Two big new polls:
• In The Australian, Newspoll repeats its surprisingly strong result from the Coalition at its previous poll three weeks ago, with Labor’s two-party lead steady at 51-49. Primary votes are 41% for the Coalition (steady), 36% for Labor (down one) and 11% for the Greens (steady). Tony Abbott’s personal ratings continue to rise from their low base, with approval up four to 33% and disapproval down two to 59%, while Bill Shorten gets his worst figures to date with approval down three to 33% and disapproval up four to 54%. Abbott all but closes the gap on prime minister, now at 41-40 compared with 41-36 last time. The poll was as always conducted from Friday to Sunday, the sample being 1172.
• By stark contrast, the latest Ipsos poll for the Fairfax papers belies the pollster’s previous form as a leaner to the Coalition in giving Labor two-party leads of 54-46 on previous election preferences and 55-45 on respondent-allocated preferences. This represents a three-point shift to Labor from the previous Ipsos poll in late February on both measures. Labor’s primary vote is up two to 38%, the Coalition is down three to 39% and the Greens are up one to 13%. Reflecting the trend elsewhere, Tony Abbott’s approval rating is up two to 34% with disapproval down two to 60%, while Bill Shorten is down one to 42% and up one to 44%. Shorten’s lead as preferred prime minister has widened slightly from 44-39 to 46-38. The poll also finds 37% support for an increase in the goods and services tax with 59% opposed – a relatively favourable result. The poll was conducted Thursday to Sunday from a sample of 1404.
Fantastic article on the drum:
[http://www.abc.net.au/news/2015-04-13/verrender-bust-out-the-smoke-screen-its-time-to-talk-tax/6387732 ]
I keep banging on about the lack of resources of the ATO to do its job properly and fairly.
TPOF
And the dodgy analysis of the polls is nothing new.
We only have to go back the last year of Howard and recall some of the coverage by Dennis Shanahan. His writing that year was worthy of a fiction award.
TPOF@87
Agree with your take except, of course, it is the “media” which commissions the polls in the first place.
There is an element of manufacturing the news as much as reporting and analysing same.
Our local West rarely reports Newspoll or the Fairfax one for good reason that there is no quid it in for them. Reachtel is their in house reference.
Today, for instance, the recent Queensland poll regarding the delinquent former Labor member was mentioned in The West but only to the extent of (wtte) “Queensland voters, according to a recent opinion poll want a fresh election for the seat”. It was a tiny snippet and for whatever reason did not bother to show the 50-50 TPP.
As we have seen with the contrasting polls today, each of them make of them what they will as they are partly driving the polls themselves.
It is the ABC acting as a relay station for News Limited when it comes to Newspoll – for whatever reason – which gets me.
Why does the ABC pick this particular poll to highlight on a regular basis? There may be good reason e.g. it tends to be somewhere near the mark around election time, but then, so are the other polls.
ABC774 will have a forum on youth unemployment after 11 am this morning on the conversation hour
http://www.abc.net.au/melbourne/
How is it the right thing to legislate even more overreach by the law enforcement and security agencies?
This link should work
http://www.abc.net.au/news/2015-04-13/verrender-bust-out-the-smoke-screen-its-time-to-talk-tax/6387732
[How is it the right thing to legislate even more overreach by the law enforcement and security agencies?]
Australians would willing do so. And it is overreach but not that much. Seems to me it is wasting resources that would be better invested elsewhere. The best way to show that is to invest the resources where the law enforcement and security forces want the investment and then hold them to account.
There is a fine line between giving people good policy they don’t want and ignoring the will of the people. Again and again and again Australians have shown we are willing to sacrifice rights and reputation for perceived security.
[It is the ABC acting as a relay station for News Limited when it comes to Newspoll – for whatever reason – which gets me.]
Yes but they highlighted Ipsos when it favoured the coalition if I remember correctly.
Credlin still wants to make all the decisions, it seems.
[Tony Nutt will not be joining the Prime Minister’s Office as first suggested.
Nutt’s addition to the PMO would have been good for Abbott. If the experienced fix-it man had replicated the role he played in former PM John Howard’s office, Nutt could have taken on the enforcer part of Credlin’s all-encompassing responsibilities and provided another way for backbenchers to communicate with the PM. This would have freed up Credlin to concentrate on political strategy and policy.
However, according to well-connected conservative columnist Niki Savva, Nutt was unable to obtain assurances of access – presumably to the PM – and responsibilities, which is code for Credlin being unwilling to accede to a power-sharing arrangement.
Nutt joins a growing line of experienced and respected political or policy talent that has either been rebuffed or shown the door by Credlin and Abbott since the Coalition regained Government. Well-credentialed departmental secretaries such as Andrew Metcalfe, Blair Comley and Martin Parkinson were given the axe early on. Hockey reportedly wanted to keep Dr Parkinson as head of Treasury but was over-ruled by the PM and his CoS. Next month’s budget will therefore be in part a measure of the new Treasury head, John Fraser, who is said to have been Abbott’s preferred candidate for the role, as well as a test for Treasurer Hockey.
In total, eight departmental heads have been sacked or resigned since the change of government.]
http://www.abc.net.au/news/2015-04-13/matthewson-new-polls-but-same-old-pain/6388070
ross and tricot
My main point is that the polls themselves are just noise at this point in the electoral cycle, especially as we are in a pre-budget sitzkrieg. And then we get an overlay of even louder noise with less substance because they have to do it.
The public are not listening or thinking about it. I’ve got to the point where I don’t even bother to read the analysis that would give me a sugar hit because it’s so meaningless.
Roll on the budget and let the real battle begin.
http://theconversation.com/the-state-of-imprisonment-in-australia-its-time-to-take-stock-38902?utm_medium=email&utm_campaign=Latest+from+The+Conversation+for+13+April+2015+-+2634&utm_content=Latest+from+The+Conversation+for+13+April+2015+-+2634+CID_7ff95002bb8ee7aec065431a24274437&utm_source=campaign_monitor&utm_term=The%20state%20of%20imprisonment%20in%20Australia%20its%20time%20to%20take%20stock
[Indigenous Australians suffer punitive approach
An ongoing issue in Australia, which we have failed to reverse – just as we have failed to close the gap – is the over-representation of Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander people in our prisons.
Nationally, the rate of imprisonment for ATSI people was 13 times higher than for non-Indigenous people at June 30, 2014. This figure covers a diverse situation across the nation. In Western Australia, ATSI men and women are 18 times more times likely than non-Indigenous Australians to be imprisoned in WA, whereas in Tasmania the rate is four times higher.
In 2013, Chris Cunneen articulated the concern in The Conversation that:
too many Indigenous Australians will remain second-class citizens in their own country … remaining the object of law when it comes to criminalisation and incarceration.
The most recent statistics affirm that Cunneen’s predictions are unfolding with little sign of abating.
Prisons are a poor substitute for mental health care
An emerging concern is the recognition and realisation that mental illness and mental impairment are diagnosed at much higher rates within our imprisoned population than in the wider community.
Data on this issue is less easily accessed nationally. What we do know is that there is a “higher incidence of mental health problems in the Australian prison population than in the general population” and that “almost two in five prison entrants (38%) reported having been told that they have a mental health disorder”.
Prison is fast becoming a significant location for individuals with high mental health needs to be supported and managed. This reflects a national malaise, stemming from the responsibility we must all bear for decisions to remove so many of the support networks that were in place decades ago – and to remove them without any replacement or alternative. The result has been the criminalisation of an increasing number of people.]
Did anyone here watch Rome: The First superpower on SBS last night.
And if you did, did you think that it gloried too much in the blood department?
We must have seen that bull have its throat cut 30 times. Dittio for Jesus screaming as they hammered in the nails on the cross.
Sick. Won’t watch again (the first episode was the same, over and over again, same scenes).
From the Matthewson piece as quoted by Lizzie at 109:
[ Next month’s budget will therefore be in part a measure of the new Treasury head, John Fraser, who is said to have been Abbott’s preferred candidate for the role, as well as a test for Treasurer Hockey.]
Given that every indication is that Fraser is pro big business, anti-Keynesian and thought Ronald Reagan got it right, it should be an interesting budget. I expect it will be courageous in the Yes! Minister sense and craven at the same time. Given the immense capacity of this Government to do things ham-fistedly, it is sure to be immediately seen through and unpopular everywhere.
Should be fun.
Well I am not sure how you want to interpret this but I understand that the phones of MPs and senators have been running very hot on the meta data issue.
Like it or not it HAS damaged Labor, although obviously the size of the damage and the extent to which it lasts until the election are open questions.
BB @ 112
That was the program before it – about the rise of Christianity. The episode of Rome the First Superpower was primarily about the Punic Wars, which predated the birth of Christianity by a couple of hundred year.
BB
It seems to be the ‘in’ thing.
‘Vikings’ on SBS was mostly made up of little plot and 45 minutes of people being hacked to death.
CTar1
I am not much for television but the seemingly never ending SBS promotions for Vikings drew me in a few weeks ago.
I lasted less than a minute into the first battle scene.
[‘Vikings’ on SBS was mostly made up of little plot and 45 minutes of people being hacked to death.]
That’s why we stopped watching it. I know it was cold and damp up in the fjordlands, but you’d have thought that just occasionally Vikings could crack a joke, or smile at something (besides the Nasty Smile when they chopped someone’s arm off).
Vikings was far too bleak.
It’s why we have never watched Game Of Thrones, either. It looks all so miserable.
[113
TPOF]
Hockey was on ABC radio this morning, making it clear that revenue is falling and that his response will be to slightly cut spending rather than to raise revenue, and the spread of the cuts would be similar to that attempted last year.
The Department of Finance monthly reports make interesting reading. It’s clear that revenue is lagging and that even though spending has been tight, the deficit is still growing. By end-Feb, the deficit was running at around 3.8% of GDP. Presumably, this will slide a bit more by end June.
So there is a lot of fiscal and monetary expansion in the current macro settings. Tightening would pose a risk to what little growth there is. If the terms of trade shock gets worse (and it seems this is a foregone conclusion) then the economy will require settings that are even more expansionary.
It seems the non-Keynesian thinkers in Treasury and the Cabinet are following Keynes in spite of themselves.
BB
[It’s why we have never watched Game Of Thrones, either. It looks all so miserable.]
Game of thrones OK. Has multiple plot strands and less violence by a long shot than Vikings.
[118
Bushfire Bill]
Some things are just not meant to be turned into entertainment. Slaughter is one of them, imo.
[That was the program before it – about the rise of Christianity. The episode of Rome the First Superpower was primarily about the Punic Wars, which predated the birth of Christianity by a couple of hundred year.]
You are, as always, correct.
But the point remains: it appears they only had enough budget to shoot a few “recreation” scenes around animal sacrifice and the crucifixion, and then (presumably as filler) replayed both scenes endlessly, ad infinitum, to the point of nausea. I wasn’t exaggerating about 30 times over for each. On and on, time after time: same scene, same blood, same screams of pain.
Why?
[114
daretotread]
The amendments haven’t damaged Labor in my eyes. They have been elevated instead.
Interesting read from The Guardian. It’s a UK story but it applies here I am sure
[Politicians love dressing up in hi-vis vests, but they ignore what’s really happening to modern workers]
http://www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/2015/apr/12/politicians-modern-workers-hi-vis-vests-stress-bullying
[122
Bushfire Bill
Why?]
Vicarious horror…Just makes me sick.
But it seems many like it. Perhaps the phobic is addictive. Maybe it’s all of a piece with the whole scary-wicked-monster-stories that infect the popular consciousness.
[Game of thrones OK. Has multiple plot strands and less violence by a long shot than Vikings.]
The American definition of “TV drama” seems to be lots of actors standing around. not smiling at anything, utterly serious all the time.
This was also why I couldn’t stand Law & Order and its spin-offs (ESPECIALLY “SVU”). It was all so miserable and serious. No-one ever cracked a joke or said something funny or amusing. Just relentless po-facedness. No light at the end of the tunnel whatsoever. Just all tunnel.
Add Spooks to that list. Nothing there to lighten up the mood.
I haven’t seen the new series of New Tricks but the old one (being run on Gem) is a nice combination of “serious” and “funny”.
The old adage “Make ’em laugh… make’em cry” should be applied more often, especially to some of the bleaker TV series around.
[Well I am not sure how you want to interpret this but I understand that the phones of MPs and senators have been running very hot on the meta data issue. ]
I don’t think this issue is dead yet. In particular, the matter of warrantless access.
http://www.macrobusiness.com.au/2015/04/thermal-coal-crunch-deepens/
Peak coal has passed..good for the climate, bad for the budget in the immediate run…
I enjoyed the first two seasons of Vikings. I didn’t feel it was too over the top with the gore and violence. But then, I’m a child of the Eighties, so I’m pretty much desensitised to any sort of on screen violence and gore.
[127
Just Me
I don’t think this issue is dead yet. In particular, the matter of warrantless access.]
The “issue” of warrants is a furphy. Warrants are still required for intercepts of communications.
Bushfire
The new actors on New Tricks take a bit of getting used to – I miss the oddball Brian – but I still enjoy it.
[ From the Matthewson piece as quoted by Lizzie at 109:
Next month’s budget will therefore be in part a measure of the new Treasury head, John Fraser, who is said to have been Abbott’s preferred candidate for the role, as well as a test for Treasurer Hockey. ]
This should be a worry for the Libs but it remains to be seen if they have the strategic smarts to acknowledge the situation. They need to address the theme of “fairness” in the 2015 budget or it will go the way of the 2014 effort and sink them for 2016. If they have a “like mind” to the people who formulated the 2014 budget as head of Treasury giving them advice then they could be in trouble.
Poll wise i would agree that its all been in an unpleasant (for the Libs) holding pattern for a while now. Actually its arguable that its been that way since after the 2014 budget with people going WTF?? and waiting to see what does or does not get through the Senate.
I think that its about a month after the Budget when people have had time to digest what the Coalition position is, and the ALP have replied that the polls will be more meaningful.
Its an awful position for the Libs strategically. If this budget is badly received then they have to dump Abbott / Hockey and put a “new” team in place with a new policy direction AND a new budget later in the year or they are fwarked. Confusion, Chaos, and Pissed off Backers into the second half of the year causing a dry up of party funding all fired up by speculation about an election late 2015 maybe??
BB @ 122
Why? You answered it yourself – budget (plus a very low opinion of the intellect of the viewing public)
I missed most of the blood and gore as I was playing a game on my computer while listening to the narrative – which was very interesting. The narrator did not mention it, but it was the same problem that the Romans had with the Jews – the Romans just did not get why the Jews weren’t prepared to have their gods in the Jewish temple when the Romans were quite happy to induct the Jewish (and then Christian) god into their pantheon.
rossmcg @ 102
[And the dodgy analysis of the polls is nothing new. We only have to go back the last year of Howard and recall some of the coverage by Dennis Shanahan. His writing that year was worthy of a fiction award.]
Indeed … the delusional Shanahan should have won the Miles Franklin Award in 2007 for his preposterous fairy tales of the mythical ‘Narrowing!
Those were the good old days …. hang on, what was the headline in ‘The Australian’ today?
The more things change, the more they remain the same ….
[We were making progress in the redoubts of doubt, like the NSW North Coast & Sydney’s lower North Shore, with a combined strategy of persistently engaging and countering the egregious bullshit of the hard Anti-Vacc movement (see several Crickey threads) and engaging the less delusional in process of social persuasion (the “tea and sympathy” strategy). Using the issue as another sandbag to try to stem Toady’s leaking charisma is likely to piss off and lose the 5-10% of reluctant parents who we need to maintain community immunity against the really serious threats, like resurgent measles. Many of the non-immunisers are entitled (and wealthy) enough to forgo what they see as middle-class welfare. Conversely, non-immunisation by choice is vanishingly rare in those that need the support most.]
rhwombat@65 – Thanks for that. Unsurprised that Abbott and Morrison don’t want it known that ‘welfare’ recipients make up a smaller proportion of anti-vaxxers.
briefly
[Hockey was on ABC radio this morning, making it clear that revenue is falling and that his response will be to slightly cut spending rather than to raise revenue, and the spread of the cuts would be similar to that attempted last year.]
Well, there’s an old dog who definitely needs to learn some new tricks. I can’t believe how stupid and illogical they are.
imacca @ 132
[it remains to be seen if they have the strategic smarts to acknowledge the situation]
In the same way it remains to be seen if Ted Cruz is the Republican candidate for the US Presidency in 2016. In 18 months of government the only consistent thing this mob have done is demonstrate an astonishing ineptness in doing anything, good or bad. The future is impossible to predict, but it is pretty easy to forecast that this mob will continue to be as dumb as they have shown to date.
As for the rest of what you said – couldn’t agree more.
Briefly
It may surprise you to know that not everyone was raised in a Catholic Boys school where fear of the commies justifies all sorts of security measures or are so strongly Christian or Jewish that fear of the Muslim towel heads overwhelms any other sense of civil liberties.
I strongly suggest you read George Orwell’s 1984. When finished please advise why it cannot happen here.
The most disturbing Film or TV show I’ve seen in the last few years was Snowtown. Now that was bleak. The fact it was based on real events is what made it so horrifying.
Shows like Game of Thrones are a total fantasy and are easy to watch no matter how violent they get. It’s the stuff that’s based on real events that I find the hardest to watch.
Peak coal, or more accurately post coal is a really important issue, as it becomes apparent that we are effectively post coal and that assets have effectively been written off, it will give more weight to the ‘stranded’ asset theory in other parts of the resources industry, it is important in making the right decisions in relation to gas and renewables.
I will not predict anything until after the budget, but the polls are starting to concern me as an ALP member. Not panicking yet, but I am a little concerned.
When an opposition agrees with a government that removes much of the controversy and ensures that the public will mostly hear the government line. It is circular reasoning to say hey look the public doesn’t seem too exercised about metadata, labor was right to duck the fight. The main reason for public quiescence on this issue is that voters are getting the message from both major parties that these laws are routine, nothing to see here. Minor parties and privacy / due process advocates get much less media coverage than a conflict between a government and an opposition. Metadata is an under the radar issue now because labor chose to make it so by agreeing with the government. It is disingenuous to claim that public perceptions of a matter are not influenced by what the government and opposition choose to do and say about it.
lizzie
So Hockey says his problem is the revenue is falling. It has been said before but how how much slack did he cut Swan when this started a few years ago?
None.
All Australia had to do was put the adults in charge and stop the waste.
A simple solution from a simple mind, only it isn’t that simple.
briefly @ 119
[It seems the non-Keynesian thinkers in Treasury and the Cabinet are following Keynes in spite of themselves.]
We could only wish. The main reason why this is happening is that the most swingeing cuts were hit for six by the senate.
They can only cut back the public service so far until the lack of relevant staff where they most need them directly and immediately impacts on the Government’s ability to avoid a disaster here or there. Usually there is a lag time for the impact of missing staff, but because the previous Labor government started early in its vain attempts to balance the budget we are already into the impact of insufficient staff to do the job.
Yet another example of how this Government screwed up by simply dusting off the John Howard playbook without checking how 2013 differed from 1996. While Paul Keating, in his neo-Whitlam nation-building phase, left plenty of ‘fat’ that Howard could cut, Gillard and Swan left nothing. Yet this mob came in without doing its homework and assuming the bulldust it told the world about Labor waste and profligacy was actually correct!
It’s one thing to hand out the Kool-aid to those dumb enough to take it; it’s another when you down it by the litre yourself!
[sohar
Posted Monday, April 13, 2015 at 10:10 am | PERMALINK
Is Newspoll finding it difficult to access a wide demographic these days due to its reliance on landlines? Landlines are fast disappearing for the below 65s.]
Interesting comment sohar. I wonder what William and Kevin think.
[Add Spooks to that list. Nothing there to lighten up the mood.]
Exactly how do you inject light heartedness into a show mostly about terrorism? Unless you go all the way and make it a comedy.
And, let’s face it, a comedy about terrorism wouldn’t work at all.
It is a VERY bleak subject and deserved to be treat accordingly.
I can only think of one show which dealt with a very serious subject matter that successfully had some humour in it, and that’s Breaking Bad. Even then the humour in that is very, very dark.
If all you want is light entertainment, fair enough. The reat of the world would prefer something realistic.
dtt @ 138
[are so strongly Christian or Jewish that fear of the Muslim towel heads overwhelms any other sense of civil liberties.]
In fact, the fear of ‘towel heads’ does not come from strong Jews or Christians. Many Christian groups remain socially concerned about cohesion – we just don’t hear as much from them as we do from the socially conservative pentecostal ones, like Nalliah. As for Jews in Australia, many of them reflect a thousand year history of being the victims of unreasoning prejudice and are very opposed to generalised anti-Muslim sentiment.
[Is Newspoll finding it difficult to access a wide demographic these days due to its reliance on landlines? Landlines are fast disappearing for the below 65s.]
The polls already correct for age demographics as I understand it. So the question they have to answer is: are (say) 25-34 year olds without landlines voting differently to 25-34 year olds who do have landlines? If those two groups start to diverge then the sample will stop being representative.
Sir Mad Cyril
[ The fact it was based on real events is what made it so horrifying.
Shows like Game of Thrones are a total fantasy and are easy to watch no matter how violent they get. It’s the stuff that’s based on real events that I find the hardest to watch.]
That’s exactly how I feel too.
Dragons, White-walkers and sword-fights don’t phase me.
Grisly, realistic murders on the other hand – why would I want to watch that when I can just turn on the evening news? 🙁
DG
I agree with you about Spooks.
However I think you over stated going the other way. The old show Taggart had serios subjects but also had humour. Same for silent witness. Broadchurch etc.
The problem is the usual one. Low quality trying too hard or not trying at all