The Seven Network brings us a ReachTEL automated phone poll of federal voting intention, which was conducted on Thursday from a sample of 2532, showing Labor’s two-party lead unchanged at 54-46, from primary votes of 39.8% for the Coalition, 39.3% for Labor, 11.9% for the Greens and 2.2% for Palmer United. Further questions find strong support for increasing the tax rate on superannuation contributions for high-income earners, at 57.2% with 22.1% opposed, but an even balance of 30.7% support and 31.8% opposition for removing negative gearing on future property purchases. The poll also records 56.1% support for imposing the GST on purchases from overseas companies with 22.3% opposed. Leadership approval questions find a shift for Tony Abbott from “very poor” to “satisfactory”, with Bill Shorten’s numbers broadly unchanged. Hat tip to Leroy Lynch.
There’s considerably less good news for Bill Shorten in a Morgan phone poll on party leadership, which shows Tony Abbott leading him 44-39 as preferred prime minister – the first poll to show Abbott in the lead since November. Tony Abbott’s personal ratings are little changed since the last such poll conducted in mid-January, before the Prince Philip knighthood and leadership spill vote, with his approval steady on 37% and disapproval up one to 53%. Bill Shorten, however, is respectively down three to 34% and up eight to 48%.
With respect to preferred Labor and Liberal leaders, Morgan finds Shorten losing his lead over Tanya Plibersek, who now has 23% support (up five) to Shorten’s 21% (down four), with Anthony Albanese up three to 13% and Wayne Swan steady on 10%. Tony Abbott has lost still more ground in comparison with Malcolm Turnbull (up two points as preferred Liberal leader to 38%) and Julie Bishop (up one to 27%), with his own rating down two to 12%. Scott Morrison is up three to 5%, putting him level with Joe Hockey, who has fallen heavily from favour since the government came to power.
UPDATE (Essential Research): The weekly Essential Research result has Labor gaining a point on two-party preferred, putting their lead at 53-47. The Coalition and the Greens are both down a point on the primary vote, to 40% and 10%, while Labor is steady on 39% and Palmer United is up one to 2%. Other findings:
• The poll shows 40% support for changes to the Senate electoral system to make it harder for micro-parties to get elected, with 33% opposed. Forty-two per cent said minor parties in the Senate were good for democracy, while 35% favoured the alternative proposition that they made government too unstable.
• Fifty-two per cent say they are not confident the government is on track to return the budget to surplus, with 36% confident; 31% believe doing so is very important, 40% somewhat important, and 14% not important.
• Seventy-seven per cent approve of government measures to withhold benefits from parents who do not get their children vaccinated.
• Seventy per cent say the gap between rich and poor in Australia is getting bigger, only 5% say smaller, and 17% say it is about the same.
UPDATE 2: Greens supporters on Twitter are taking umbrage at the wording of the following Essential Research question:
The Coalition, Labor and the Greens all support changes that would make it harder for small parties to be elected to Senate. Would you approve or disapprove of such changes?
And I agree to the extent that I don’t think they should be providing partisan respondents with cues as to what their party’s position is.
[H.R departments are often pretty cautious about just sacking someone for this very reason]
Possibly not when their MD is contacted by the Minister for Communications about the issue.
Guytaur
If he has been unfairly dismissed then he can run a case against that.
Employers have for years sacked people for things which don’t directly happen at the workplace, for example if two work colleagues are at Friday night drinks and they have a punch up then the employer may choose to dismiss one or both.
If you are walking down the street outside of working hours and tell a college that so and so in management can get F–ked then that might result in their dismissal.
Social media is an extension of the media world, this bloke was part of that and should have known the risks of commenting on Twitter under his own name.
My understanding is that McIntyre identifies himself as an SBS employee and under the code of conduct this is sufficient for the Company to demand certain items be deleted from the employees blog/facebook.
McIntyre was apparently given the opportunity to remove the offending pieces. But, he refused. So on that basis SBS will argue he has breached his contract with the Company and was sacked.
McIntyre may choose to run an unfair dismissal case. However, as Diogs pointed out this morning, these are rarely successful.
There is only one reason why conservatives want a referendum on same sex marriage. They know – and Tony Abbott proved in 1988 – that in a referendum even the most harmless, benign proposal can be demonised by a co-ordinated campaign of fear, uncertainty and doubt.
Even if the referendum (plebiscite?) was successful, gay people and same-sex couples would be so demonised by the process that, in the short term at least, would render such a win a Pyrrhic victory.
And to pick up on KB’s comment at 141, there is no justification for a referendum as there is no constitutional barrier to same sex marriages – as made clear by the High Court in its decision which struck down the ACT same sex marriage law.
[TrueBlueAussie
Posted Monday, April 27, 2015 at 9:35 pm | Permalink
“Read the analysis.”
I don’t read rubbish.
]
Hi Troll,
You really do have a promising future with the Liberal Party.
[Liberal SOP:
avoid any information that may be contrary to the Party’s position. You may then continue to argue your point without little things like facts to hinder your verbal flow.]
This tactic was last used at a recent Senate Estimates.
Works best if you are already general considered an idiot and buffoon as this will assist you in hiding the deliberate nature of your position in the murk of your perceived incompetence.
So SBS gave him the opportunity to remove the tweet and he refused. fair enough, I can see why they have dismissed him, at first it did seem harsh but I wasn’t aware that they gave him that opportunity.
Matt @ 149
I can’t give a substantive answer to that question. I’m a Labor supporter but not a member. But it is clear to me that some – a shrinking number – have fundamentally strong views opposing same sex marriage. Like so many other issues in the public arena, the strength of feeling of some people can be incomprehensible.
Good article in The Age about the ANZAC tweets:
[Media organisations and others increasingly demand their employees be active on social media, and value those who amass followers or likes. The key to gaining those followers and likes is clearly to stand out from the crowd – by being opinionated, funny, insightful, informed. Being controversial is OK, too. But only to a point.
There is a widespread attack on freedom of speech in this country through defamation laws, clampdowns on whistleblowers, increased surveillance and the gathering of metadata. It is essential that media organisations resist this, or our broader freedoms may well follow.]
Read more: http://www.smh.com.au/entertainment/tv-and-radio/scott-mcintyre-being-sacked-by-sbs-is-a-dreadful-move-for-freedom-of-speech-20150427-1mu6re.html#ixzz3YVvBXGft
Mexican
The code of conduct is unrealistic. Censoring private views of individuals by employers is unrealistic.
SBS could demand that all employees not use its logo on their twitter accounts that would be reasonable. That is all
Kevin Bonham@141
Also what is the Constitutional statute that needs to be amended to allow Marriage Equality?
Mexican
Not fair enough. It is his private opinion. SBS had no business asking him to delete them.
He was not publishing under the SBS name.
9 And in any case, I’m not going to ask my partner to “civil union” me someday, I’m going to ask him to marry me. ]
Stodgy old conservatism with a hint of sky fairy
[ And in any case, I’m not going to ask my partner to “civil union” me someday, I’m going to ask him to marry me. ]
Stodgy old conservatism with a hint of sky fairy
I agree with Kevin Bonham and TPOF above that a referendum on this issue would be a horrible way to resolve the matter. The outing of homosexuals and their living arrangements and the throw back to connecting it to bestiality, polygamy and child marriage would be terrible.
Better it be resolved by negotiation where the rights of all are protected. This as always, involves give and take on all sides.
I offered my solution earlier and it will really come down to where the compromise gets drawn.
I’m sure Tim Wilson will convince me on Lateline that there is no problem in sacking someone for tweeting their views, however offensive to many people.
Guytaur
I don’t know the culture of SBS but I will say one thing about workplaces, some of them can take the meaning of corporate professional way beyond any objective sense of commonsense.
We’ll knock me down with a feather, Greg Barnes is rather more convincing.
guytaur at 150
As a number of people have said today, including the guy from Human Rights Watch on Q and A, free speech means not going to jail for speaking your mind (and even this can occur in Australia).
If a football player – pick your code – decides to launch a racist rant at someone while off duty and is duly suspended by his/her sporting authority which has a stand against racism, is that an inappropriate diminution of the player’s freedom of speech?
As far as I can see, the tweets would have been highly offensive to a lot of people – that Anzac Day commemorates the exploits of thieves, rapists and war criminals. He is entitled to say it – but having said it as an identifiable face of his employer, that employer is entitled to consider whether his actions had reflected badly on it. The rest then comes down to his employment contract.
No employee has a right to free speech if it contravenes his employment contract and the clearly stated policies of the employer. If Mr McIntyre takes SBS to court for unfair dismissal and wins – good luck to him. He was within his rights and SBS wasn’t. But otherwise, he should get employment with a media outlet which is comfortable with what he has to say. Like Devine and Bolt are sheltered by Murdoch.
Otherwise he can post here under an anonymous screen name to his heart’s desire and still get his message heard.
Barney in Saigon@160
Indeed. What those calling for a “referendum” are really calling for would be a binding plebiscite.
On the whole issue raised by de Bruyn, precisely who are these Labor MPs that would be so unable to deal with the issue that they would cross the floor on a non-conscience vote on it? I don’t think there are anywhere near as many as he would like there to be – after all they would be expelled from the party for doing so. There might be a very small number, but if so Labor would be better off without them.
The position of a required vote in favour of SSM would likely have been Labor policy under Gillard but for it being embarrassing to Gillard politically, which in turn resulted from Gillard’s political debts to de Bruyn and others like him. Even with that it was a close vote.
Contrarian views reflect the diviersity in the SBS charter is enhancing not bringing SBS reputation into repute is a credible point indeed
Yes, ‘contrarian views should be encouraged by an independent news organisation’ (or words to that effect).
TPOF
Agreed!
On employers, in my experience the worst are the government departments or agencies who try and become corporate.
The natural private firms tend to be more laid back but any government body tries to become corporate just results in a near toxic culture and I am not sure why.
Emma Albeici reveals that McIntiyre was not fired for his tweets but for refusing to delete them.
This is going to be a very interesting court case.
Apparently he was sacked for refusing an order to delete the tweets. Interesting…
@stuartmillar159: Even with Lib Dems + Ukip + DUP, Cameron wd lose to Lab/SNP/Green/SDLP/Plaid bloc http://t.co/aN1c6jn6XV #GE2015 http://t.co/3XWYOFVe25
Kevin Bonham @ 169: The thought of Mr De Bruyn’s little boys and girls walking out of the ALP brings to mind Lytton Strachey’s description of John Henry Newman’s conversion to Catholicism, and the end of the Oxford Movement: “The University breathed such a sigh of relief as usually follows the difficult explosion of a hard piece of matter from a living organism…”.
After posting my comment at 168, it occurred to me that we had a real live example just today with the Melbourne radio guy who was alleged to have called a Muslim footballer a ‘terrorist’ while a guest at a football function. I didn’t see anyone leaping up declaring his right to free speech. On the contrary, everyone was aghast and some thought that Richmond had let him off too lightly by accepting his apology and closing the matter down.
What if he had declared that he was entitled to make his ‘joke’ and that he was not going to apologise to people with no sense of humour? What if his employer had lawfully sacked him as a consequence? I bet all the people upset at Mr McIntyre’s treatment would be cheering on the action of his employer. And the arguments being put in defence of Mr McIntyre would be put by the likes of Andrew Bolt.
Only speculating, but I’d be more than happy to lay a bet!
TPOF
That example could be religious intolerance or racism.
The McIntyre tweets were not. Wilson and Barnes covered that issue on Lateline.
Imagine Peter Wilkins characterising a South Sydney Rabbitohs crowd as ‘poorly-read, mostly black, drinkers and gamblers.’
[That example could be religious intolerance or racism.
The McIntyre tweets were not. Wilson and Barnes covered that issue on Lateline.]
Yes, very different.
I think you need to take a long walk in the hall of mirrors (as Roy and HG used to say) if your views coincide even momentarily with those of Tim Wilson.
Jake,
Yeah, imagine!
pedant @ 176
I was thinking of Lytton Strachey earlier today when someone here suggested that Tony Abbott interpose himself between the firing squad and Chan & Sukumaran.
It reminded me of the possibly apocryphal anecdote about Strachey, an openly homosexual conscientious objector, being interrogated by the board that determined if the conscientious objection was genuine. In response to the standard query of ‘what would you do if a German soldier was about to rape your sister’, Strachey allegedly responded ‘Why, I’d try to get between them, of course’.
You might know the anecdote, but it was worth relating for other PBers.
TPOF
Agree although the big differences is the SBS guy’s comments were generic in nature whilst John Burn’s comments were directly aimed at someone.
Both stupid, both deserving of an official warning.
TPOF
We now know he was not sacked for the tweets but for an order refusing to delete them. This on his private account not an SBS account.
Its going to be an interesting court case and his comments are not the issue just his reaction to an order about his private views.
TPOF,
The situation with the 3AW guy in that he has claimed that he did not make the comments. Further they were allegedly overheard by a waiter who was serving drinks and no one else has said they heard the alleged words uttered.
It’s a very weak case imho. The guy also does not have any reputation for making similar comments previously.
It’s far from clear that anything has actually occurred.
guytaur @ 178
It could be so characterised. But the point is that it was also hugely offensive to some who heard it – as was the McIntyre tweet. Whether action should be taken by an employer in regard to a hugely offensive comment is really down to employee relations and the circumstances in which the comment was made. Otherwise, it comes down to what is politically correct and what is politically incorrect – which is more a matter of fashion than decency.
TPOF @ 168: Mr McIntyre didn’t exactly help his case by including in his tweets some silly references to Hiroshima and Nagasaki, the clear implication being that the A-bombings were something about which Australians should feel some sort of collective war guilt.
Of course, the rights and wrongs of the bombings became a lively debate in the USA, very shortly after the end of WWII. But I’ve seen no reference in any of the published histories to any consultation of Australia about whether the bombs should have been used, nor is it clear that the Australian government of the time even knew of the Manhattan Project. It was a phenomenally closely guarded secret, and even Harry Truman wasn’t told about it until Roosevelt died and he became President. (Stalin was told by Truman at Potsdam, but already knew via the Soviet spies at Los Alamos.)
And of course, there was zero chance that an Australian government could have talked the US out of using the bomb.
Whether it is a private account or not is irrelevant because he admits on the site that he is an employee of SBS.
This will be sufficient grounds for the Company to request the removal of the tweets if they believe they identify SBS with the comments made by the employee.
GG
Thanks for that, I was under the impression that he made the comment more openly but the way you have explained it, it sounds questionable.
Michael
The Hiroshima Bomb was a war crime. Thousands of civilians killed and what military target was it?
Dresden also was a war crime by the allies.
It does no good denying the realities of the horrors of war.
TPOF @ 182: That anecdote about Lytton Strachey is recounted as fact in Robert Graves’s memoir Goodbye to All That.
GG
Irrelevant. Andrew Bolt admits he is an employee of News Limited and he should not be sacked for what he says on his private twitter account either.
He has said way worse things.
Bolt rightly got into trouble when he started to do vilification as outlined by the court case finding against him.
Wonder if the SBS guy realises that many Australians who went to Japan in the months after the bombs are firmly against the use of such weapons.
[Its going to be an interesting court case and his comments are not the issue just his reaction to an order about his private views.]
Yes, this is the heart of the issue, and the legal case, if there is one, will be very interesting and significant.
You don’t need much imagination to see the potential ramifications of this.
GG @ 184
The fact that I and others found them offensive is a condition precedent to SBS’s action but does not justify it per se.
As you indicate, it will come down to the terms of the employment relationship and the reasonableness of the actions of the parties. As I said before, if he wins good luck to him. He is certainly entitled to test the fairness of his dismissal in a court of law and I am just as keen that the law prevails according to all the facts as I am to express my personal distaste for his comments.
TPOF,
It’s in the Employment Agreement McIntyre has with SBS.
As John Cleese said, “The case is a dead parrot”.
But hey I’m sure the conspiracy case will develop further.
Sorry GG, my comment at 195 was directed at Guytaur. Too much red wine too late at night.
In regard to your comment at 185, I did make clear that I was speculating – on a situation that did not happen. I thought a current situation, with my own alternative history, might make my point more timely.
I think that many of us are, myself included, a bit too inclined to find things offensive.
But when it comes to dissent against current orthodoxy it should be encouraged, not punished.
Guytaur,
Read TPOF at 168. It will explain things nice and slowly to you.
GG
Its far from clear that McIntyre has no case. First SBS has to prove it has a case for dismissal when ordering an employee to do something in their private life.
The guy did not vilify anyone. If he defamed someone they can sue him just like people have sued Alan Jones and Andrew Bolt who still have their jobs.