It’s been a big week for federal opinion polling, with Ipsos adding its voice to the regular fortnightly Newspoll and Morgan and the weekly Essential Research. The results are sharply polarised, with Ipsos and Morgan coming in weak for the government and Newspoll and Essential being fairly strong. The BludgerTrack aggregate reads this a slight move to Labor, which consolidates a shift in their favour last week. However, there has been no change on the seat projection this time around, with gains for Labor in New South Wales and Victoria counterbalanced by losses in Queensland and Western Australia. Newspoll and Ipsos both provide new numbers for leadership approval, on which both Tony Abbott and Bill Shorten record substantial downturns for net approval. However, since this was driven by somewhat peculiar numbers from Newspoll’s swansong, I’d reserve my judgement on that for the time being.
BludgerTrack’s current two-party preferred reading of 52.1% for Labor is a bit lower than the other players in the poll aggregation game just at the moment, with Kevin Bonham and Phantom Trend both having it at 52.4%, and Mark the Ballot being even further out at 52.7%. Our relative weightings for Newspoll and Ipsos may have had something to do with this, but another factor will have been that only BludgerTrack has Essential Research’s weekly samples as separate data points, since Bonham and Phantom Trend have only the published fortnightly rolling average, and Mark the Ballot drops the pollster altogether. You may infer from that that this week’s result was on the strong side for the Coalition.
Also of note:
• Draft boundaries of a redistribution for the Northern Territory parliament have been published, which Antony Green considers in detail. The big change is the effective abolition of the Alice Springs seat of Araluen to make way for the new seat of Spillett in the north of Darwin’s growing satellite city of Palmerston. This has already had political ramifications, as Araluen MP Robyn Lambley cited it as one of her reasons for quitting the Country Liberal Party yesterday to sit as an independent, having intimated that the redistribution has singled her out for special treatment.
• The Lowy Institute has published its annual poll encompassing attitudes towards a wide range of foreign policy issues, which was conducted between February and May from a combined sample of around 6000 respondents by Newspoll and I-view, the latter being a part of Ipsos. Among many other things, respondents were asked to give the government marks out of ten across eight issues, producing a strong 7.1 average for “maintaining a strong alliance with the United States” (if that be deemed a good thing), a fairly healthy 5.9 for “responding to the threat of terrorism”, a perhaps surprisingly soft 4.9 for “handling the arrival of asylum seekers by boat”, another 4.9 for “managing Australia’s economy”, and a low 4.0 for “managing the issue of climate change”.
• The Lowy poll also found concern over climate change at its highest level of 2008, the potential electoral ramifications of which I considered in an article for Crikey yesterday. I had another subscriber-only Crikey piece on Friday which took a careful look at Essential Research data concerning perceptions of Tony Abbott and Bill Shorten.
Afternoon all.
I see there was quite a bit of discussion here on where the revenue for the fuel excise should go: Public Transport or Country Roads.
My question is: why can’t we do both? Split the revenue according to the need.
Is Abbott admitting that he is a dual citizen?
[The prime minister reassured the millions of Australians who either were or could be dual nationals the laws were not aimed at the vast majority of them.
“Often we benefit greatly from the fact that some of our people are dual citizens and I have not the slightest issue with dual citizenship itself,” he said.
“My issue is with terrorism and this government will do everything we humanly can to protect our country against terrorism.”]
http://www.news.com.au/national/breaking-news/revised-terror-laws-appropriate-bishop/story-e6frfku9-1227410581749
TBA
Have you spent your $20000 tax concession yet? Only a week to the 30th of June. Did you buy a new vehicle or spread it around on a mix of things?
If you haven’t spent it yet why not buy a time machine and take yourself to 2018 and see how Shorten is travelling as PM. Go and visit Abbott in his nursing home. Then we wouldn’t have to put up,with your dumb predictions.
Even better go back to the 50s and Menzies. The only things we had to worry about then were the A bomb, Russia and bodgies. You might like it so much back then that you decide to stay. We should be so lucky!
Weatherill said he agreed with having a ‘sensible discussion’, I think.
On modernising the federation.
“@ama_media: Instead of putting public hospital sector on sustainable footing for future, Fed Govt has retreated from its responsibilities #auspol #qt”
Stephen Spencer
3m3 minutes ago
Stephen Spencer @sspencer_63
Eh? Abbott just said 4 times he proudly backed a plan to end hospital funding. Pyne now insists there is no such plan. WFT? #QT
In order to ‘modernise the federation’, Abbott’s mob wish to withdraw all funds which provide any service except army and security?
lizzie @ 3858
As usual, it seems there might be room for debate over the definition of “sensible”.
Bishop fielding for Abbott, pah!
ABC bashing time.
zoomster@3821
Yes, my response was WTTE of “no, I did not say those things you accused me of implying” at 3740.
I was commenting on TPOF’s justification of environmental benefit from new roads causing less wearing and tearing, which I later said that there needs to be better reasoning than the use of environmental benefit as a jusfication.
I’ll take the reason of you living in the country as one who is frequently exposed to the conditions of the country roads as a fair reason to know your roads better than a city dweller like me.
I take it you’ve learned more from that than as a councillor, where you were presented reports from council officers on planning, environmental, internal council matters and last but not least, roads (but not so much national and state roads).
But I do travel frequently on the road and on trains and buses between the cities of Melbourne, Geelong and Ballarat, and I have known people who died on the rural highways.
I’m a taxpayer, but I’m not one of those people who say, please spend more on the city and less on the roads.
I’ve never criticised you for any statements you made in relation to non-rural matters, so why should it be an exclusive domain for you to comment on such rural matters?
I think the fact that news in trickling down from the rural parts (we don’t get enough without thronging through the small town papers) to the cities of unneccesary deaths on roads is a silver lining. It means there’ll be less of us with the “me, me, me” attitude and understand the need for equal spending on infrastructure.
And this statement here:
[because of course, we’re too thick to work it out, being rurals and all]
Are you trying to bait me into agreeing with this stereotype?
[If you weren’t being arrogant, but simply mangling the language in a way that gave me the impression you were, I do apologise.]
Yes, please excuse my language, for it is only slightly better than the creole-like Singlish form of English when I left the mother country for Australia.
“@BernardZuel: I still don’t know what Zaky Mallah said that was so offensive. Or is it that he spoke at all? How very dare he. Next he’ll want the vote.”
The crux of the objection to the ‘convicted terrorist’s’ presence (was he convicted?) was that he presented a security threat to the audience. Perhaps Mark Scott should ask for more funding for armed security officers around the building.
If Nicholas is about there is a whole article in new Matilda, not persuasive, but would really give him a hand with his conclusions.
New thread.
[It must piss off that part of the backbench with average IQ or higher.]
Both of them?
So, you are a former terrorist suspect. You are convicted of threatening government officials and serve your time in jail. Why are you unable to participate in society? Why would you be barred from being in the Q&A audience? Why can you not speak a minister? Does conviction for some crimes mean perpetual punishment?
A future Labor Government will need the revenue from the fuel excise. Unfortunatey the Greens didn’t wave it through and take the blame, so Labor has to do it, pleading responsible support for an unpopular measure to fix a budget that has been trashed by the Coalition. Once in power, Labor won’t be able to increase it without it likely being blocked in the Senate.
No one likes taxes, but this would seem to be one of the least worst. The real burdon of the exise would not increase but merely keep pace with the cost of living. Labor will have a lot of damage to repair.
Question @ 3843
[Yeah, I’m not sure why Abbott is so confident of his campaigning skills. He probably got a scare from Rudd’s initial polling bounce and thought it was his effort that pulled it back. The most notable aspect of his last campaign was how much it contradicted what he has since done in government. Not sure he can claim any trust.]
Abbott has quasi-religious faith that what has worked in the past will always work. So when John Howard has been able to close the gap in the past, he takes it as a given that it will happen naturally, like he will get a boost just because his is a first term government.
Personally, I think his campaigning skills are terrible. He is good at being a destructive opposition when in opposition and even when in government but it was not his campaign skills that almost won him the 2010 election and did win the 2013 election. It was all Labor’s work in convincing the electorate that they were still fighting internal wars when they should have been putting the case to run the country.
The other problem is that he is carrying enormous baggage into the next election. If it is held early, he will have to explain why he is running to an election. Let’s be clear here. the current terrorist ‘threat’ does not look or feel like 2001 – as much as Abbott is trying to ramp it up. And Abbott does not radiate the stolid reassurance that Howard did; rather he looks and is the lunatic who will ride the atomic bomb dropped from the plane yahooing all the way down.
So if he goes early he will have to explain what he knows but he is not telling the public and whenever he goes he will have to deal with constant reminders of how he promised to restore trust and responsible government but instead delivered the most chaotic circus of a government in the lives of most Australians.
[“@BernardZuel: I still don’t know what Zaky Mallah said that was so offensive. Or is it that he spoke at all? How very dare he. Next he’ll want the vote.”]
Guytaur and I are on absolutely the same page here.
As Mallah pointed out the next day, it was Ciobo not him who was talking about Julia Gillard and slit throats. And the other Liberal on the panel, Graeme Morris famously declared that Julia Gillard should be kicked to death. Maybe it’s because they were not Muslim that they could be as violent in their political commentary as they liked.
It really is about time that ordinary Australians stood up to this abuse of power and suppression of our freedoms. Where the hell is the Freedom Commissioner? Or is he only responsible for Andrew Bolt’s freedoms?
And, of course, the Muslim community has to back off as well and see their civil and political freedoms eroded for fear that they will be tarred by this terrorist government as Daesh sympathisers.
Australia really needs to be free of these bullying thugs while we have some rights remaining.
This Zaky Mallah/QandA incident has given the Govt great political mileage on the exact same day the citizenship changes are announced. Funny that…
“@CUhlmann: The PM rang Bill Shorten last night and asked for his support saying the off-shore processing system was vulnerable and could collapse. MTC”
The Minister for Women has cut funding to the Adult Survivors of Child Abuse group who run workshops in each state, including regional areas.
SHAME ON YOU, TONY MISOGYNIST ABBOTT.
An email I received today.
[
Please save our survivor workshops…
Hi #####
I am writing to you today because we are in crisis…
Recent Goverment funding cuts has reduced our capacity and without additional funding by June 30, ASCA would have been forced to cancel our specialised workshop programs in regional and some metro areas to help Australian adult survivors of child abuse.
We urgently need to raise $30,000 to fund at least one survivor workshop in each of the 5 major capital cities across Australia. We need to raise this money by June 30, just 6 days away.
Our incredible supporters have helped us raise $27,015 so far, which will fund 4 workshops…
Will you please donate now to help us reach our goal to help adult survivors turn their lives around?
And remember #####, it’s tax time. So you can donate now and you’ll receive a tax deductible receipt to claim your donation in this financial year.
If we are lucky enough to surpass our goal, we’ll continue to schedule additional workshops for every $6,000 raised. ASCA’s goal is for ALL adult survivors across Australia to access the support they desperately need.
Right now, we have a confirmed waiting list of 52 people, but there are hundreds of others who only contact us once they can see a scheduled workshop in their local area. They suffer in silence, with no way to move forward.
These workshops change lives. I’ve seen it. They focus on helping people feel safe, learn about self-care and most importantly, help people realise they are not alone in their struggle with self-esteem, relationships and their mental and physical health.
With your help, we can schedule more workshops to allow adult survivors to take the first step in their recovery and give them hope for a better future.
But we urgently need your support to confirm our schedule of workshops for the next financial year.
To view the campaign and learn how you can sponsor an attendee or sponsor a workshop, click here.
Alternatively, view the ASCA website.
Thank you for your support.
Though male victims of child abuse would use the workshops too, I think most of the participants would be women, just because men are harder to get to go to group therapy.