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.
rhwombat
From memory I though botulism poisoning does include headache and dizziness, but it certainly seems like a neurotoxin of some kind
Methanol poisoning seems highly possible – we had a case here not long ago of a number of guys 1/2 died I think.
Given that a number of cases all presented at the same, time it seems more like mass poisoning than an infection.
But presumably it is still early days and there could have been previous unreported cases.
I do not know much about West Nile or Marburg, but the others mentioned all have a febrile stage which was not mentioned. You would not expect Rickettsial disease to affect 24 people all in 24 hours – more like two weeks, unless at the start of a HUGE outbreak, and in any case I would expect fever/rash. Presumably in Nigeria the medical people are used to seeing Malaria in all its forms so it would not be so unusual. I would even think they would recognise typhus and other rickettsial diseases when they see them as they are not that rare.
Of course, at present they cannot. PAYG taxpayers cannot change their tax status by incorporating. Households cannot avoid their obligations to pay GST by incorporating, registering for GST, getting an ABN and running themselves as dummy companies. Their incomes will be taxed twice.
You appear to assert that while all persons should be taxed according to a common set of rules, corporations should be subject to a different set of rules. There is no justification for this other than the assertion that persons and corporations are “not the same.”
While there are obvious existential differences between the abstract and the corporeal, the fact remains that as economic agents they are alike in many respects. They have similar financial properties (they accumulate assets and liabilities); they face risks of various kinds; they are (more/less) mobile; they have income maximising and capital development objectives; they must compete as well as cooperate; they create succession plans…and so on. Often, though obviously not always, there are not even differences of scale. There are only differences of technical or organisational form.
Discriminating in favour of abstract forms obviously has conferred some very great advantages on them (say, with respect to the limited liability of shareholders). They also have the capacity to self-replicate and re-organise in ways that physical entities do not. They can increase or reduce their capital at will. These are very significant competitive advantages in a market economy. We do not need to also add a taxation exemption, the effect of which is clearly to reduce incomes that flow to the household sector.
bemused
About 9C here with just enough breeze … not great out.
Gardening – you’d need to be digging holes rather than pruning.
The site seems seems to be turning into ‘TaxBludger’ at the moment.
CTar1
I don’t understand a word of it.
briefly – I’m done. You’ve clearly struggled very hard to come up with how corporations and people are similar, and it’s full of hand-waving – “succession plans” are being organised by sentient corporations now, are they, those pesky shareholders and directors are mere fleas.
They? That AI at the heart of every corporation again I suppose.
Skynet is just around the corner apparently.
I’ll leave you to your hand-waving and pointless essaying.
I have been reflecting on Shorten budget in reply last year, so i watched it again. Wonder what approach shorten will adopt this time
http://youtu.be/TrxAlX6aOy8
lizzie
Me neither. I read bits and pieces but the argument seems to be circular.
CTar1@1103
About 12.2 here, but apparent temp of 7.7 due to wind.
Had showers earlier and more to come.
Got to cut up some branches off shrubs and put in bin.
I will get on with it now and stop my procrastination.
Haplessness
Correlation is not causation. You’ve just failed Statistics 101.
Our PM on show for the world to admire.
And something fishy in his speech about admiring rugby players, when the audience were a rowing club? Mark Simkin has brought his poor research from the ABC to the PMO.
http://www.stuff.co.nz/world/australia/67859937/australian-prime-minister-tony-abbott-forgets-binge-drinking-stance
bemused
“I am just going outside and may be some time.”
LL@1100
My apologies if I have misread this, but do you mean 3 or 4 of May for next Newspoll?
victoria@1099
Thanks. Still a lot of questionmarks but it definitely looks like a killing with a motive.
And I go away for 2 hours and still Happy Chappy is on his/her “look over there” theme trying to compare apples and oranges.
bemused@1109
Bit cool around my area but the sun has been out since noon here in the west.
Got around to fixing the green house with its flapping perspex roof, and a bit of weed trimming.
The tax system as it’s now designed imposes double and even triple taxation on incomes that flow to one part of the private economy – households. It creates shelters for the other part – corporations. This is a picture of fiscal repression alongside fiscal exemption.
We should be striving for equality of treatment not merely because it’s valid socially, but also because it will advantage the economy.
The real post-tax allocation of income is slewed in favour of that sector of the economy (corporations) whose capital produces the lowest total real returns. The result is a sub-optimal capital/income result. We can see the consequences of this in terms of financial repression (incredibly low real interest rates and elevated debt creation), fiscal repression (weak public finance and investment) and labour repression (lousy real per capita income and employment trajectories).
This all adds up to general economic repression, resulting in deflationary pressure, feeble global investment, trade and growth dynamics and worsening inequality.
The Tory line is that corporations should not be taxed because it’s all too hard. This is like arguing that democracy should be postponed because the monarchy is too entrenched. We must contest this and we must win the argument.
raaraa
Definitely a targetted killing
bemused
A bit like why one of my gg uncles (Who fought at Gallipoli) and his mates didn’t attend ANZAC Day commemorations. They were pissed off the pollies , clergy and various “great and the good” were center stage. The very people who had sent them or urged them to go. The people he blamed for the carnage.
Their commemoration was to get together somewhere and have a beer or 20.
@markjs/1087
Less people to access it, the better, that’s probably what they are thinking.
Raaraa
No Sun here. Rain earlier. They were predicting 15C but not likely we’ll get past 10C.
poroti
I strongly object to all the myth-making, over-sentimentality, and beating of chests by people like Abbott. I am also sick of promos by the ABC.
The IPA retreats. Good.
Briefly, your description of a withholding tax on corporations’ cross-border remittances and receipts is interesting. Are there any papers about this that you know of?
CTar1@1103
Had to give it away… ran out of breath… getting over a bad cold and diminished lung capacity.
27C in Brisbane atm
CTar1@1112
Yes, about half an hour.
Worked hard in that time as rain was threatening and overdid it.
Raaraa@1114
Altona was never that exciting when I lived there.
poroti@1119
He probably would have loved the famous ‘To Arms!’ poster by Tom Barker.
CTar1@1121
I worked on through one light shower.
Patches of sunlight between the clouds.
Further to 1129.
Copy of poster here.
A classic!
I don’t have any references to hand but I’ll see what I can find.
This sort of thing was common in the good old days but has been repealed in most jurisdictions. There must be studies, but they’re possibly quite aged. UK Labour may have done something more recently.
http://www.smh.com.au/federal-politics/political-news/veteran-wayne-swan-should-go-says-longtime-friend-cameron-milner-20150419-1mnnj3.html
I think he should go as well!
anti terror laws being used
http://www.theage.com.au/victoria/melbourne-raids-police-use-antiterror-powers-to-detain-hampton-park-man-20150419-1mo78n.html
I have mixed feelings about Swan. But renewal would be good as suggested in that article.
bemused
I have never liked him!
bemused
Me too but probably time for him to shuffle off.
Tricot – yes, sorry, I meant the next Newspoll will be out on the 4th or 5th of May, not April (Monday or Tuesday paper, obviously we’ll hear about it the night before)
MTBW@1136
I always liked him but was disappointed by his betrayal of his friend Rudd and I thought he was extremely foolish in promising surpluses. And on the point of surpluses, I am not just speaking with the benefit of hindsight. I thought it right from the beginning.
CTar1@1137
I am inclined to agree with him on his reported desire to see Tanya Plibersek as LOTO. I think she has the goods.
bemused
That article says that he would like to get back onto the front bench I am assuming he would like to be getting an increased salary to retire on.
bemused
That article says that he would like to get back onto the front bench I am assuming he would like to be getting an increased salary to retire on.
Sorry for double comment but my mouse is playing up.
Tanya has the goods and she is already much better than Swan could ever be.
Sorry for double comment but my mouse is playing up.
Tanya has the goods and she is already much better than Swan could ever be.
Premier Andrews on the terror raids
http://www.theage.com.au/victoria/melbourne-terror-raids-we-dont-understand-why-young-people-are-doing-this-premier-20150419-1moa19.html
I have been watching a program on the DHC-4 Caribou. Amazing aircraft.
I was wondering what would replace them and my question has been answered.
Case in point the mouse will not conform.
MTBW@1144
Your mouse finger is stuttering… 😛
MTBW no worries.
bemused
I’ve traveled on them a few times – you feel like you could walk faster.