Every pollster under the sun took the field this week, and the collective verdict from the six pollsters as aggregated in BludgerTrack is that the Coalition two-party vote has lifted 0.7% in the wake of the budget. The result on the seat projection is even more striking, with Labor now reduced to minority government territory, although the presence of Adam Bandt and Andrew Wilkie on the hypothesised cross-bench suggests that 74 seats would still be enough for them to form government. The Coalition has had considerable bang for its post-budget buck on the seat projection, because state breakdowns (including published ones from Ipsos and Morgan, and unpublished ones from ReachTEL and Essential Research) suggest the biggest gain has been in marginal seat-rich Queensland, whereas Labor’s vote has held firm in the less strategically important state of Victoria. All told, the Coalition is credited with two gains in Queensland, and one each in New South Wales, Western Australia, South Australia and Tasmania. New results on personal ratings were provided by Newspoll and Ipsos, and they offer no sign that Tony Abbott’s remarkable recovery from the depths of February is abating, his net approval rating now being no worse than it was before last year’s budget. However, they also suggest that Bill Shorten’s recent downward slide has levelled off.
Apropos of not very much, here’s a display of Newspoll’s post-budget polling results going back to the late 1980s. The scatterplot shows the strong relationship that exists between the results for personal financial impact and overall economic impact, with this year’s result indicated by the pink dot.
Looks like we may see change in MSM now
@latikambourke: Good answer from Bill Shorten on whether he’d introduce a carbon price – Tony Abbott already has a price carbon. 000’s of millions worth.”
[134
Question
Agreed JM,
Although I think Howard was a bit more ruthless than his bespectacled accountant image. Throughout his career he coveted the bigot vote, first with Asian’s, and more successfully with “boat people”.]
Never regarded Howard as anything but a very ruthless political operator, holding some quite regressive values.
But Abbott is worse, in a very particular and critical way:
I don’t see in Howard any sign that he takes any personal pleasure in humiliating, subjugating, and destroying people. He does it as a pragmatic political necessity when required, and generally speaking takes it no further. Ruthless, callous, effective. Certainly. Despicable even, at times.
But Abbott does it for kicks as well, he gets off on it, which is what makes him so dangerous.
Campaign has started?
Matt at 136
Absolutely
“@latikambourke: “The mining boom is over” says OL Bill Shorten who says Australia needs ‘advanced manufacturing.’”
Briefly (and anyone else who cares to weigh in):
What do you think of the idea of tradeable, auctioned emissions permits for carbon by industry?
[although the presence of Adam Bandt and Andrew Wilkie on the hypothesised cross-bench suggests that 74 seats would still be enough for them to form government.]
WB, top of page
Oh joy.
[126
Just Me
Violent fantasies as mass-amusement…doesn’t work for me!
Leaves me cold too, and a little disturbed at their popularity. Always has. No idea what people see in this stuff.
Not like we are short of actual real-life examples to look at and deal with if we want play at being tough noble heroes bravely fighting the forces of evil.]
I’m sure that many a casual viewer responds to demo-killing, such as that carried out by IS, as if it is also part-fantasy. That is, ritual political murder is made to fit into narrative themes in which good-and-evil are “dramatically” posed against each other.
The “published” response to IS also has a surreal quality. As McLuhan would note, because warring is sensed, recorded, and re-played using shopped video, warring is now also just another form of video-game. Reality is also “virtual”, meaning that the remote and the stylized – the “worked” facts – might as well be completely fictional.
[Perceptions of Shorten – difficult to know how much it matters at this stage. Adverse perceptions weren’t ultimately an obstacle to Abbott becoming PM. I’ll admit to having been unimpressed by Dan Andrews as Vic Opposition Leader for example but I think he’s showing the signs of being an excellent Premier. I know what people mean about Shorten – so many of his public appearances come across to me as cringeworthy. Just occasionally though he steps out of the media straitjacket and really cuts through. Hints maybe of what he could be – and maybe with the focus and energy of an election campaign he’ll rise to the occasion more often.]
It is not an unreasonable possibility that Shorten has been deliberately downplaying his presentation skills, in no small part to help keep Abbott in the job and boxing himself.
We know from the Beaconsfield mining disaster that Shorten can perform well enough in the media. Yes, in many ways a very different situation, but it seems unlikely he has gotten worse at it since then.
We shall see soon enough.
[156
Matt
Briefly (and anyone else who cares to weigh in):
What do you think of the idea of tradeable, auctioned emissions permits for carbon by industry?]
This is the essence of the ETS, with the number of permits is “capped” to create scarcity (where there is otherwise no scarcity) and therefore put a price on emissions.
This was all aimed at driving new investment in power plant. There has to be more than one way to do that.
Briefly, I thought the price of the carbon permits was fixed, at least for the first few years. An improvement over a command-and-control solution, certainly, but not quite what I was thinking of.
Or was my impression mistaken?
No wonder Abbott is such a mate of Steve Harper. Soul mates.
[
Steve Campana, Canadian biologist, ‘disgusted’ with government muzzling
The Halifax-based scientist, who only agreed to talk to CBC after he retired from the department, says federal scientists have been working in a climate of fear.
“I am concerned about the bigger policy issues that are essentially leading to a death spiral for government science,” he said in an exclusive interview.
“I see that is going to be a huge problem in the coming years. We are at the point where the vast majority of our senior scientists are in the process of leaving now disgusted as I am with the way things have gone, and I don’t think there is any way for it to be recovered.”]
http://www.cbc.ca/news/canada/nova-scotia/steve-campana-canadian-biologist-disgusted-with-government-muzzling-1.3078587
Thanks for the Shorten Grabs guytaur.
Seems like he’s doing and saying all the right things… Let’s hope it gets some coverage in the evening news.
The ALP should just increase the RET big time, AND our national CO2 emissions cut by 2020.
Leave the LNP stranded on the 5% cut – which is an international joke. let them defend it, and forget about emissions trading and taxes in this toxic climate, and just get on with renewable energy, which incidentally, is “advanced manufacturing” Shorten was mentioning today.
The ALP simply cannot provide cover for the LNP by sitting on 5% as well, any longer.
Matt
No fixed price term in new ETS Labor will put up. Business got what it wanted last time and campaigned against Labor. So this time it will be straight to the ETs. floating price
guytau2 @165: Ah. Interesting.
A few of us said here a while ago that the Australian electorate needs to shake off the idea that a PM or LOTO is in show business.
Look where that got Labor, with Rudd’s inability to accept defeat, the public’s continual hankering for him to return… and then when he DID return, they threw him over him quicker than you could say “Programmic Specificity”.
The there was Abbott. All antagonism and anarchy, spouting three word slogans at every opportunity, noen of them meaning – or resulting in – anything much at all. Whole areas of policy were overturned, despite being blood oaths the day, week or month before. Prince Phillip’s knighthood. Death cults. And all the rest. A failure of governance, dressed up as a Reality TV star.
The latest Budget attempts to leverage national economic recovery off the back of a dodgy Tradies tax concession. Not a bad idea in as such, but there’s no back-up, meaning it’ll go nowhere.
But the Aussie yearning for pyrotechnics runs strong. They want entertainment, not government.
Until they sober up and realize that the situation is serious, requiring serious, well thought out measures to fix it – not a single, hitherto wobbly poll trumpeted, against all the other contrary polls and indications – as signifying an Abbott political reincarnation coupled to a national resurgence, then there’s no hope for them.
Quick fixes are always the first thing someone in trouble tries, to get out of the jam they’re in. Changing in spin and nuance, telling fairy stories and beating up ambiguous polling and national account figures are the worst of the worst quick fixes. Blaming the other side for everything doesn’t address real problems.
The Tradies concessions just shuffle money from one part of the economy to another. Unless there is an increase in productivity, we’ll just go on selling houses to each other and serving each other in restaurants. Unless there is new money all the concessions will do is motivate a minor splure in spending – maybe – until accountants get round to explaining the fine print to their clients. The recent “recovery” in confidence (although it’s not all that much to write home about) is based on foundations of economic sand. It’s grasping at straws, flapping your arms and praying you can fly before you plummet into the abyss.
Hockey is by nature lazy. He always comes up with lazy solutions and lazy explanations. He never takes responsibility for anything. If Labor gives into his taunts about the Senate, it’ll just get worse for the nation as more and more punters are removed from the queue.
In any scam, the house always makes a profit. They may have shills in the audience, like miners, retailers and “industry groups”, they may have false winners and false losers… anything to get the mug to step up and chance his arm. They make the scam look like they’ve made a big mistake – in this case the concessions. Gee, they didn’t see the big loophole in their scheme. Idiots like TBA are going to buy two cars!
All the while Labor supporters do what they do best: bitch about leadership. Labor is ahead in the polls, about 5 points up on their election 2013 performance. Yet they still whinge and moan, forgetting that leadership obsession is what got us into the political mess we’re in now.
Bill Shorten is a steadying influence. He’s not into histrionics. People find him bland. That’s a GOOD thing, not a bad THING! The last option Australia needs is another ratbag full of his own importance going about the place mucking up people’s lives with his Captain’s Picks and half-baked brain farts, lies and illogical reversals.
It needs to be pointed out that Abbott just cannot be trusted. Everyone who’s ever trusted him has ended up betrayed, only the latest being Twiggy and his Iron Ore inquiry. The australian people trusted him, and that’s what’s gotten us to where we are now, running around like kids who found an extra jelly baby in the packet.
The media have been tying themselves in knots trying to make all Abbott’s excuses, lies, madcap ideas and outright bastardry consistent. Their narrative is so convoluted that some of them can’t remember what they were writing just a couple of months ago (or if they do, they don’t admit it).
It’s simpler just to remember that Abbott is a compulsive liar, who enjoys lying because it gets him into trouble, so he can get himself out of it all over again. Being forgiven for his mistakes is not Plan B. It is Plan A. Forgiveness gives Abbott his kicks, as he fools his friends, colleagues and the Australian people one more time, and (so far) gets away with it.
Kill trust in Abbott and you drvie a stake through his political heart: dead, buried and cremated. First you have to forgive the people for voting for him. You have to get them to come around to forgiving themselves, and admitting it. Once that is done, the rest is easy.
But “the rest” does NOT include changing leaders yet again. That would only remind people of why they voted for Abbott in the first place. And it wasn’t because they loved him.
Question
[Seems like he’s doing and saying all the right things… Let’s hope it gets some coverage in the evening news.]
Yeah right. THAT’ll happen. 😛
[floating price]
Fine, but increase the RET, big time.
Thats also industry policy as the mining boom ends.
Hey, then we can even EXPORT the tech.
There you go: welcome to the future. Abbott is the past, and we’re all economically screwed in the mid-term if unimaginative idiots, enslaved to yesterday’s special interests, remain in charge.
I found the reporting of the focus groups by Mark Kenny very dispiriting – particularly those comments that accused Shorten of the very things that Abbott was doing outrageously and dishonestly until the 2013 election and still does.
I didn’t mind the stuff that said Shorten was not cutting through, because he was not trying to cut through – indeed, almost trying not to cut through at this point in the electoral cycle. But to accuse him wrongly of every fraudulent sin the Abbott Opposition was guilty of but given a free pass by the media was more than I could handle.
With the freshness of morning and with all the Shorten basher bashers (myself included) now expressing themselves this morning I feel much better.
Despite all the mythology, Shorten did not get to where he is now by simply managing factions and unions. He has a lot of self-promotional mongrel about him. It’s why at a personal level I don’t like him. But as a political fighter, he is tough and a high achiever. And, as I’ve said elsewhere, he also has a great capacity to actually achieve things – like getting the NDIS off the launch pad (as any rocket scientist will tell you, it is the hardest thing just to get the bloody thing off the ground).
So he might surprise me on the downside yet, but there is plenty available to remind voters of how woeful a government and how woeful a Prime Minister the present incumbents have been. And I don’t mean stuff that requires more than five lines of explanation. I mean stuff that can be reduced to three word slogans (like negative advertising, they might be deplored but they are used because they work if they strike a chord with the electorate).
So for all the true believers on PB, hold your nerve. Things will change.
And on that note, one other thing I took out of the Kenny report was the extent to which the Labor Government infighting – dysfunction he said the respondents called it – contributed to Abbott’s election victory. It just confirms my increasing belief that this was the single largest, by far, reason for Labor losing the last election.
And it is why those who are left of Hapless but still want to revisit the Rudd-Gillard wars and demand Bill Shorten be replaced as Labor leader (despite the fact that it will simply not happen) are doing the dirty work of Abbott and the MSM and the big end of town and the IPA.
A lot of people confuse electricity with carbon emissions, like Cory Dumb-dumb, who turns on all his lights during earth hour and calls it “human advancement hour”. Even more advanced if we make it without pollution idiot…
[ @latikambourke: Good answer from Bill Shorten on whether he’d introduce a carbon price – Tony Abbott already has a price carbon. 000′s of millions worth.” ]
Hah! Will be an interesting and worthy counter to the “Carbon Tax” line if they draw attention to the costs of “Direct Action” coming straight out of the Budget.
Govt funding polluters rather than polluters funding CO2 reductions.
Particularly in the context of the Govt wanting spending cuts everywhere else and NOT dealing with revenue.
[ So this time it will be straight to the ETs. floating price ]
Yup, they will have to keep it simple and strictly market based.
[It just confirms my increasing belief that this was the single largest, by far, reason for Labor losing the last election.]
Agree with that. Abbott didn’t win, Labor lost.
This is worth a read
@terrymcmahon69: Sebastian Barry is a magnificent writer but this letter to The Irish Times may be his masterpiece. http://t.co/7CVETqRVls
It is quite simply impossible for any party to not win a majority of seats with a 2PP vote of 51.6%.
Such a result has never, ever occurred and never will.
The seat distribution methodology used here is obviously deeply flawed.
imacca@123
No offence taken – just the way I see things.
I was actually responding to a troll’s posts obliquely and to one or two other so-called Labor supporters. The first is mischief making while the second group is waiting for some Gough-like figure to do it all again as in 1972.
The conservatives would just love Labor to have leadership doubts, when it is in fact, the LNP which is bereft of any kind of popular or competent leadership. Though I tend to think Morrison might be the kind of boots and all leader who might appeal for awhile.
I was merely making the point that the manifold criticisms of Shorten’s shortcomings are nothing new to any LOTO.
Inherent in my post and others, is that such people have a funny knack of being good PMs or Premiers.
Of course, Abbott is the exception to the rule and he was a bleak LOTO and the tag ‘populous weather vane’ is as true now as it was when the words were coined about him 2-3 years ago.
Vic
I just caught up with your post re GG and like you found it despicable.
Of all of us here no one could raise an objection to anything BK writes so what was GG on about.
No matter what religion you follow no one but no one compares to Pell and his arrogance,
Good on you for tearing into him!
BK keep up the good work and don’t let the bastard get you down.
B@175
Not sure if this is correct as Big Kimbo got the greater share of the 2PP and did not win government. While Hawke won with less the other way round if that makes sense..
I fancy some months ago, somebody here did track the times when a party with a lower 2PP formed government.
guytaur
Thanks for that letter from the young man’s father it was absolutely beautiful.
Thanks, Guytaur, for the Shorten ‘grabs’ this morning. Sounds as tho he’s getting some fight into the scene.
It’s surprising that Sinodinos is handing out Abbott’s modus operandi for the next election. He seems to be doing it often lately.
[Senator Sinodinos told Sky News that Mr Abbott was looking for a point of differentiation from Labor by trying to brand it a high-taxing, high-spending party, and Labor’s announcement three weeks ago to change super taxes at the top end provided the trigger.
“It’s a strategic decision,” he said.
Asked if the policy change was run through the party processes, Senator Sinodinos said: “I think it’s really something that has come from the leadership.”]
http://www.macrobusiness.com.au/2015/05/super-debacle-abbotts-last-captains-call/
Abbott said the current boat A/Ss problems to our north is the fault of Burma, who made them flee, and it’s therefore Burma’s problem.
Too easy. It’s all the fault of the Iraqi, Iranese, Afghani, Syrian, Sri Lanka, Somalian, Nigerian etc etc governments for creating the circumstances forcing people to flee.
FMD …. tell us something we didn’t know! So all we need to do is fix those governments (meanwhile we just keep those fleeing at sea or in a gaol on some island).
Since when has reflection/aspersions on the “sending” governments been in any way helpful in resolving the immediate and imminent and now issue of A/Ss who are actually here or actually on the high seas.
Maybe the idjit should just fly up to Burma and make friends (“my best mate”) with the Burmese PM and it’ll be all OK …. he’s so good at making “friends”.
TPOF at 100:
[CE @ 76
Agree, I think Shorten is doing all that can be expected, whatever happens, he mustn’t be forced to be someone that he’s not, only being natural will cut it. ALP policies are sound. I think people are really over politicians at the moment. If the population chooses Abbott over Shorten then they can hardly complain later.
I agree with both of you, except I think Shorten has been deliberately playing down any aggression. I don’t think he has been his natural self and it might be about time that he was.]
I agree with all three of you, except I do not agree Shorten should turn up the aggression yet.
There are 3 types of voters*, the welded on LNP voter, the welded on ALP voter, who would vote ALP if Rudd made a comeback and thirdly, there are the non-committed voters. As a generalisation the non-committed voters are not avid political groupies, although a significant sub-set of non-major party voters do fall into this category.
Even though disgruntlement among category 2 voters carries a negative political effect, Shorten need only worry significantly about voters in category 3. He knows the MSM are out to label, ridicule and thereby diminish him. (It is not personal, the MSM do it to sell copy – and many of them to please Rupert at the same time. Tony Wright’s pathetic puff piece yesterday or Ireland’s today are examples).
Shorten knows that descriptors such as “wishy-washy, policy-free, doesn’t stand for anything” is just goading by the MSM to get him to do or say something, anything, spectacular that:
(a) will be used by Abbott et al to engage in the politics of confrontation. Abbott’s ludicrous description of the effect of Labor’s superannuation policy being typical. and/or
(b) can be used to sell copy.
When the election comes the hope is that many among the apolitical in category 3 will then be surprised to discover that a Shorten who had failed to impress them about anything much in the previous years actually was saying things that had some appeal. And, presumably, will have had a gutful of Tony lining up for his 3rd election campaign (if he had ever stopped).
In less words Shorten is more likely to win by not being Tony Abbott.
The heartening thing about the Budget speech in Reply and Bowen’s NPC address is that they do understand that they will need to set out fully budgeted policies before the election and that the fiscal constraints on those policies reasonably delineated.
Andrews in Victoria has now implanted the helpful meme that, if he promised something pre-election, then he will do what he can to deliver it. Shorten will want to tie his political ambitions to that tempering mandate since, more than anything else, Abbott et al have rightly been seen to be policy backflippers and liars of the first order.
* Those who vote for non-major parties will inevitably fall into one of the 3 categories by default.
[Senator Sinodinos told Sky News that Mr Abbott was looking for a point of differentiation from Labor by trying to brand it a high-taxing, high-spending party,…]
Says the leader of a higher taxing, higher spending party.
Be interesting to see if he gets properly called out on it.
psyclaw
By Abbott’s logic we should be taking all the Iraqi refugees that turned up. After all we were part of the crew that blew the place up and caused them to flee.
JM
Well here is a start
@terrymcmahon69: Sebastian Barry is a magnificent writer but this letter to The Irish Times may be his masterpiece. http://t.co/7CVETqRVls
JM
oops
wrong link here is correct one
@TheKouk: The Coalition might as well face it they’re addicted to tax http://t.co/YjPi7ra0xj
@abcnews: James Hardie’s payment to #asbestos fund set to fall even as claims keep rising http://t.co/raxyKeqf8v http://t.co/shbPi2HyAr
[By Abbott’s logic]
That’s a verbal representation of a drawing by M.C. Escher.
It’s not impossible to imagine that if Labor were in power now, they would send someone to discuss the stranded boats in a regional consultation. But Abbott’s response is ‘nope, nope, nope’. Repeated quickly without empathy.
Re: Those discussing Shorten’s leadership suitability.
Here are 8 qualities of a top leader:
Empathy
Consistency
Honesty
Direction
Communication
Flexibility
Conviction
Intelligence
Are there any of these that Shorten lacks?
For me Communication is key – there undoubtedly are leaders that exist that if left to lead without the hysteria of the media would probably do a good job and Shorten may be one of those. But I think the time is coming that we need a uniting leader – a person who can bring together our society and prosecute a view that business, unions, environmentalists and the public can embrace and if we’re going to get such a leader he or she is going to have to have absolutely top class communication skills that can be embraced by the media.
I am not sure who has this on the left and so Shorten may well be the best choice (I think Labor lost a lot of talent at the last election). On the right I would have said Turnbull would have fit the bill as someone that could bring together the broadest subset of our community (losing the extremes of right and left but carrying pretty much everyone else along) – BUT I feel even he now is impossibly compromised on the leadership qualities of conviction, consistency and honesty for failing to put himself on the line for what he said he believed in.
It’s going to be a reasonably close election in 2016 I think – but with a better leader on either side (or just more reasonable policies from the Liberals) I think it could easily be a landslide either way. Not going to happen though – it’s like watching an ultra defensive soccer game with both sides in 5-4-1 formation – the only way someone gets a clear win is by an own goal or some ridiculous lapse from the other side.
Windhover @ 182
I certainly agree with your analysis. I still think that Shorten has to ramp things up a bit now. And by that I mean be more forceful with accurate criticisms – not Abbott-style rhetorical hyperbolic ranting. I don’t want the Coalition to be given too much leeway. And Abbott, for all his love of a bit of biff, has a practice of making serious missteps when under pressure (which, from an apolitical view, worries the hell out of me if we had to rely on his judgement in a major, not manufactured, crisis).
[In less words Shorten is more likely to win by not being Tony Abbott.
The heartening thing about the Budget speech in Reply and Bowen’s NPC address is that they do understand that they will need to set out fully budgeted policies before the election and that the fiscal constraints on those policies reasonably delineated. ]
Windhover – They do seem to have planned out the way they want Labor to run. Hope you and TPOF and others have it right. Don’t think I can handle another 3 years of Abbott.
TPOF
Yep. That is what I am feeling. Shorten to be more pointed with his criticisms of Abbott and Co
mtbw
Sadly i dont think GG feels the need to apologise. 🙁
http://media.smh.com.au/video-news/video-qld-news/lazarus-i-will-shirtfront-tony-abbott-6549424.html
Lazarus to shirt front Tony!
lizzie
The Americans have already taken 1,000 Rohinga refugees this year and have said they will take some of the ones currently stranded.
Yesterday Barnyard declared that we are part of SE Asia. Today Abbott made out like we are not and it is “their” problem.
vic
And that is the problem when it comes to GG and the Catholic Church.
How he could dismiss the excursions of Pell is beyond my comprehension.
Let’s see what happens today!
victoria
‘Pointed’ may mean bringing out more facts, more often.
Abbott (and Hockey) is given neat little packages of ‘facts’ which supposedly trump Labor. (eg. 7000 jobs lost in E-W link). If Labor could tighten up their messages a little, they’d hit home more effectively (always with the proviso that they are reported, of course). Bowen brought out a few at Press Club.
BB
[A few of us said here a while ago that the Australian electorate needs to shake off the idea that a PM or LOTO is in show business.]
Agree.
But a spoon full of inspiration helps the medicine go down.
And there are many with a self interest in it being an entertainment circus.
poroti
I can’t see that it would be of harm to his blasted ‘stop the boats’ theme to step forward and take a few thousand rohingas. That is my immediate reaction.