole reason for being is to promote him and his electoral prospects… and that of the Liberal Party.
Yet he swore in Court today that he knows nothing much about it at all.
Someone – either the Forum or Joe – is lying.
If it’s Joe, it’s perjury. If it’s the Forum, I have no sympathy for the suckers who thought $22k could buy them entry to the oak-panelled cloisters.
http://www.northsydneyforum.com.au/
BB
I would think that, if a reasonable person, looking at the North Sydney forum site THOUGHT their dosh was buying them access to the Treasurer, there’s no case to answer.
If Joe was aware that the forum was advertising this but at no stage tried to correct them, even more so.
[Nicholas
Posted Monday, March 9, 2015 at 7:07 pm | Permalink
[So while Greece does need to develop a decent tax system in the years ahead, this is not the top priority when 25 percent of the workforce is unused.]
Develop a ‘decent’ tax system?
Bwahahaha…
If Greece wants to stay in the EU the greeks are finally going to have to pay real tax and pay off their debts.
That is not a matter of economic theory or fiscal theory or even of social justice.
It is a matter of the other members of the club insisting that Greece finally meets the club membership rules. If Greece does not like the rules, it can bugger off out of the EU.
The really unpleasant surprise for SYRIZA was that this time round the other club members were not ambushed by greeksmail, greek bad faith, greek cheating at taxes, and greek not sticking to its agreements.
When SYRIZA lobbed the Greek debt bomb into the Eurogroup, hoping for a panic reaction, the Eurogroup lobbed the debt bomb right back into SYRIZA’s court.
The Southern Ocean is unique in that it is continuous around the world circumnavigating Antarctica.
It is reason we don’t experience the extremes of weather seen in the Northern Hemisphere in winter.
BB:
Yep, the Forum website catches Hockey with his pants down. He can’t have it both ways: either he was engaged with its objectives, or his professed ignorance shows him up as a hillbilly schmuck. Whichever way you look at it, should such a person really be the nation’s Treasurer?
S777 @ 1827
It took me quite a while during my childhood to get my head around the fact that people in the Northern Hemisphere are walking upside down.
Confessions
Bit hard on hillbillies aren’t you?
Viewed from afar it has interested me that Fairfax didn’t ever seem interested in settling this
I wonder if they will wheel out some disgruntled NSF members who maybe didn’t get what they thought they were paying for.
The purchasing power of the private sector in Greece is weak enough as it is. You spend less if your wage has dropped sharply or disappeared entirely. How on earth would it help the Greek economy to take even more money out of the private sector?
Within the Eurozone only the ECB can reflate the Greek economy. The Greek Government does not create the currency. The only solution within the Eurozone is for the ECB to get off its butt and issue enough Euros for the Greek Government to spend on repairing all the damage done by the ECB over the past five years. For ideological reasons this will not happen. Therefore the best course available is for the Greek Government to exercise its sovereign prerogatives to leave a regional body, issue its own currency, and spend heavily on the right things.
rossmcg:
There’s obviously still testimony to come, but in my view, all Hockey’s appearance has done today is cement the perception of him as a bumbling, incompetent fool.
Nicholas
[ Therefore the best course available is for the Greek Government to exercise its sovereign prerogatives to leave a regional body, issue its own currency, and spend heavily on the right things.]
Spend heavily using what? Wheelbarrow loads of drachmas?
[Barney in Saigon
Posted Monday, March 9, 2015 at 8:30 pm | Permalink
The Southern Ocean is unique in that it is continuous around the world circumnavigating Antarctica.
It is reason we don’t experience the extremes of weather seen in the Northern Hemisphere in winter.]
I have seen this numerous times before and had accepted it in the sort of way you accept things as being axiomatic.
Why is it so?
Oh dear ,poor England. Playing the mighty Bangladesh and needing 276 they are 126-4 in the 28th over.
Boerwar @ 1843
Mixing.
poroti
All is not lost.
We shall go on to the end. We shall bat in France, we shall bat on the seas and oceans, we shall bat with growing confidence and growing strength in the air, we shall defend our island, whatever the cost may be. We shall bat on the beaches, we shall bat on the landing grounds, we shall bat in the fields and in the streets, we shall bat in the hills; we shall never surrender.]
DN
I am sure this means something to somebody but it is a little bit lean in terms of explaining why the southern hemisphere has fewer extremes of weather than the northern hemisphere.
As Hockey’s North Sydney Forum seems to involve various other people, it seems possible some will be called to testify. Does anyone know if a person can receive a subpoena and be forced to testify against their will in a civil trial of this kind?
A government does not need to borrow the currency which it creates.
It is government spending which enables the private sector to get its hands on the currency it needs to pay its taxes. Money goes from the government to the private sector. Money goes not go from the private sector to the government. The government does not use the money that taxpayers pay; that money is simply extinguished, removed from private sector. Taxes don’t go anywhere. We are talking, of course, of governments which issue their own currencies. This does not apply to the nations of the Eurozone.
[Does anyone know if a person can receive a subpoena and be forced to testify against their will in a civil trial of this kind?]
Yes, of course.