The regular Essential Research fortnightly average is our only new federal poll for the week, and it finds Labor losing one of the two points it gained last time to record a two-party lead of 53-47. Primary votes are 40% for Labor (down one), 40% for the Coalition (steady), 10% for the Greens (steady) and 1% for what’s left of Palmer United (steady). The poll finds only 26% deeming it likely Tony Abbott will make it to the next election with 57% opting for unlikely, with wide partisan differences along the expected lines. With respect to tax reform, strong majorities are recorded in favour of measures hitting multinational corporations and high-income earners, while fierce hostility remains to expanding or increasing the GST. However, it’s lineball on removing negative gearing, which 33% support and 30% oppose. Questions on economic and financial issues get the usual set of grumpy responses, with a balance of belief in favour of company profits having improved, but every personal and national indicator deemed to have gotten worse.
Boerwar
Re Yemen . About 3 weeks ago the Washington Post reported US$500 mill in military aid to Yemen was unable to be accounted for. Things that make you go Hmmm!.
kezza2@575: “50%??Kerrist! What are you on? Ice?”
What I’m saying is that all sorts of bad stuff – domestic violence, child abuse, elder abuse, gang violence, rampant embezzlement from the funds of indigenous community organisations, etc. – happens on remote communities and in the indigenous suburbs of country towns that either doesn’t get reported to the police or else the police don’t try to do anything about it because they don’t think they’ll get anywhere. And that one of the main reasons the police don’t do anything about it is because they have found that the community closes ranks around the accused (who are often the most powerful men in that community) and witnesses won’t speak up in court.
Are you seriously denying this?
This bad stuff that’s going on doesn’t mean that Aborigines don’t deserve financial assistance/reparations and social justice and land rights and native title and respect from the white community and a place in the Constitution (or a treaty) and all that good stuff.
It also doesn’t mean that Howard’s Intervention was justified: the hysteria whipped up about cabals of child abuse and so forth was a beat-up designed to win votes for an ailing government (and it deservedly failed).
And it certainly doesn’t mean that communities should be forcibly closed down and people shifted to the towns and the cities. That’s ludicrous stuff for a whole lot of reasons I don’t have the time to go into.
But, IMO, it also doesn’t mean that the answer to the problems of indigenous communities is to somehow simply put an end to racism. Or throw enormous amounts of money at the problem (that’s been tried several times and hasn’t worked). Or to try to make pariahs out of the police who work in those communities in the way that was done to the much-reviled “Tall Man” in the death of an individual on Palm Island who I won’t name out of respect: that man didn’t handle the situation at all well, but it was a complex situation and, like the deaths in custody of the 1980s, should not simply be represented as an open and shut case of a policeman or woman deciding to murder someone in cold blood.
In some traditional Aboriginal cultures, perhaps most of them, most deaths are seen murders: even what we would call deaths from natural causes are often considered to have been caused by black magic practices employed by an enemy. If a policeman takes someone into custody and they die while there, many of the Aborigines I know would consider that to be murder on the basis that “they took him with them and then he died”.
The situation of indigenous people is terrible and we are to blame, but it’s not a simple fix. The best thing we could possibly do is all go back to the countries of our ancestors and leave the whole continent to them. That’s certainly not going to happen: what’s going to happen is that many tens of millions more people – including a high proportion east Asians and people from the sub-continent – are going to come and live here. And lots of bleeding heart commentators – George Megalogenis for example, on the evidence of his program on Tuesday night – are going to be cheering the process on.
We’re all part of it, all of us who live a nice comfortable life in Australia. The deaths by poisoning, the mass shootings by the campfires, the fencing off of hunting grounds, the stolen generations, the deaths in custody, the rest of it. It doesn’t matter how we feel about it, we are all responsible and keep on being responsible day after day. We can try to absolve our guilt by feeling superior to white people like the police and non-Aboriginal outback residents who actually have to deal with the problems of Aboriginal communities on a day to day basis. We can call them rednecks and racists. But we are all up to our neck in it, just as much as they are.
Gordon’s mother states that she didn’t ask for the AVO that was issued
http://www.theguardian.com/australia-news/2015/apr/01/theyre-hunting-billy-gordon-down-supporters-speak-up-for-embattled-mp
[Gordon has admitted that a row he had with his mother – sparked by her disapproval of his reunion with the woman in 2008 – led to him being issued with an apprehended violence order. “My mother at the time was concerned that I was going to return to a relationship with an ex-partner (we were at said ex-partner’s residence) and I asked her to leave in a manner that she found threatening,” Gordon said at the weekend. But his mother rejects characterisation of this episode as evidence of his violent nature and insists she did not ask for the AVO police issued against Gordon as a result of it. ]
meher baba
[What I’m saying is that all sorts of bad stuff – domestic violence, child abuse, elder abuse, gang violence, rampant embezzlement from the funds of indigenous community organisations, etc. – happens on remote communities and in the indigenous suburbs of country towns that either doesn’t get reported to the police or else the police don’t try to do anything about it because they don’t think they’ll get anywhere. And that one of the main reasons the police don’t do anything about it is because they have found that the community closes ranks around the accused (who are often the most powerful men in that community) and witnesses won’t speak up in court.]
Are you seriously denying this?
Happens in whitey community too, but gets covered up.
[The situation of indigenous people is terrible and we are to blame, but it’s not a simple fix. The best thing we could possibly do is all go back to the countries of our ancestors and leave the whole continent to them. That’s certainly not going to happen: what’s going to happen is that many tens of millions more people – including a high proportion east Asians and people from the sub-continent – are going to come and live here. And lots of bleeding heart commentators – George Megalogenis for example, on the evidence of his program on Tuesday night – are going to be cheering the process on.]
Yep. You’re rooting for Asians. You couldn’t give a stuff about indigenes.
What a bigot.
Sounds like the media needs some answering to do regarding the allegations…
Kezza, stop calling Meher Baba a racist and a bigot.
poroti
Yemen well on the way to failed state. Large parts of it were running out of water before the current crisis and there was little sign that the central government either would or could do anything sensible about the water crisis.
It all reminds me of the Thirty Years War. This pretty well ended when everyone was dead, dead broke, burned out of house and home, sick, or sick and tired of it all.
If we take 13 years ago as the Bush, Blair, Howard start point for this bout of Sunni v Shia insanity then another 17 years hardly seems enough to sort it all – particularly if the West’s main contribution seems to be to destabilise stable regimes or to sustain doomed regimes for a bit longer.
Ensuring that huge stockpiles of weapons and munitions are left unguarded (Libya and Iraq), or abandoned by our ally (Iraq) or sold on the black market to the enemy (Vietnam, Afghanistan and Iraq), seems to be de rigeur.
One of the reasons that around 70 ISIL fighters are holding off the West’s airforces, numerous tanks, and heavy artillery, and around 30,000 soldiers is that Tikrit has been laced with thousands upon thousands of IEDs including, doubtless, artillery shells left in situ by the Iraqi Army when it skedaddled.
SNIP
No further warnings, Kezza.
mb/602…
…no stone unturned…
“We’re all part of it”…and it’s part of us too. That’s the thing.
It’s OK William: in a way I think I’m unwittingly provoking Kezza.
Kezza: I’ll try to put it simply. I’m absolutely fascinated by Aborigines and their society and culture, have studied it closely and care about their well-being enormously. I don’t think I’m a racist. I could be accused of being a bit of a cynic, especially towards what I see as simplistic bleeding heart attitudes. But I try not to be rude about it.
Boom Shankar.
william bowe
NO FURTHER WARNINGS
It would be really good if you actually allowed my posts to go through, rather than leaving an impression that I have attacked someone.
Which I haven’t.
What about FREEDOM of speech. What a luxury.
If a rightly reviled “Tall Man” deliberately drops his considerable weight onto a detainee’s abdomen and splits the detainee’s liver and spleen, and then gets his mates to investigate the incident, and the police close ranks around one of their own, and a non-Aboriginal jury acquits, I think the man’s community can reasonably impute, without any need of witchcraft, the victim’s death to the “Tall Man’s” actions.
meher baba
[It’s OK William: in a way I think I’m unwittingly provoking Kezza.
Kezza: I’ll try to put it simply. I’m absolutely fascinated by Aborigines and their society and culture, have studied it closely and care about their well-being enormously. I don’t think I’m a racist. I could be accused of being a bit of a cynic, especially towards what I see as simplistic bleeding heart attitudes. But I try not to be rude about it]
It’s a bit embarrassing, isn’t it, to be protected by William.
And your confession about being “fascinated by Aborigines” – oh dear.
Let’s hope you live up to your own expectations about your own race.
Dayley @595:
[The LNP and the Courier Mail in particular will continue with their crusade but one has to consider how many times can the boy cry wolf before the public just give a collective “who gives a ratz “]
For all we know, that’s what they want. After all, I wonder what skeletons are hiding in their closets?
Fortescue shares down to $1.90.
Twiggy, current adviser to Abbott on Indigenous employment, might need all his job-hunting skills to get a job for himself.
Greek three year bonds dip back below 20%.
Tsipras to meet with Putin.
All is well with the world.
There is a ReachTEL national poll that’s just been on Seven News. TPP ALP 54 (-1) L/NP (+1). Primary votes ALP 35.4 L/NP 40.5 (other party details to come)
http://www.theguardian.com/australia-news/2015/apr/01/tony-abbotts-personal-approval-rating-jumps-in-latest-poll
[Tony Abbott’s personal approval rating jumps in latest poll
Prime minister’s rating rises 3.5 points, but he is still a distant third to Malcolm Turnbull as preferred leader of the Coalition, Seven News ReachTel survey shows
Shalailah Medhora
Wednesday 1 April 2015 19.13 AEDT]
Last poll for comparison, 5 Feb.
https://www.reachtel.com.au/blog/7-news-national-poll-5february2015
Kezza has been permanently banned from this website, and will never be heard from again. This is not because of this particular episode, which simply amounts to her behaving the way she always does. In the interests of maintaining the quality of the board, it is incumbent upon me to to ensure that those who offer intelligent and respectful commentary are free to do so without suffering this person’s unfailingly ugly and stupid personal attacks. I announce this publicly by way of stiffening by spine against any future attacks of soft-headedness that might cause me to lift the ban at some point in the future, such as I have been guilty of in the past.
Matt @615,
That could well be the case but I think they are just on a slash and burn and have not thought through any long term consequences.
I think one unintended consequence for the LNP out of this witch hunt is that a very high bar has been raised by the Premier for any wrong doing over the next three years by any LNP member of Parliament.
Springborg will have very little wriggle room in responding when the pressure comes back onto him at some point over the actions of one of his members.
I am sure will jump all over it and then some.
cheers
William
When did Bludger start?
[There is a ReachTEL national poll that’s just been on Seven News. TPP ALP 54 (-1) L/NP (+1). Primary votes ALP 35.4 L/NP 40.5 (other party details to come)]
Is it just me or do those figures make no sense?
zoidlord@584
Well whoop de doo.
Thanks for nothing.
Sorry, that’s primary votes L/NP 35.4 ALP 40.5
Keep an eye on this site for the full poll, maybe later tonight.
https://www.reachtel.com.au/blog/
Nicholas
Tall Man was a great book, but he didn’t get his friends to investigate the death; his boss did.
I kind of felt sorry for Hurley although I thought he should have gone to jail.
He went there with good intentions and got worn down, dismayed and snapped.
William. Please reconsider. Kezza is part of the rich tapestry and all that. I mean it.
MB, you are too kind – and that is intended as a (mild) criticism, not a platitude. I would like to stress that this decision doesn’t really have anything to do with you, and had pretty much been made already. It was just a question of waiting until something motivated me to go backstage and impose the required block.
New thread.
Nicholas: if the Tall Man indeed did what you say, and did it deliberately and in cold blood, then yes.
It’s possible – but far from certain – that this what happened. What you and I haven’t had to do is try to restrain and control someone who is paralytically drunk, full of violent intent, and with no concern for their own safety. I’ve seen police try to do this, and it’s much harder than you might think. I saw a dozen police try to do this with one (admittedly very large and strong) guy and find it quite a struggle.
Nobody other than the Tall Man and (if there’s an afterlife) the deceased gentleman knows for sure what happened in that lockup. They’re not telling and we can’t be certain. Ms Hooper’s in many ways superb book did tend, I feel, to jump to conclusions a bit in this respect.
The last para on the Guardian Article on the Reachtel Poll says:
[“The Liberal party’s primary vote is up nearly a point to 35.4%, while Labor is down by the same margin to 40.5%.”]
So if it’s the other way around, Greens about 10, others about 14 gives Labor 2PP about 40.5 + 8 +6 = about 54.
The Australian government is not revenue-constrained. Its spending has no financial limit. Its spending is constrained by inflation risk. Unused labour that is unwanted by the private sector can and should be hired with federal government spending at a wage which acts as a price anchor for the economy. Such a policy is highly unlikely to be inflationary. Any inflationary pressures can be eased by raising taxes and/or reducing government spending. There is a large amount of unused productive capacity in the economy today. Thus ample room for non-inflationary increased spending. The extra spending should be targeted at things that assist productive capacity. Job creation. Infrastructure. Social services. Science.
Labors approach to the economy is a dead end. Surplus fetishism underpins their macroeconomic theory. In that sense no different from the liberals. Only differences are in pace and emphasis. How often did swan revise his timetable for government surplus? He never figured out that a government surplus and a current account deficit require a domestic private sector deficit. Private sector deficits can only be financed by private sector debt. As households and firms grow ever more indebted, more and more of their income has to go to debt service instead of consumption and investment. The result is dwindling sales, less output, and fewer jobs. Labor cannot explain why it thinks a government surplus aka a private sector deficit should be a target of economic policy.
The main target of economy policy should be full employment with stable prices. Full employment should be defined as no more than 2% unemployment, 0% hidden unemployment, 0% underemployment. The government balance should be allowed to float to whatever level is needed to support full employment at a given time. The government balance should not be the target.