Three new polls this week, from Newspoll, Ipsos and Essential Research, all of them featuring leadership ratings as well as voting intention. As was widely noted, there was a big gap between the results from Newspoll and Ipsos, which has contributed to something of a two-track trend in polling, with one clump of results around 54-46 (Ipsos and ReachTEL) and another around 51-49 (two Newspolls and a bias-adjusted Roy Morgan). The middle ground plotted by BludgerTrack now has Labor’s two-party vote down to 51.9% – only a small change on last week, but enough to shift two seats on the seat projection, including one in New South Wales (which has done a lot of the heavy lifting in the recent Coalition poll recovery) and one in Victoria.
Leadership ratings are starting to look increasingly alarming for Bill Shorten, whose net approval has dropped a full 10% from the stasis it was in through most of 2014. Tony Abbott has now recovered to where he was before Australia Day, and while that’s still a bad position in absolute terms, the gap between himself and Shorten is rapidly narrowing. The same goes for preferred prime minister, on which Shorten’s double-digit lead after Australia Day has narrowed to about 3%.
Two polls warranting comment:
• I neglected to cover this on Tuesday, so let the record note that this week’s Essential Research result ticked a point in the Coalition’s favour on two-party preferred, putting Labor’s lead at 52-48. Primary votes were 41% for the Coalition (up one), 39% for Labor (steady), 10% for the Greens (steady) and 2% for Palmer United (steady). Also featured were monthly personal ratings, which found Tony Abbott up two on approval to 31% and down five on disapproval to 56%, Bill Shorten up one on both to 34% and 39%, and Shorten’s lead as preferred prime minister down from 39-31 to 37-33. Other questions related to asylum seekers, with 43% nominating that most were not genuine refugees versus 32% who said otherwise. However, a separate question found 49% allowing that asylum seekers arriving by boat should be allowed to stay if found to be genuine refugees. The government’s approach was deemed too tough by 22%, too soft by 27% and just right by 34%. In response to Jacqui Lambie and Glenn Lazarus leaving the Palmer United Party, 41% said those in their position should leave parliament and allow a new election to be held for their seat, with 19% favouring a new member nominated by the party and 24% saying they should be allowed to remain in parliament.
• Roy Morgan has published one of its semi-regular rounds of SMS state polling, finding the newly elected Coalition ahead by 54.5-45.5 in New South Wales, and Annastacia Palaszczuk’s newly elected Queensland government up by 52.5-47.5, after last month’s result and the weekend’s Galaxy poll both had it lineball. Labor governments are credited with leads of 54-46 in Victoria and 51-49 in South Australia, while it’s 50-50 in Western Australia. A 56-44 lead to Labor is recorded in Tasmania, which is more than a little hard to credit.
Preselection news:
• Murray Watt is set to win preselection for Labor’s Queensland Senate ticket after securing the endorsement of the Left faction at the expense of incumbent Jan McLucas, who entered parliament in 1999. Susan McDonald of the ABC reports that Watt’s position will likely be at the top of the ticket, reflecting the Left’s new-found ascendancy within the Queensland Labor organisation.
• It’s a similar story in the lower house Brisbane seat of Oxley, where Labor’s Bernie Ripoll has announced his retirement following reports he stood to lose preselection in any case to Milton Dick, Brisbane City Council opposition leader.
• Crikey’s Tips and Rumours section recently offered details on the Labor preselection in the marginal eastern Melbourne seat of Deakin, which has been won by Tony Clarke, manager of Vision Australia and unsuccessful state election candidate for Ringwood. His main opponent was Mike Symon, who won the seat for Labor in 2007 and 2010 before being unseated by current Liberal member Michael Sukkar in 2013. Symon narrowly defeated Clarke in the local party ballot, but this was overwhelmed by support for Clarke in the 50% of the vote determined by the state party’s Public Office Selection Committee. It was reported in Crikey that the Left abstained from the POSC vote, as it wished to let “the Right factions fight out between themselves”. For more on Deakin, see today’s Seat of the Week post.
silmaj
No the Future Fund took PS Super out of the budget into the Future Fund.
Therefore it has nothing to do with the budget. It is a separate entity.
[The point still stands:
The 5 jurisdictions with the longest LNP governments are the best 5 performing economies
The 3 jurisdictions with the longest ALP governments are the worst 3]
The report doesn’t say this. How can it when Tasmania is at 8?
999
Rubbish. The fund was designed to have a building period to either 2020 or when it reaches a certain size to cover PS super which IS A GOVT budget expense. A clear example that howard/Costello did not toss money away.
A sad state of affairs when the bubbles in the beer had more substance than the prime ministerial moron who skolled it.
silmaj
Not rubbish. The whole purpose of the Fund was to take PS Super out of the budget.
Therefore it is now no longer part of the budget and you cannot use it to justify the structural deficit Costello installed into the budget.
1001
What you should say is that because of the future fund the govt no longer has to worry about PS super expense.
996
Happiness
The NSW economy has improved because of the pro-cyclical, big-spending policies of the State Government, policies which have been financed by spectacular gains in State Stamp Duty receipts, a direct consequence of the all-time high boom in speculative lending in land.
The LNP can take credit for implement Labor-style spending programs but for little else.
‘best performing economies’
But are the people happy? Are social needs being effectively met? A budget surplus is just an accounting estimate.
When was the data collected for this Jan 2015 report? Were there even three Labor governments in the country at that time?
briefly
[The biggest debts were accumulated by households during the Howard era, when debt-relative-to-income soared to the highest levels in more than 130 years. Of course, the flows connected with these debts went into consumption rather than investment, which is why our incomes are not growing and unemployment and underemployment are so persistently high.
The response now is to apply expansionary fiscal and monetary settings, meaning more debt is accumulating inside both the household and the public sectors even as our underlying ability to service these debts is declining.]
Spot on!
The report doesn’t say this. How can it when Tasmania is at 8?
State/%LNP Gvt last 4y/Economic rank
NSW……..100%………………=1
NT…………..61%………………=1
WA………..100%………………3
VIC………….96%………………4
QLD……….100%………………5*
ACT…………..0%………………6
SA…………….0%………………7
Tas…………..22%……………..8
*CBA analysis was January
briefly – you are making assertions that a whole bunch of things should be treated equivalently – household income, business income etc, which is admirably novel but bears no resemblance to any even remotely conventional economic thinking.
Clearly you are rejecting the basis for VATs around the world. Fine, but don’t expect this kind of argument to impress anyone.
Households are not the same as businesses, and pretending that you have found a grand unifying theory of capital and “flows” is lovely but not convincing.
Meh. I have no interest in exploring Briefly’s Theory of Capital and Flows.
Happiness
[The argument that there is consensus about climate change is somewhat diminished if there is publication bias (journals not publishing anything contradictory) and employment bias (universities not employing anyone whose views are different from the mainstream).]
The argument that there is publication bias is somewhat diminished if you have any understanding of the peer review process. When a paper is submitted to a peer reviewed journal it is reviewed by relevant academic experts for its quality and originality. Each reviewer summarizes their findings in a report which is returned to the person that submitted the paper along with the decision to publish or not.
If this process has been corrupted in some way I would have expected to see some examples of unfair reports being posted online by victimized researchers. This has not happened. I suspect the reason is that the reviewers demolish the arguments of the “skeptic” researchers too effectively. I know from some limited experience that reviewers can be pretty ruthless.
[Tas…………..22%……………..8]
And the Tasmanian government is from which party?
mimhoff:
You are not understanding the data. I have taken the percentage of time the LNP government has been in power for the last 4 years, not just the snapshot of current government. Otherwise you could take a government that was just elected (Qld ALP) and give them credit for the economic performance over the last 4 years.
Speaking of Qld, given they have 3 year terms its actually 71%LNP but that doesn’t change the statement: the top5 longest LNP governments are the top 5 performers, the top 3 longest ALP governments are the bottom 3 performers.
@political_alert: Social Services Minister @ScottMorrisonMP: Government ends religious ‘No Jab No Pay’ benefits exemption http://t.co/zb7wjCL7XZ #auspol
Phil Coorey on Insiders objected to the way that the Anzac commemoration is turning into celebration. This article provides more detail.
http://www.theage.com.au/national/ww1/defining-the-anzac-spirit-celebration-or-commodification-20150418-1mntwp.html
[You are not understanding the data.]
No, I am not understanding your made-up metric. That’s a very unusual definition of “longest ALP government”.
mimhoff:
You might want to cool down as you are actually making quite the fool of yourself, without seeming to understand that.
Just take the 8 states and territories.
Work out which had the longest period of LNP government and which had the longest serving ALP governments.
You will see that the 5 with the longest serving LNP governments over the last 4 years are in the top 5 economic performers.
And the 3 with the longest serving ALP governments over the last 4 years are in the bottom 3 economic performers.
Get it?
I just love the way the Liberal Luvvies on PB use any and every device to skirt around, or distract from, the glaringly obvious reality..
Abbott is a complete dud ..a hopeless incompetent ..a destroyer of everything he touches ..a social inept ..an embarrassment to every thinking Australian..
He merrily traipses around trampling gleefully on our economy ..our environment ..our very society, built on the blood, sweat and tears of those good people who went before..
He cares for nobody ..and I mean NOBODY but himself ..and will ingratiate himself to anyone or anything he believes will further the ONLY cause that really matters ..his ego.
He is an utter disgrace ..he is NOT my PM ..he will, of course, destroy even the party he ‘leads’..
Good luck with supporting this abomination..
Your table doesn’t show the “longest serving ALP governments”. It shows “percentage of the past four years under L/NP government”.
You say they’re the same, but they’re not.
Gosh mimhoff, “Work out which had the longest period of LNP government” aint that hard to understand!
:devil:
Do you at least get the point now?
Take the last 4 years (to Jan 2015). Work out what percentage of that 4 years the state or territory had an LNP government.
The ones with the longest period of LNP governments are the best economic performers
The ones with the longest period of ALP governments are the worst economic performers
Yeah?
Happiness has some odd data at @1011:
State/%LNP Gvt last 4y/Economic rank
QLD……….100%………………5*
Newman was only in for less that 3 years. How can the LNP have 100% of four years?
BTW: thanks for the continual confusion. It meant I could repeat the post again and again, so perhaps the point is getting through to others as well!
😀
[Gosh mimhoff, “Work out which had the longest period of LNP government” aint that hard to understand!]
So why are you calculating something different?
Why four years? Do you believe the outgoing government is responsible for the economy for that period of time?
Peter Murphy:
Yes, you will note my subsequent post correcting that to 71%.
Still doesn’t change what I said:
The 5 jurisdictions with the longest period of LNP government had the top 5 economies
The 3 jurisdictions with the longest period of ALP government had the bottom 3 economies
Again, thanks for the repost opportunity!
[‘Why four years”?]
Haha……. R U serious?
Pick whatever time period you want and analyse yourself
Hey Mod, I remember a brazen, loving appraisal of Abbott you put on here not that long ago. Credibility much ?
Tasmania Libs are still fixing up the Greens/Labor mess
Why does Labor keep getting in bed with the Greens?
I mean would it really hurt them to form a coalition with the Libs first?
Sideline the Green Extremists and make them irrelevent
[I didn’t do the rankings of the States and Territories, the CBA does it regularly and I used that]
Relative performance is not an appropriate indicator when all states (except WA) are roughly equal, which is the case here. Very small changes of no lasting significance could see a state move from second to sixth on your chosen indicator.
The neoliberal response to declining household incomes is to encourage rising household debt. This is a terrible move because it ultimately leads to rising debt service burdens, less consumer spending, less financial security for households, and systemic instability. The government needs to design its fiscal policy with regard to the condition of the other two sectors of the economy (private domestic, external). It is utterly stupid to target an arbitrary government balance. The best government balance is whatever is required to achieve full employment with stable prices. Sometimes it will be a government deficit of 2 percent GDP, sometimes it will be a deficit of 10 percent GDP. On some occasions it may be a surplus. We don’t need to choose a number.
[outside left
….Hey Mod, I remember a brazen, loving appraisal of Abbott you put on here not that long ago. Credibility much ?]
No.
I have been consistent with my views on Abbott since the day he took the leadership.
Latika Bourke’s Indian story
http://www.dailylife.com.au/dl-people/latika-bourkes-indian-story-20150419-1mo3wm.html
[Haha……. R U serious?
Pick whatever time period you want and analyse yourself]
Yeah, I am really curious how you came up with this wonderful new definition of “longest period”. If responsibility for the economy really drops off linearly in the four years after an election, then we can use that everywhere!
But… first you have to justify the four year choice.
mimhoff:
I have to thank you for sending me into the day with a sore tummy from laughing so much. Seriously, if you want to choose a different time period, do so. Come back and tell us what you find.
As I did with my check of the economic indicators for the last 40 years, I decided a priori what economic indicators I would choose and I decided to check everything from Whitlam on. I did exactly what I planned. When I heard that the CBA ranked states, I decided to check all states and territories performance against governments. The longest state term is 4 years so it is a perfectly reasonable period to choose.
If you want to fudge the data to get a result you want, go ahead…..I suspect this won’t work though- so be warned!
If you think 2 years is the period- go analyse yourself!
If you think 5 years is the period- go analyse yourself!
Just do remember to come back and share with us.
Briefly
[The LNP can take credit for implement Labor-style spending programs but for little else]
Presumably the reference to Labor style is meant to exclude NSW Labor.
https://crawford.anu.edu.au/pdf/staff/norman_abjorensen/2011/04-NormanA.pdf
How did you decide that “longest period” meant “percentage of the last four years”?
BTW:
Notwithstanding your projection of authority and significance on me (thanks BTW), I didn’t invent the meaning of “longest”. Its one of them words in that big book them smart folk call the Dikshenairie
:devil:
[ “People should turn up at Anzac Day events in the largest possible numbers,” he said in Sydney.
Mr Abbott added that people should come out on April 25 “to show support for our country, our values and our armed forces”. ]
Coz conflating nationalism, values, and the military always works out well.
Does someone want to throw the towel in on mimhoff’s behalf?
It appears the punchdrunk state is confounding the ability to determine abject defeat….
markjs@1020
I made this point about H and attempts at the “over there” routine some posts back.
It is not the first time this topic has been raised by said individual but I see he is still getting lots of responses.
Why bother? It is, as you say, a distraction from criticism of what is rating as one of the worst Federal governments ever – well, certainly in living memory.
The greatest failing was the belief by the media and others that an Abbott government would “fix it”. That there was nothing much to “fix” despite the press, is aside from the fact that what promises made by Abbott – a simplistic manifesto at best – have not been kept and all he has had is an 18 month history of being what someone described as a “populous weather vane”.
Many here on this left-leaning blog could see it all when Abbott had his Dr No persona as LOTO.
His translation to PM has turned out as dreadful as many predicted. The richness of the hypocrisy, now, of Coalition supporters criticising Shorten for being negative is totally lost on them.
Interestingly even Abbott’s on-side scribes such at Chis Kenny on Saturday noted that “A government once committed to reform seems not to be in full retreat”. A more damning comment from your own side I cannot imagine.
That is why it is best to ignore the distraction of the best/worst former governments as put up by H.
The value of the discussion is about as useful as picking the best Test Cricket side from players from the last 50 years. A nice parlour game, but just that.
[958
Steve777
Bjørn Lomborg can hold whatever opinions he wants. UWA can employ who they want.]
Lomborg argues against taking measures to avert climate change on cost/benefit grounds.
He must necessarily justify his conclusions by using a high discount rate when calculating future income flows. If you use a high enough discount rate, you’d never make any investments in the future. You’d never build or fix roads or railways. You’d never bother educating anyone. You’d certainly never invest in hospitals, medical treatments, public health and sanitation or even in national defence.
But if you choose a low discount rate, then implicitly a high Net Present Value is being placed on the future benefits that will be generated from a healthy environment, and it becomes economically rational to invest in pollution abatememt.
The Commonwealth and UWA are going to spend a fortune to promote views based on the idea that the future has little or no value.
For conservatives, this is a very strange position to take.
..all he has had is an 18 month history of being what someone described as a “(populist) weather vane”
It’s been a lot longer then 18 months.
[Tricot
….The value of the discussion is about as useful as picking the best Test Cricket side from players from the last 50 years. A nice parlour game, but just that.]
Nice try, but your personal attacks on Abbott are more like that. What I am doing is equivalent to presenting batting statistics between one group of players and another group.
You don’t like it because every time such an analysis is done, your group don’t look as good as your bias makes you think they should.
Anyhow, the good news is you get the Echo Chamber back now…..Im off to enjoy the sunshine (more than 5 minutes of it when we have a LNP government Heheh!)
Have fun Bludgeroonies, data massage to your heart’s content now!
🙂
Re Briefly @1042: I agree. While Mr Lomborg can hold whatever views he wants, we (the taxpayers) shouldn’t be helping him to promote them. Nor should UWA, but that’s for them to decide and them to handle the reputational consequences.
[It appears the punchdrunk state is confounding the ability to determine abject defeat….]
Look, you can’t answer a simple question about how you turned a normal phrase like “Longest period of government” into an indicator like “Take the last four years because that’s the longest state term and check the percentage that the party was in power”. Talk about data massaging!
But that’s no reason to get insulting.
Happiness
[You claimed that the data showed NSW was doing well because of the longstanding ALP government before the Libs won. I showed that you were wrong (NSW ranked last when the ALP was in power and now ranks 1st since the LNP took over).]
Sorry, but you then said you were wrong, you didn’t mean NSW, you meant Victoria.
If you’re all over the place on this, you can’t then accuse others of ‘cherry picking’, when all they’re doing is trying to work out what you’re talking about.
[1012
Jackol]
You’re effectively asserting that $1.00 of income flowing to households should be taxed 2 or more times, while the same $1.00 should be taxed hardly at all if it flows through an incorporated entity.
As for a grand unifying theory, you appear to be confused. This is not new thinking. It’s not complicated. The proposition is that in an economy there are just two kinds of things – capital and that which flows from capital, being income. It follows that to increase or otherwise improve our incomes we must increase or otherwise improve our capital.
Income can be separated into two categories – that which is “consumed” (either now or in the future) and that which is used to create new capital. New capital formation is of vital importance because it determines our future incomes.
Capital is not just one thing. It is many different things, including financial, technical, physical, intellectual, environmental, human, social, cultural among others. We can see that the returns to financial capital have been declining for decades. (It now requires at least $5.00 in additional portfolio debt to create $1.00 in new GDP, compared with $2.00 to achieve the same expansion in the 1980s.) At the same time, the capital that belongs to (or is manifested in) households, including intellectual, social and human capital/s still generates good returns. In some cases, they generate increasing returns to scale. It follows that we should be creating more of this latter capital and less financial capital. We would be improving the quality of our capital if we did this and therefore improving our incomes.
This all requires the intervention of the State so that taxation, income and capital creation policies are aligned together.
The current taxation system represses the formation of human, social, intellectual, cultural and other informal capitals. All of these have been shown empirically to help create higher, more stable and more equally distributed incomes across populations both spatially and temporally.
If we want the machine that is called the economy to run efficiently, we need to respond to this. One response is to make the tax system relatively neutral with respect to income channels. We should do it.
Same old BS? Libs vs Lab? Can we get a real GOOD GOVERNMENT?