Later than usual on this one because the only pollster to report this week, Essential Research, moved its schedule back a day because of the public holiday. Essential’s voting intention numbers, which you can see detailed below, are characteristically stable, and the movements in the leadership ratings are almost perfectly on trend. As such, the only movement to report is a 0.3% shift to Labor on two-party preferred. However, this has had more impact on the seat projection than you might have thought, since several states are currently on the precipice of one result or another. Labor is accordingly up a seat in Queensland, Western Australia, South Australia and Tasmania, returning it to majority government territory.
Also:
• The aforesaid Essential Research poll showed Labor leading 52-48 for the fifth successive week. Primary votes were 41% for the Coalition (steady), 40% for Labor (steady), 9% for the Greens (down one) and 1% for Palmer United (steady). Also featured were Essential’s monthly leadership ratings, providing yet another improvement for Tony Abbott with approval up three to 39% and disapproval down four to 50%, while Bill Shorten was respectively steady on 32% and up four to 45%. Abbott’s lead as preferred prime minister was 38-33, up from 35-32 a month ago.
• The poll also found remarkably strong support for revoking citizenship on grounds of terrorism, although this is clearly a case where question design has a lot to do with the response that is elicited. The headline findings of 81% approval and 9% disapproval in the case of dual nationals, and 73% approval and 13% disapproval in the case of sole nationals, presupposed that the suspect was guilty as charged. A follow-up question allowed respondents to choose between a court of law and a government minister in making the determination, with 54% favouring the former and 24% favouring the latter.
• The Mercury had a Tasmanian state ReachTEL poll on the weekend, which I didn’t write up because it was barely a week since the EMRS poll. It was a strong result for the Hodgman government, putting the Liberals on 48.5%, Labor on 29.9% and the Greens on 15.8%, compared with March 2014 election results of 51.2%, 27.3% and 13.8%. ReachTEL’s result helpfully features breakdowns by electorate. The poll was conducted last Thursday from a big sample of 2646.
• Heath Aston of the Sydney Morning Herald reports that former NSW Premier Morris Iemma has “told Labor Party players in south-west Sydney that he will contest preselection for Barton”, and that “his name is also in the mix for the neighbouring seat of Banks”. Both seats were lost by Labor at the 2013 federal election, and there were suggestions Iemma might run in Barton as early as 2011. Others named as contenders for Barton are Rockdale mayor Shane O’Brien, Electrical Trades Union organiser Mark Buttigieg and Hurstville councillor Brent Thomas. Thomas is also named as a possible starter in Banks, together with Jason Yat-Sen Li, a high-profile figure in the Chinese community who ran for Labor in Bennelong in 2013 and as the lead Senate candidate of the Unity party in 1998.
2227
JimmyDoyle
JD, I am on exactly the same page on this. We must reform both our labour and immigration policies at the same time. I think we constitute a minority of just two…but we have to start somewhere.
So I read today, Victoria.
briefly
Thats 3
FS
In any event Abbott not interested in any investigation
[2253
guytaur
briefly
That’s 3]
Almost a quorum!
Citizen, if those notes were found to be recently issued to an Australian financial institution, the circumstantial evidence of where they turned up and the direct evidence of to whom they were given and by whom, would, in any civilised country governed by the rule of law, and a proper separation of powers, lead to an immediate police investigation.
Oh … wait …
2244
Letting people on the planes would kill the smuggling boats because they are more expensive. There is no point s\paying to get smuggled if there is a cheaper legal route.
[2247
teh_drewski
No more or less difficult to disprove than the idea that increasing the intake via the formal route will somehow eliminate all demand for the informal route, I suspect]
True. But increasing our intake and ensuring safe passage better conforms with our responsibility as a civilised society with a moral obligation to uphold our international responsibilities. Our present system is morally repugnant, and refuses to recognise that we have no control over what people do before they get on a boat.
Our present system is a system of gibbeting, whereby people who had been executed were publically displayed as a warning to others. We are subjecting innocent people to inhumane conditions on Manus and Nauru as a warning to others. Labor’s off-shore policy was more genteel, but the same in spirit.
[ The Liberal Party has a duty to sack him.]
The Liberal Party has a duty to sack themselves. Every single last one of them are culpable for this abomination of a government (along with the media stooges who polished the turd so vigourously). Of course they won’t because they’ve gone all in. Not one of them has any trouble sleeping at night you can be sure unless it’s worrying that the polls haven’t turned sufficiently.
‘Whatever it takes’ used to come with a pretty big caveat that included being legal, and with a reasonable level of respect for democratic processes and institutions. This mob have taken it absolutely literally. They respect no limit, nor impediment beyond what they can get away with. They will need to be dynamited out because they will use every means fair or foul that they can to hang onto the only thing they respect – power.
On the ABC news, even the Toolman recognised there was something rather incongruous about Tone praising the magna carta at the same time as he was planning to set up the equivalent of a star chamber to strip citizens of their rights.
Well why wouldn’t he conclude that ? It is on the mark.
[Tony Abbott must have concluded that voters will accept anything – that they are so anxious about “porous” borders that the most hard-won principles of our democracy will be surrendered without a whimper.]
http://www.smh.com.au/federal-politics/political-opinion/tony-abbotts-tangled-web-over-paying-people-smugglers-20150614-ghnqh8.html
poroti
It is on the mark, alright.
KEVIN-ONE-SEVEN@2260
Zero questioning of “Whatever it takes”.
The mind boggles as to where this could escalate to.
Also zero questioning from any media yet as to the legality of alleged payments/ conspiracy with people traffickers…..that just doesn’t seem to be an issue….a free pass – whatever it takes.
Not that I’d expect much from toolman but he just didn’t want to dig too far on any of this….
briefly and guytaur – it can be a lonely path being right but three is good company! 😀
Briefly and Boerwar
If you are still around
I sat next to the secretary of Finance(not sure past or present) I think that is how he introduced himself as. I was very tired as had done one flight already and this BA flight got into Athens at 3.30am, amazingly the plane was packed
He Was reading things like EU help to member nations IMF.(in English) He is hopeful that Greece may get itself out of the mess but not convinced of course. Told me he wanted to do his PHD in finance on a lonely Greek island many years ago but did it in Manchester instead. A very interesting man, who seemed to know other peopleon the flight
Yes 2251 from extremely small accorns (jimmy Doyle + briefly) does australian government policy grow. ROFLMAO
I’m betting that the human head transplant either doesn’t happen or ends very, very unhappily. 😐
Australian tourists to Indonesia (Bali etc) get ‘special’ treatment from the president.
[President Joko “Jokowi” Widodo has finally signed a new Presidential Regulation that would make a policy to waive visa fees for 30 countries official, despite an immigration law stipulating that visa exemptions could only be made on a reciprocal basis…
New Zealand is also on the list, but not its close neighbor Australia, whose relationship with Indonesia has recently deteriorated following the executions of two Australian drug convicts. ]
http://www.thejakartapost.com/news/2015/06/13/jokowi-signs-visa-fee-exemptions.html#sthash.4uwWVVOX.dpuf
poroti at #2261
That’s actually not a bad article by Kenny.
This was noteworthy.
[Even as the government contrives to assume ministerial powers to arbitrarily cancel citizenship – an expansion of executive reach for which both sides of politics will stand condemned if they become law – the Prime Minister dissembles over the most fundamental accountability owed by any government to its people.
That of truth.]
fredex
Obviously the Kenny of the Mark variety, not the Chris type!
mari
[ Told me he wanted to do his PHD in finance on a lonely Greek island many years ago but did it in Manchester instead.]
Not sure of his sanity 😆
[Γκάιντα / Greek Bagpipe
Hariton Haritonidis (bagpipe) and Vasilis Vasilatos (drums) perform at the National Conservatory of Greece.]
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=hM1d4S1z0Wc
Edwina StJohn @ 2266 – Alas, while it may just be the three of us who have this opinion of Australian immigration policy, I’m comforted knowing that I’m far from alone in the contempt I hold towards you and your side of politics. In that, I’m in the overwhelming majority.
BK
Actually I was aware of that when I was typing but didn’t bother distinguishing Mark from Chris cos there is no possible way Chris could write anything vaguely worth reading.
I regard Chris Kenny as the lowest of the low on the scale of bad ‘journalists’, worse than Bolt.
Utter ….
Diogenes @ 2267 – last night ESJ made some nominations for some “boring posters” to be culled.
Tonight, I’d like to make some nominations for the experimental head transplant you spoke of. .
My nominations are as follows:
1) Edwina StJohn
2) TrueBlueAussie
3) rummel
I offer these nominations for your consideration.
Boats in the media = good for Lib polling. They don’t give a rats if people think they paid off people smugglers. In fact, many would support it. As long as those no-good Arab queue-jumpers don’t get in to our fine country, most are satisfied.
there would be an Ipsos in the works tonight? And a newspoll tomorrow?
Lol at least ML and I didn’t make the head transplant list 🙂
JD
I’m sure I’m in the minority but I greatly prefer having ESJ, TBA and rummel commenting here. I don’t often agree with them but it’s much more interesting having them.
If there is no-one from the “other side”, the civil war starts and it’s Rudd v Gillard, and Labor v Greens.
Jackol 2225
Better they die from persecution in there own country often with no possibility of queues than to die risking their lives at sea eh?
Better we worry about the few thousand coming by boats than the tens of thousands that simply fly here & claim refugee status eh?
Your logic escapes many of us.
Hi all,
I strongly recommend that those with a semblance of a brain who frequent this place read this:
http://edge.org/conversation/david_christian-we-need-a-modern-origin-story-a-big-history
cheers
#OnWaterGate at number 3 on Australia twitter’s trending list.
ML at 2232
It seems so obvious doesn’t it & yet…………………….
Speaking personally, it is an absolute bandrock concern of mine that we do all we can to stop people dying to get here.
Moreover, I have seen posters here change from a ‘let them come’ stance as a result of the Christmas Island wreck.
It was distress – genuine distress, felt by ordinary Australians from all walks of life, not a feigned “I don’t like dark people and I’ll use this as an excuse” distress – which compelled politicians to do something, anything, after the Christmas Island incident.
As far as we can verify anything, the polls show us that there was demonstrably a genuine reaction to the Christmas Island drownings and that a large part of this was revulsion at the idea that people were dying to get to Australia.
To dismiss anyone who holds these views as hypocrites is just as cynical as anyone saying they hold those views when their motivation is something else.
Moreover, it’s counter productive. You won’t win people over if you don’t understand the genuine basis of their concerns, just as you won’t if you dismiss anyone who disagrees with you as racist.
Ironically, to do both these – to decide that anyone seeking to stop deaths at sea isn’t really genuine in their concerns, and that therefore they must be racist (or something) – is just as narrow minded and bigoted in its own way as someone who IS expressing faux concern about deaths at sea.
Poroti 2271
Agree wth sanity part, but he has now bought a house there, but can’t get out too often. Thank you re bagpipes need that I can assure you
Last Ipsos was 50-50. Interesting to see if the that moves back to 52-48 trend and how that will be reported.
Would something like the following be possible in Question Time tomorrow?
– Labor member asks Abbott if Australia paid people smugglers in cash to turn back
— Abbott blathers on about stopping the boats, death cults, the carbon tax, pink batts, debt and deficit disaster, whatever…
– Next Labor questioner – does the PM’s refusal to answer the question mean ‘yes’?
— probably ruled out of order, but try and get in ‘Why does the PM refuse to answer the question?’
– Repeat with Dutton at the earliest opportunity
– Repeat with Bishop J
[If there is no-one from the “other side”, the civil war starts and it’s Rudd v Gillard, and Labor v Greens.]
Since William created a separate Gillard v Rudd threat, thankfully most if not all the go-nowhere arguments on that front have disappeared there.
[2265
mari
Briefly and Boerwar
If you are still around
I sat next to the secretary of Finance(not sure past or present) I think that is how he introduced himself as. I was very tired as had done one flight already and this BA flight got into Athens at 3.30am, amazingly the plane was packed
He Was reading things like EU help to member nations IMF]
very cool, mari!
…good to know he’s getting up to date on the EU/IMF stuff…will be required knowledge in the coming weeks 🙂
I noted that earlier today, a poster was talking about the possibility of a Government minister having shoes thrown at them. And, now it’s happened; and Dutton’s the one who’s ducking the shoe rain:
[Immigration Minister Peter Dutton ducked one shoe thrown at him and caught another on Sunday morning. Photo: Jorge Branco. The man charged with throwing his shoes at Peter Dutton has put out a statement accusing the Immigration Minister of hypocrisy.]
http://www.brisbanetimes.com.au/queensland/shoes-thrown-at-immigration-minister-peter-dutton-in-brisbane-20150614-ghnl1t.html
Diogenes @ 2278 – Fair enough. I actually agree with you. You’ll have to forgive my feeble attempt at humour.
[2266
Edwina StJohn
Yes 2251 from extremely small accorns (jimmy Doyle + briefly) does australian government policy grow. ROFLMAO]
Perhaps we have high hopes, unlike you, who must ardently hope for failure, contumely and regret.
[Peter van Onselen @vanOnselenP 1h1 hour ago
If the immigration minister & foreign minister have said no payment to people smugglers was made, it is utterly bizarre the PM won’t confirm]
[Since William created a separate Gillard v Rudd threat, thankfully most if not all the go-nowhere arguments on that front have disappeared there.]
Interesting, though, that you’ve been lurking over there.
Zoomster @ 2283 – For what it’s worth I am in complete agreement with you. I don’t think it’s solely or even primarily xenophobia that drives the public’s feelings about boat people.
I can’t quite recall whether you support on- or off-shore processing, but I am generally in favour of on-shore in community processing. The only way I think we can make off-shore processing work is by doing it in conjunction with the UN and Indonesia (with the processing taking place in Indonesia), with the guarantee that genuine refugees WILL be resettled in Australia. I have no evidence to base this on, but I think that would stop people dying at sea.
[Immigration Minister Peter Dutton ducked one shoe thrown at him and caught another on Sunday morning. ]
Were they really red high heels? How bizarre.
Zoomster at 2283
How would you respond then to my 2279?
[2265
mari
Told me he wanted to do his PHD in finance on a lonely Greek island many years ago but did it in Manchester instead.]
I did approximately the opposite. Having intended to study in London I absconded to the Cylcades where I devoted myself to making a thorough study of another person… 🙂
Jake:
I haven’t actually, just noticed that since Tuesday there have been no comments about Gillard or Rudd here. Not just coincidental.
So is Howes going to get a trip to TURC?
confession #2295
The shoes probably aren’t high heels; the image in that article is most likely a stock image that the Brisbane Times were using to symbolize ‘shoes’.