The only new poll this week has been another 52-48 result from Essential Research, but it’s been enough to make a measurable difference to the BludgerTrack poll aggregate. In particular, it’s brought it into line with the poll aggregations of Kevin Bonham, Mark the Ballot and Phantom Trend, which as of last week were between 0.4% and 0.6% better for Labor than BludgerTrack. That distinction has been all but erased by a 0.3% movement on two-party preferred, which shows up in the seat projection as extra seats for Labor in Victoria and Queensland. There are no new numbers for leadership ratings this week.
Other news:
• Overwhelming support for constitutional recognition of indigenous Australians was recorded by a Newspoll survey published in The Weekend Australian on Saturday, with 63% in favour and only 19% opposed.
• The Canberra Times has reported results of ReachTEL poll of 1446 respondents, conducted for Unions ACT, which includes a question on voting intention for the next territory election, to be held in October next year. After exclusion of the undecided, it has Labor on 41.5%, Liberal on 35.7% and the Greens on 16.5%, which is rather bad news for the Liberals given the results in 2012 were 38.9% for both Labor and Liberal and 10.7% for the Greens.
• Antony Green has weighed in on the stalled Senate reform process with two pieces, one considering the lessons to be drawn from New South Wales, where a system much like that proposed by the Joint Standing Committee on Electoral Matters is already in place for the state upper house, and another on the likely impact of the proposal for the various parties. The basic thesis of the latter is that the Senate would remain outside the control of any one party in all but exceptional circumstances, since this is a legacy of the increase in the size of parliament in 1984 and the routine of half-Senate elections for six rather than five members per state. However, the balance of power would more often be held exclusively by the Greens, unless the change caused the currently disparate micro-party vote to consolidate by some manner of merged entity. Putting his wonk hat on, Antony recommends adjusting the quota for election at each step of the count in the former article, rather than leaving it fixed at the number of votes divided by the number of seats plus one.
• A Liberal Party preselection ballot for Indi will be held on Sunday. Sophie Mirabella is again hoping to contest the seat she lost to independent Cathy McGowan in September 2013, but faces opposition from Kevin Ekendahl, a Wodonga businessman who has previously been a candidate for Melbourne Ports, and Andrew Walpole, an anaesthetist.
• The Joint Standing Committee on Electoral Matters has set the ball rolling on two inquiries, the more interesting of which will consider “current rules and practices in relation to campaign activities in the vicinity of polling places”. The other is on the delivery of electoral and civics education, in schools and at Parliament House.
• My subscriber-only contributions to Crikey over the past week have included one on the Northern Territory redistribution, a subject made more interesting than usual by claims of political interference and the resignation of a Country Liberal Party MP whose seat was abolished, and one on Bill Shorten coming out for fixed four-year terms.
UPDATE (Morgan state SMS polls): Morgan has published its monthly SMS polls of state voting intention, from samples ranging from 1270 in New South Wales to 333 in Tasmania. They record a small amount of Mike Baird’s post-election spike coming off, but with the Coalition still recording a 57-43 lead (down from 58.5=41.5 last month); the Victorian Newspoll result more-or-less corroborated with a Labor lead of 56.5-43.5 (steady); Labor moving into the lead in Queensland but still looking a bit shaky (51.5-48.5, after they trailed 52-48 last month); the Barnett government taking a 52.5-47.5 lead in Western Australia, after trailing 51-49 last time; the Liberals 51-49 ahead in South Australia, up from 50.5-49.5 (remembering the Liberals did in fact win the two-party vote 53-47 at last year’s election, but still lost); and primary votes of 42.5% (up 1.5%) for the Liberals, 33% (up 2.5%) for Labor and 20% (up 0.5%) for the Greens, which as ever feels too low for the Liberals.
MTBW
I don’t think that counting the number of comments on that thread means anything at all. Most people (like yourself) have an opinion which will not change, and most have probably decided not to bother with the arguments any more.
guytaur
My post was intended to shut it down here.
meher
[This theory, which its proponents asserted with overwhelming self-confidence – including accusing sceptics of “racism” – was that modern humanity is descended from one wave of migration by homo sapiens out of Africa which wiped out all other hominids: neanderthals, homo erectus, etc.]
Certainly I disagree with this – I am arguing that there were waves of migration, and that the weight of evidence supports the idea of an African origin.
I regard regional theories as inherently racist because they stress the idea of intrinsic differences between different branches of humanity. Clearly humans who have settled in different regions do have some distinct evolutionary differences – but they also clearly are still human and still share the same common ancestors.
(My view of the racist element might be coloured by the fact that I first encountered the regional theory in the writings of a South African anthropologist, who was a bit like a modern Liberal talking about climate change – he dismissed the theory as unproven and then constantly hinted for the rest of his book that it was actually correct).
My argument is that, regardless of when human beings got where human beings were, all human beings have a common point of origin.
In arguments about evolution, there often seems to be a tendency to argue about human origins in ways we wouldn’t when discussing other species.
If a European robin and an Australian robin mated successfully, we would accept that they are the same species, despite the distance between them and the hundreds of thousands of years of separation.
Yet when we talk about humans ‘interbreeding’ with Neanderthals, we still talk as if Neanderthals were separate from humans. Obviously this can’t be correct – either the interbreeding didn’t happen, and the DNA similarities are explained by a shared ancestry, or Neanderthals are simply another ‘race’ of humans.
Regardless, I get back to: human beings have a common point of origin, regardless of their different times of arrival in different locations. On the bulk of the evidence, that common point of origin is Africa.
(I actually have never come across ‘one wave of migration’ put forward as an argument, and I started looking at these issues back in the late seventies.)
[
Everyone already knew Shorto was up to his eyeballs in the fall of Gillard and Rudd.
]
Yeah, it was hardly earth shattering news. I mean, Shorten’s admission that he lied to Neil Mitchell has all but disappeared without a trace.
A politician lying to the media about internal party warfare, big deal.
“@shanebazzi: .@RichardDiNatale: forcing young children to self harm, condoning abuse within detention centres, that can never be the solution”
lizzie
Yep. I only get engaged in R/G/R arguments as a matter of principle – that a poster should be able to comment on events of the time without immediately being jumped on for being a cultist.
zoomster
That has been the most frustrating thing. No intelligent objective comment allowed. Reminds me so much of Abbott – if you don’t agree with me you must be an enemy.
Wow I ddi not expect that
@shanebazzi: .@JacquiLambie opposing the bill”
This is Abbott’s emergency funding of detentions centres bill.
To add to BB’s post @ 68, the descriptions I always remember of Abbott are
1. arrogant, willful, and lacking compassion, (from his seminary assessment as a young man),
2. crass, exploitative, and disturbing, (from The New Statesman before the 2013 election).
Add in his behaviour since he became PM, and clearly he was a bastard from early on, and has not matured in any substantive constructive way since.
“@shanebazzi: .@JacquiLambie says she supports offshore processing but says we should wait and hear what the High Court says”
“@shanebazzi: .@JacquiLambie: here we are today debating dodgy govt legisaltion in order to preempt future High Court decision”
Nailed Abbott again
Sir Mad Cyril
[Posted Thursday, June 25, 2015 at 11:45 am | PERMALINK
Everyone already knew Shorto was up to his eyeballs in the fall of Gillard and Rudd.
Yeah, it was hardly earth shattering news. I mean, Shorten’s admission that he lied to Neil Mitchell has all but disappeared without a trace.
A politician lying to the media about internal party warfare]
Big fat yawn i say. Mind you Rudd admitting the leaks to Laurie Oakes is an act of bastardry that will haunt Rudd the rat for always. Amen. 😀
guytaur
The bill will get through
Meher baba we know you hate Rudd and would find away to condemn him if he solved world poverty. We get your hate.
victoria
Yes I know Labor is voting for the legislation. To their shame.
Wasted opportunity to wedge Abbott
[The Productivity Commission has cast serious doubt on the value of free trade agreements, just as Australian participation in the Trans-Pacific Partnership is looking far more likely.]
The link has disappeared overnight, but the CFMEU are concerned that Chinese (and other) building materials will be cheaper, but not up to Australian safety standrds.
http://www.abc.net.au/news/2015-06-25/productivity-commission-doubts-claimed-free-trade-deal-benefits/6572256
[The terminology was important, she said.
“It’s actually not because you’re buying a house that helps with migration,” she said. “It’s because you have a company which is a land developer, and using the employment with the company to help migrate. It’s not just buying a house and you migrate.”
Registered migration agents like Wu are not convinced the JLF formula is likely to work.
Indeed, Zhang’s own experience since she arrived in Australia about a decade ago, as a teenage student and aspiring pro-golfer, suggests immigration is not as easy as she makes out.]
http://www.theage.com.au/business/property/the-most-important-hour-of-your-financial-life-can-deliver-10-houses-and-a-visa-chinese-investors-told-20150625-ghx2sh
So it’s big news that Bill Shorten has fessed up to telling a fib!
What would be even bigger news is if Tony Abbott was ever found to have spoken a truth.
[154
Sir Mad Cyril
>Everyone already knew Shorto was up to his eyeballs in the fall of Gillard and Rudd.
Yeah, it was hardly earth shattering news. I mean, Shorten’s admission that he lied to Neil Mitchell has all but disappeared without a trace.]
Don’t know the circumstances of that admission, but if it was chosen not forced, then it might be a smart move.
Abbott is in no position to accuse anybody else of being a liar. And in no position to sue over being called one himself.
di natale telling it how it is in the senate right now – ‘labor cannot win a race to the bottom, because mr abbott is always prepared to go one step further’. Labor should hang their heads if they support legislation that allows Naru and Manus to continue in their current form and behind closed doors. they need to call abbott on playing politics with race and desperate people and remind people where this populism can end – I will get screamed at for saying this, but Hitlers Jewish policies were popular when he first started them because Jews were painted as ‘the other’ and as a national security threat with loyalties outside of the nation. Many of them were first or second generation refugees from Russia. We already have people being mistreated in concentration camps and government ministers and officials prepared to act ex-judicially. changing the law to make these actions ‘legal’ and hidden from view does not make them right.
It wouldn’t have been a secret meeting if everyone told the media about it, would it?
Shellbell at 98:
Thanks for the research. Your enigmatic conclusion:
[I don’t think a court would consider “in the service of” to mean someone who provides any service.]
. . . is NOT supported by the Explanatory Memorandum you quote.
The Explanatory Memo states “in the service of” is to be given its ordinary meaning. As you are aware there are two relevant contracts, one “of service” (an employment contract, hence “servant”) and one “of services” (independent contractor).
It seems to me any dual citizen who, as an employee or independent contractor, provides “service” to a declared terrorist organisation outside of Australia, automatically ceases to hold Australian citizenship.
So cleaners or lawyers providing services to a a declared terrorist organisation outside of Australia, even if unwittingly doing so, would lose their citizenship.
http://www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/2015/jun/25/its-a-slippery-slope-if-we-enact-laws-based-on-fear-rather-than-rationale?CMP=soc_567
Ricky Muir in The Guardian.
Worth reading.
All of it.
A sudden flurry of tweets demanding that Shorten step down. And guess who started it today? Latham talking to Tom Elliott 3AW.
@political_alert: The Greens’ @SenatorLudlam has marked George Orwell’s birthday, hailing him as a “leading Abbott policymaker” #auspol http://t.co/tlG7HMpbc6
“@political_alert: The Prime Minister will address the Australian Strategic Policy Institute 2015 Conference, 12.30pm, Canberra #auspol”
guytaur
I thought that was really funny.
Lizzie
Latham is another f wit doing the Labor cause no good. Labor sure know how to pick them
Yes, this *seems* to be the highest Greens position on the Bludgertracker since around the 2010 election.
victoria
I don’t know whether Latham is still Labor? Even in name.
lizzie
Good point. Why are the right so anxious for Shorten to go?
Look who Julia Gillard is hanging out with
@samanthabarry: Very very fun London Wednesday dinner with @suigenerisjen @JohnCleese @EMortimer @JuliaGillard @KathyLette & more http://t.co/xD4oVj8WlD
vic
[Why are the right so anxious for Shorten to go?]
And it seems not only the LNP.
[The Prime Minister will address the Australian Strategic Policy Institute 2015 Conference, 12.30pm, Canberra ]
Oh dear, more flags. Any guns this time? Or a warship in the background?
victoria
The LNP would love to be able to compare their ‘stability’ with Labor’s ‘chaos’. The tension under the smooth sailing (sic) of the Coalition must be like pressure building up before an earthquake.
CTar1
Are you referring to Latham?
Lizzie
Yep
@GayCarBoys: British gay couples flocking to Australia to marry. aussie with UK passports can have same sex marriage in australia http://t.co/ssU5MCejAw
Don’t tell Bernadi, Chritensen or Andrews
LNP have to undermine Labor. Leadership is their first best bet.
Labor at the moment only has to recycle an old slogan
[Who do you trust?]
Zoomster
I thought the Nature article pretty much covered your need for scientific evidence, but I am sure I could locate a few hundred other references if you have time to read them.
The reality is that the “Out of Africa” theory assumed no interbreeding with Neandethals or any other races. Scientific evidence is now showing this to have been simplistic nonsense.
Your idea of the sudden split idea, when suddenly there are humans is rather outdated. I will be honest and say that for most of my life that is the sort of idea I held, which is what we are taught in schools etc.
However with the advances of DNA evidence this idea is now outdated and we find for example that humans share some features with Gorillas not chimps and some with chimps not gorillas and some with neither. There are even some I think (less certain) we share with Orangutangs not either Chimps or Gorillas. As they say it is complex.
What actually happens is that geographic isolation leads to mutations and to different “races.” They are all one species at any given time there may be a rather less dominant ancestral tribe and several or many descendant tribes with very different genetic modifications, usually to suit the environment, but sometimes with characteristics with no particular evolutionary advantage. (Racial features with known evolutionary advantage include, frizzy sparse hair – hot climates, fair skin and blue eyes – Northern climes with low sunlight, Asiatic eyefolds and “yellow” skin – cold adaption, small stature – forest dwelling, body fat and statue and roundness – cold adaption, adult milk digestion enzymes – dairy farming, sickle cell anaemia – protection against malaria. No doubt there are thousands more).
Now when the geographic isolation FIRST starts population A in Africa may interbreed occasionally with Gorillas, population B In India with Chimps and population C in SEA with orang-outangs. The success of any interbreeding will decline over time as the genetic distance gets greater. At this point they are all still ONE species. Over time and at very different rates, the populations interbreed less and less until one day there are no more viable cross breeding offspring. So after 1-2 million years, instead of one species of great ape we have four, because three have become so isolated that they can no longer interbreed with the residual population.
At that point Homo Sapiens arrive. However there may be many sub- species of which in earliest times I would certainly include Neandethals, Denisovians and possibly Homo erectus, ergaster etc. Now of these subspecies, some may be closer genetically to chimps, others to gorillas or orangutangs, because of shared relationships
However what you must remember is that while speciation is usually quite fast, sometimes a simple genetic change amy be all that is needed to put in place a total genetic block.
For example it is probably good luck only that stopped two real species evolving amongst Europeans – Basques and non Basques. The rh negative factor that is a Basque (and most of Europe including UK) marker is a single mutation but is such that the chance of successful interbreeding was until modern science very much reduced. A basque woman who is Rh-ve would at MOST have one child from a homozygous RH positive male. All other children would die, essentially because the Basque mother becomes allergic to the child and produces antibodies during the last phase of birth. So if the invading tribe (male agressors) was RH+ there would be little admixture of the gene pool. Just one additional problem mutation would make any successful interbreeding impossible.
I suspect that speciation was avoided because in this case the Basque type males were strong and returned any aggressive mating back the other way, so that the invading tribes got a goodly share of rh- genes, so that some of the offspring of future matings would survive.
Shorten isn’t a great leader, and we’re going to have trouble once he becomes PM. But Abbott is so bad, I’m willing to preference for an upgrade from scary to weak. Shorten won’t be replaced, but he needs to go on the offensive soon, and rolling over on cutting the RET, refugee gulags, internet censorship and shortly banishment laws – he’s not leaving himself much to work with. Please, Shorten, find something headline to dig into Abbott over and get back to work.
Bernard Keane
Bernard Keane – Verified account @BernardKeane
Hmmm. What to make of a government so incompetent it can’t even organise an ASIO photo op without
Again.
Bernard Keane
Bernard Keane – Verified account @BernardKeane
Hmmm. What to make of a government so incompetent it can’t even organise an ASIO photo op without screwing it up
No flags for Abbott. Awwwwwwwwww 😀
Windhover
I don’t think a court would agree with what is said in the EM.
Maybe all of the flags are in the cleaners, not expecting 2 10 flaggers in 2 days.
Shorten’s speech from last night did not look like someone about to be tapped on the shoulder.
I understand and don’t argue with Guytaur’s points on Labor ‘cave-in’ re the detention centre legislation, but from the prism of leadership tensions (and for the press gallery is there anything else?) Shorten is safe.
As someone else has said, if Labor won the next election they’d have to deal with Abbott’s shocking legacy. Not something to look forward to unless you’re a masochist.
dtt
Sorry, dtt – I missed the ‘Nature’ reference. Where did you post it?
It would help if you didn’t assume I thought things I haven’t said.
Our definition of a species is that it can’t interbreed (successfully) with other species.
So there is always a ‘split’ – a point where, for whatever reason, two related groups can no longer interbreed.
At any point up until then, if the two groups are interbreeding, they are by definition part of the same species.
If human beings are interbreeding successfully with Neanderthals, then they are the same species, with the same point of origin. To talk, as meher does, of ‘non African hominids’ is to obscure this point – at some stage, non African hominids and African hominids share a common ancestor, and thus a shared point of origin.
I really can’t see where you think there is a difference between us, however.
We both seem to agree there were a wave of migrations, that groups of human beings who arrived earlier in certain locations interbred with human beings who arrived later and that all human beings share a common ancestor.
Perhaps you are arguing that common ancestor came from somewhere other than Africa, but I can’t see any suggestion as to where.
More stupid comments from Gina R.
http://www.theage.com.au/business/the-economy/we-should-be-more-like-india-gina-rinehart-says-20150625-ghx8so.html
“We need to be more like India”
Just shut up you arrogant and odious woman.
PhoenixGreen
I would have thought that real action on climate change, education and health would trump all those issues, but apparently you don’t think they’re important.