There’s a three-week gap between Newspolls as the new management takes effect, with Galaxy to assume the reins with a survey this weekend. That means the fortnightly release schedules of Morgan and Newspoll are now out of line, and will hopefully remain so. This week’s Morgan result, from 3282 face-to-face and SMS responses over the past two weekends, records a slight shift to the Coalition, but does off a particularly weak result last time. On the primary vote, the Coalition is up 1.5% to 39%, Labor is down by the same amount to 36%, and the Greens are up half a point to 14%. Labor’s lead on the headline respondent-allocated measure of two-party preferred is down from 54.5-45.5 to 53.5-46.5, while on previous election preferences the shift is from 54.5-45.5 to 53-47.
Also out this evening is a last hurrah from Newspoll in the shape of its quarterly aggregates of federal voting intention broken by state. GhostWhoVotes relates that these show a 50-50 split in New South Wales, compared with a 54-46 lead to Labor last time and consistent with the story being told of late by BludgerTrack; a Labor lead of 57-43 in Victoria, down from 59-41; a Labor lead of 52-48 in Queensland, compared with 50-50 last time; a 50-50 result in Western Australia, compared with an improbable Labor lead of 54-46 last time; and a 52-48 Labor lead in South Australia, down from 53-47 last time. Hopefully there will be a link to full tables from The Australian reasonably soon, as well as gender breakdowns. (UPDATE: All of that here, with a tip of the hat to Leroy Lynch).
Stay tuned for Essential Research, which as always will be with us later today.
UPDATE (Essential Research): For the first time in two months, Essential Research has budged from its 52-48 perch, with Labor’s lead in the fortnightly rolling aggregate increasing to 53-47. However, the primary votes are all but unchanged with the Coalition on 41%, Labor on 39%, the Greens on 11% and Palmer United on 1%, the only movement being a one-point increase for the Greens.
There is also a question on trust in particular media outlets, which as ever finds the Fairfax papers on top, The Australian slightly below, and News Corp tabloids further down still (responses were limited to those living in the papers’ relevant states). There appears to be a general downward trend here over results going back to 2011, most explicitly in the case of the Courier-Mail, which has adopted a highly partisan tone since that time, although The Age is well down over that time for reasons that are less clear to me. Even more entertainingly, the poll inquires on recognition and trust in various journalists, and finds Laurie Oakes, Andrew Bolt and Alan Jones leading on name recognition, but with the former topping the table on trust while the latter two occupy the bottom slots. Jon Faine of ABC Radio in Victoria also performed rather weakly among those who recognised him, for some reason.
There is also a question on funding of schools, for which the clear leader out of four options is having the federal government be “the main funder of all schools”. A question on whether Australian troops should fight Islamic State in Iraq records an even balance of support, with 41% in favour and 43% opposed, which is perhaps a little more hawkish than I would have guessed, and probably tells you something about reaction to the words “Islamic State”.
[ Mirabella’s spiteful, vituperative nature is matched only by Abbott’s. Except he does a better job of masking his. ]
both trained by Miranda Devine maybe?? 🙂
[I think Wilson in particular was angry that people were not letting him set the agenda and frame the discussion. He really played the precious petal last night which surprised me as he is usually a supercilious nasty git but more polished about it. Kelly is just sad.]
Yes. Kelly is a moral and intellectual shadow of what he once was.
Wilson shows why he is not a human rights commissioner’s bootlace in terms of his legal ability and intellectual coherence. Leyonhjelm would make a much more consistent and logical freedom commissioner (despite his appalling views on some things).
TPOF
Yep. 4 corners didnt really delve that deep at all
[Anyhoo, the Millenium Forum was mentioned. This is the same one that Hockey has a judgment pending today]
Joe Hockey’s gig was the North Sydney Forum,not the Milennium Forum.
The Milennium Forum was the Federal outfit that went from dormancy to high activity when the locals in NSW funneled money to them, and then got it back laundered.
Joe claimed that he’d hardly heard of the North Sydney Forum, despite his ugly mug being on just about every page of their web site, glad handing here, attending dinners there and generally being what the Forum was all about.
He tried to make out he thought they were the North Sydney Chamber Of Commerce, but “a member of the public” Googled “North Sydney Chamber Of Commerce” and informed Fairfax’s legal team that the Cha,ber of Commerce and the Forum were two different entities, and that Joe should have known this because he… cut the tape at the inaugural meeting of the North Sydney Chamber of Commerce about 7 or 8 years ago. This was fairly embarrassing for Joe.
As was his shoulder shrug about the $22,000 dinners he was supposed to have attended with Platinum members (or whetever they were called) of the Forum. Joe claimed to have forgotten all about them, as they were so minor and trivial. I can remember thinking that the poor mugs who had paid $22,000 to have dinner with Joe, thinking they might get the inside skinny on what was happening with the economy, or perhaps even put a couple of their own ideas to Joe as Treasurer, might have been upset at his indifference to their donations.
The crux of the case was whether the headline Treasurer for sale meant that Joe had put himself up for sale (with the implication that this was improper) or whether someone else – most likely the anonymous Liberal party apparatchik who set up the Forum – had done so without Joe’s complicity or knowledge and that Joe, now in charge of the Treasury of the Commonwealth, had been so uninterested in the details that he ddn’t even remember going to any of the functions, and thought the Forum was another organization altogether.
poroti
All bets are off 😀
The article also says wtte Abbott can only approach policy like an attack dog.
A pic that made me smile this morn was Abbott standing in front of a bed of orchids in Singapore (as you do). He was obviously expected to admire them for the sake of the officials behind him, but he’s reaching out a tentative hand with a frown on his face, as if he wasn’t sure what to do. I bet the flower he touched was sending out a signal to its companions “look out! dangerous man approaching!”
Poroti @48:
[What odds that he only had that opinion because the Labor Party were then in power ?]
I don’t think you can offer good enough odds for me to take that bet.
BB
Oops i thought they were the same thing….my bad
TPOF at 9:
[If you like, the issue is not so much about buying influence as buying the opportunity to influence. Which is very much the same issue as the Hockey case in which judgement is due today.]
The Hockey situation is about buying the opportunity to influence. Once a person has by the payment of money the opportunity to influence, the next step is exercising that opportunity.
4 Corners sets out that next step. There can be no doubt that Vanstone was corrupted by the influence purchased. Maddaferi’s paid for access meant of necessity that the niceties of his case were given greater consideration than the next case. It is that unequal treatment (not the outcome) that constitutes the corruption.
That she was corrupted does NOT mean Vanstone acted dishonestly. No doubt she would argue (and she is entitled to) that the Maddaferi plea to remain united with his Australian wife and children strummed her Ministerial heartstrings and compelled her to exercise her discretion more leniently than Ruddock had. In many circumstances I would applaud this more generous approach.
In order to find that Vanstone acted corruptly (dishonestly) it would be necessary for there to be answers to the following questions:-
1. What did Vanstone know of Maddaferi’s Liberal Party connections/donations prior to making her decision?
2. What. if any, independent advice did Vanstone receive as to the appropriateness of reversing the deportation order? I.E. What steps did she take if she had prior knowledge to insulate herself against the claim she acted corruptly?
3. Were there like cases before or after the Maddaferi decision where Vanstone acted similarly or differently and, in those cases what if any Liberal Party connections/donations existed.
Vanstone is entitled to hold her silence on the matter and, in the absence of answers to the above questions, it may be accepted she did not act corruptly. And it may be accepted appearing on 4 corners and being subject to the editor’s whim may not be the best forum to answer the questions raised.
On the other hand, when a former Minister has an opportunity to respond to proper questions concerning their conduct in office and does not avail themselves of that opportunity the former Minister should be held in complete contempt.
I can just see Tony Abbott telling Joe, “You should sue Fairfax mate. Go on. I dare you!”
And Joe nodding, “Do ya reckon!”
“It’s a dead cert Joe. Do it!”
End of Financial Year today – normally we would see *Games* on ASX as brokers, funds etc engage in ‘window dressing’ to spruce their yearly results, where possible.
This year not much point ASX is almost flat on both a Financial year basis and on calender year to date – although share based super funds are doing better because they have received good dividends from the Banks etc.
Interestly, given whats going on overseas (Europe anyway), Australian Supers best performer is its “International Shares Fund” – up 25.8% (to close of business 26 June) although that will come back a bit – its still not too shabby.
[buying the opportunity to influence]
This will be the focus of the High Court’s judgment on the NSW laws banning developers’ donations to political parties.
[Vanstone is entitled to hold her silence on the matter…]
It will be interesting to see whether “holding her silence on the matter” extends to her regular column for Fairfax.
Apparently the big question at Fairfax is, “Where’s Mandy?”. They don’t seem to be able to find their own columnist. She’s gone to ground.
Her appointment as Ambassador to Italy is so a nice segue from her dealings with Italian criminals in Australia.
[ A pic that made me smile this morn was Abbott standing in front of a bed of orchids in Singapore ]
I wonder when abbott decided to cosy up to Singapore ?
After the Indonesian ‘relationship’ went sour ?
abbott given the Indonesians ‘the finger’?
There are some similarities between the (false) accusations against Wayne Swan – that he was running the country’s Treasury as a subsidiary of “Ipswich Inc”, a collection of real estate agents, second hand car dealers and other small business types from Queensland – and the (as yet undetermined) accusation that Joe Hockey was taking money, or his name was being used as the enticement to give money, from a bunch of businesses in North Sydney (Sydney’s second CBD, so no doubt “North Sydney” is cashed up, with some very large companies having their headquarters there, and donating).
As GFC#2 approaches, Joe is the man who the nation will be relying on to get us out of the economic shit, if it starts to fly.
I am confident that Joe will do a brilliant job, completely free of influence from the North Sydney Forum donors, who, it seems, he completely forgot about soon after having dinners with them that they had paid $22,000 to attend.
This from Dec 2013, on Tim’s appointment.
[Tim Wilson, for the past seven years a policy director of the Institute of Public Affairs, a free-market think tank that early this year called for the abolition of the Human Rights Commission, will be informally known as the ”Freedom Commissioner”.
Mr Wilson, who resigned from both the IPA and the Liberal Party soon after the announcement, told Fairfax Media he was determined to ”refocus” the commission on defending free speech rather than concentrating on anti-discrimination work.
Attorney-General George Brandis made it clear Mr Wilson’s $325,000-a-year appointment was made on both political and ideological grounds.
”The appointment of Mr Wilson to this important position will help restore balance to the Australian Human Rights Commission which, during the period of the Labor government, has become increasingly narrow and selective in its view of human rights,” he said.]
His appearance on QandA was obviously not in his official capacity. Dock his pay!
http://www.smh.com.au/federal-politics/political-news/tim-wilson-appointment-to-human-rights-commission-stirs-controversy-20131217-2zjbk.html
I found it interesting watching the soundbites of the Singaporean PM and Abbott on TV. The Singapore PM had some serious gravamen that was so obviously lacking in Abbott.
Sophie’s changed? That’s abit like saying Coalition Goverment is now a ‘good goverment’.
shellbell – Care to speculate on hockey v fairfax decision ?
[ The Singapore PM had some serious gravamen ]
Probably still wondering WTF am I here with this goose ?
Abbott also seem to have fake smile on TV with Singapore PM.
I was wondering what number the Essential report will assign to Greens support later today.
Prompted by last night’s report that Morgan gave the Greens their highest number for a couple of months I checked out the Greens score in each of the main pollsters for their last few polls in each case very roughly coinciding over the last month or two.
With the most recent result first in each case here they are.
Newspoll
14,13,12,12
Ipsos
14,13
Morgan
14,13+,12+,11+
ReachTEL
13.1,12.1
Essential
10,9,10,10
Essential sure does rate the Greens lower than the other mobs doesn’t it?
Surely Essential are due for an 11 to the Greens?
David Thodey, named by Business Insider as successor to ABC’s Mark Scott?
Former CEO of Telstra. Said
[“Copper has been going for 100 years, I think it will be going for another 100,” he said.
“There is always opportunity so you have to keep things maintained. But it’s perfectly ok, there is some copper a lot older than others but copper does not decompose.”]
I’m not sure he’s the right person to lead the ABC into the future 🙁
[Andrew Catsaras
Andrew Catsaras – @AndrewCatsaras
Can anyone explain logic behind boycotting #qanda? 1st they complain it gave platform to a nutter & then they deny themselves same platform.
4:30 PM – 29 Jun 2015
2 FAVORITES]
Dave
Only that the lawyers will get paid.
I know diddly about defo law.
52
[TPOF
Wilson shows why he is not a human rights commissioner’s bootlace…]
That we have a Freedom Commissioner at all speaks of the Orwellian trap into which we’ve fallen. Wilson is supremely well qualified for the role. He’s abjectly ineffectual, partisan, dishonest, empty and attention-seeking hypocrite.
But this is not new. We’ve seen it so often. We’re stuck in the regress of LNP pretense.
@lizzie/72
The copper going for 100 years stint goes along the same msg from Turnbull/Coalition.
Even though the past inquiry into Telstra’s network said that copper is ‘5 minutes to midnight’.
[Can anyone explain logic behind boycotting #qanda? 1st they complain it gave platform to a nutter & then they deny themselves same platform.]
Selflessly doing their bit to keep nutters off the show.
shellbell
[ Only that the lawyers will get paid. ]
Well…I never 🙂
But Ta.
The copper isn’t the problem (apart from limited bandwidth of course). The insulation is.
[1st they complain it gave platform to a nutter]
And they double down this week by inviting Tim Wilson onto the panel itself!
Re Poroti @48: it’s a bit like the Liberals’ devotion to the independence of the Senate and the principle of bicameralism – it is very strong when Labor is in power. When the Coalitiuon is in power, the Senate is supposed to shut up and pass their legislation without hinderance.
ratsak
Then we should send out the technicians to re-insulate all the wires? There’s a job-producing plan. 😀
Steve777 @ 81
And very much like the business community demanding that politicians support government policies, rather than indulge in political games, for the sake of business certainty – but only when Labor are in Opposition and the Liberals are in power.
[The copper isn’t the problem (apart from limited bandwidth of course). The insulation is. ]
Insulation, plus the seals on the connections. Reliably keeping moisture out of cables and connections for decades is tricky.
[Reliably keeping moisture out of cables and connections for decades is tricky.]
Especially underground.
Re Paul Kelly. I don’t buy the argument that he’s gotten worse. To me, it seems like he has always used a large number words, in a portentous tone, to state the bleeding obvious. The idea for which he is most celebrated – the (to my mind) rather trite – but, I grudgingly admit, rather evocative – concept of “the Australian settlement” was actually borrowed from Gerard Henderson (with acknowledgement) and merely popularised by Kelly.
His long, rather dull books, claim to be about broad social and economic trends but – unlike Megalogenis’s somewhat similar, but better efforts – they largely focus on the microcosmic activity within the Capital Hill bubble. For Kelly, like too many others, interpersonal interactions within Canberra are the world. His book on 1975 illustrates this beautifully: it’s mainly about how Whitlam and Kerr didn’t get on. Not much on policy or factional tensions within Labor and the trade union movement and absolutely no mention whatsoever of American foreign policy post Vietnam, Christopher Boyce, the CIA, etc.
So Kelly has always been a bit overrated IMO. I prefer the likes of Laurie Oakes and Michelle Grattan.
Silly Kelly on Qanda and Nick Cater on RN this morning both twist Mallah matter and withdrawers from panel to an issue of “gotchas”.
Both say that that is the issue.
Qanda invited Mallah to set Ciobo up with a gotcha says these 2 wise men of the right.
In the voice of Nigel of The Young Ones comedy show ….. “deeeeeeeep!”
Jonathan Holmes
[I watched Barrie Cassidy interviewing Malcolm Turnbull on Insiders last Sunday morning with increasing astonishment. The Communications Minister has given every indication in the past year and a half that – unlike some in his party – he not only understands the concept of an independent public broadcaster, but actively supports it. Now, suddenly, it emerges that he doesn’t understand it at all. Not a clue.
Turnbull’s department is going to conduct an inquiry into the Zaky Mallah/Q&A affair – the first time such a departmental inquiry has ever been conducted into an editorial issue at the ABC.
What about? Well, not about whether the inclusion of Mallah in the Q&A audience was right or wrong. Turnbull has already made his mind up about that. It was “a shocking error of judgment”; “a big mistake”; a “shocking mistake”; a “betrayal … of the high standards that Parliament has set for the ABC”.
…
This government has about as much understanding of the concept of editorial independence as it does of judicial independence. If the courts won’t do what it wants, it legislates them out of the game.
Now we’ll see what it does with the ABC.]
http://www.theage.com.au/comment/malcolm-turnbull-orders-inquiry-into-qa-but-what-is-there-to-learn-20150629-gi0ygw.html
#87
Or was it Neil of The Young Ones?
I mean the long dark hair one who was always the victim.
I had high hopes for Tim Wilson when he was appointed, with all his credentials and stuff.
But now I am starting to lose confidence in him. I am thinking of complaining to the highest statutory officer in the Commonwealth, Speaker Bronnie, so see if she can wag her finger at him and tell him to seek political office if he wants to be partisan on qanda.
Irony aside, I did find it funny that the Freedom Commissioner, the supposed new broom at the Human Rights Commission who was going to reassert the right to Free Speech in Australia, came out against Free Speech on qanda, after beiong given the opportunity to exercise it… on qanda.
The old song, Windmills Of Your Mind, would normally be coursing around inside my head by now, at the sheer circle-jerk flakiness Wilson’s position – exercising Free Speech to condemn Free Speech, and on the same TV show as the other bloke (the one who Wilson doesn’t want to exercise his right to Free Speech) – but of course windmills are now a political matter, as Tony Abbott has mentioned them adversely, so we’re not allowed to exercise Free Speech about those, either.
I wouldn’t want to be accused of partisanship. So I’ll settle for confusion.
It was Neil (“Even the kettle hates me.”) of The Young Ones.
Meher
You could see Kelly wincing on Qanda whenever anyone else (except Wilson) spoke. He disagreed with most of what was said.
He is a politician of the Right, through and through, a player in the game, not an observer, and a dopey one at that. He sees the world through deeply conservo eyes.
Journalism is merely his shallow disguise.
Last night nothing came out of his mouth which was different to what is on any Credlin produced speak-sheet.
Flaneur
Taa.
The moment I wrote “Nigel” I sensed it was wrong.
Nigel was the People’s Poet.
https://newmatilda.com/2015/06/29/detention-nauru-children-now-identify-more-boat-number-names-says-former-worker
[A number of children in the Nauru detention centre have started to identify more readily with their boat identification number than their name, signing off school tasks and artworks with the six-digit code as guards decline to refer to them and other asylum seekers by name.]
Innocent children continue to suffer in hell holes, out of sight, out of mind, with the shroud of secrecy maintained by the bipartisan support of the two major parties who refused to support Greens amendments.
The two major parties refuse to allow humanity to get in the way of the politics of winning power for power’s sake.
How low can they sink.
First Dog on the Moon:
http://www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/2015/jun/27/go-home-labor-youre-drunk-and-basically-evil
Just Me
Re copper
I live in an estate which was the side of a mountain, but “developed” such that every house is on a “flat” block …….. never mind the 2 or 3 big retaining walls needed on each block to create the “flat” landscape.
So the natural water courses and flows are really stuffed up. The consequence …….. the telephony pits outside each home are pretty well full of H2O all the time ……. the equipment in the pit is underwater all the time.
The copper cables haven’t lasted even 1 decade without constant visits from the Testra van.
The ALP is reaching out.
[
Listening Tour Update
Dear XXXX
We are about to embark on the final two stops of the Labor Listening Tour, and we wanted to extend an invite to you to attend one of these final sessions.
On Monday the 29th of June, the Listening Tour will stop in Mount Gambier, from 6:30pm at the Mount Gambier Hotel, 2 Commercial St W. Please note the change of date, this event is now on the Monday
The final stop will be on Wednesday July 1st in Aldgate, at the Aldgate Memorial Hall, Kingsland Rd, starting at 7pm.
If you haven’t had a chance to attend one of the Listening Tour stops, and can’t make it to either of these, please feel free to put in a written submission via email to info@sa.alp.org.au and tell us what you’d like to see from your Labor Party. Any ideas or suggestions about how we can make the ALP more accessible and easier to get involved will be welcomed.
Stay tuned for our final report and recommendations, and please don’t hesitate to contact us if you’d like more information.
Regards
Reggie Martin
State Secretary
]
Using numbers to relate personally to people is a well worn dehumanising technique.
Its described by Solzenhitsyb in his expose of the Gulags in “One Day in the Life of Ivan Denisovich” where the prisoners are required to keep their numbers clearly painted on their caps [I think, maybe their jackets]so there is no excuse for the guards to read their numbers as their identity.
I thought the quality of the last two 4 corners reports was slightly better than last night’s but I’m expecting next week’s wrap up on be on par.
I will believe Sophie has changed her spots when she starts wearing pale pink lipstick.