The latest reading of the BludgerTrack poll aggregate records a modest move to the Coalition on the back of slightly stronger results this week from ReachTEL and Roy Morgan, reversing a movement in Labor’s favour last week. It’s also worth noting that the Greens primary vote is up further on what was already a historic high. The quarterly aggregate from Newspoll is among the newly added state-level data, together with unpublished breakdowns from ReachTEL and Essential Research and published ones from Roy Morgan, the combined effect of which is to add one seat to the Coalition tally in each of Victoria, Queensland and Tasmania. The only new leadership result this week was the preferred prime minister reading from ReachTEL, which BludgerTrack doesn’t use because its exclusion of an uncommitted result means it isn’t comparable with other pollsters.
Sound familiar in any way?
http://www.newsweek.com/russia-mdk-vk-jeanna-friske-348931
ratsak @ 1547
I suspect that a number of them started out that way, playing out a role and then started to actually believe the crap they wrote. The best example is this Government we are currently saddled itself with. It actually believed that the very fact of it winning the 2013 election would see the clouds part and the economic sun pour through (with appropriate amounts of precipitation for the National Party).
Well said, peebee@1650!
Ewen Jones MP
Ewen Jones MP – Verified account @EwenJonesMP
@vanOnselenP On this, I agree. How can we, the party of the individual, refuse a conscience vote?
go italics go
This makes 1650 so maybe the next page will be .. ‘ahem’ .. straight.
TPOF
Nup, can’t agree with your very generous interpretation of Thomas’ intention.
PeeBee showing the power of silence.
Put down those italics, or the blog gets it.
Fingers crossed, everyone!
Varoufakis has said he will resign if the ‘yes’ vote gets up.
Whether this is perceived as a promise or a threat depends on…
I didn’t read the Thomas tank engine blog as satire. But reading it again, now I’m not so sure.
Step away from the BB , that’s it nice and easy now.
lizzie @ 1649
A surprising number do excellent tongue in cheek humour, if not outright satire, exceptionally well – as long as they belong to the behavioural economics school. Indeed, read anything by the Freakonomics guys and you will readily see tongues planted firmly in cheeks.
Or this guy:
http://www.theguardian.com/books/2015/jul/04/misbehaving-making-behavioural-economics-richard-h-thaler-review-nudge
I can send to a lot more, like Dan Ariely. And if you have not read it, the very best book is Daniel Kahneman’s book ’Thinking Fast and Slow’, which I would recommend to anyone with half a brain. Which omits the Troll at least. Ariel and Kahneman are actually psychologists, but Kahneman, in particular, has had the biggest impact on economics in the last 30 years and won a Nobel Prize in Economics for his efforts.
Oh how cute, the couple of ‘moderate’* ‘liberals’* left in the modern Liberal party sticking their heads above the parapet for the hard right loons to belt before they crawl back to obsequious compliance with their conservative overloads’ wishes.
* use of terms not consistent with common English language usage
Hey Boerwar
How have you been?
Hello BW. Nice of you to pop by.
Boerwar
Now that you are here . Part of your pine bark beetle franchise in ‘Canadia’ has had a bit of a set back. Lots of fires across a number of areas.
The article Elder linked to shows the Press Gallery mindset at its worst. The writer actually brags about “The Story” of the day being legitimate.
Watching ABC Breakfast TV a couple of weeks ago it was fascinating (in that sickening sort of way) to see Trioli, Jonathan Green and the Other Guy lament that “Bill Shorten’s Questions That Must Be Answered” were not “The Story” because “Joe Hockey’s Gaffe About Housing Affordability” had supplanted it temporarily.
A thought just occurred to me: Fairfax’s editorial call for Shorten to “Step down” (how long ago and infantile a demand that seems now!) came on Day #2 of their “Questions That Need To Be Answered” bootstrap. Usually resignation calls come far leter in the piece, when the journos of the originating newspaper, plus a few others, have done the talk shows interviewing each other, written up their stories, introduced some new angles and reported many more anonymous leaks from “Senior Labor Figures”.
Was the early appearance of the editorial simply because Joe Hockey had taken up most of Week #1 of The Killing Season, with his own patented brand of stupidity? If all had gone according to plan, the earlier “Questions/Answered” articles would have appeared a good week before the editorial resignation call making the editorial look kinda-sorta serious, rather than completely contrived.
(Note my brave use of italics above)
TPOF
Well, yes, I admit I was thinking of ‘straight’ economists, and not the behavioural kind. I take your point and thank you for the link.
ratsak
I believe the moderate Liberals after their loss in the Wets vs Dries culture wars and its aftermath now number somewhat less than the Orange-bellied Parrot.
shea, fess and others
Three points. First, I should have said ‘tongue in cheek’ rather than ‘satire’ – I did at the end – as tongue in cheek better conveys the subtlety and the characteristic of damning with faint praise.
Secondly, when did you last see a real journalist write something as condemnatory as the following?
[But of course media practice changes politics. Without the media acting as it does, we’d not have half the policies we do. Boat arrival reporting drives asylum-seeker policy, for example. The media’s lens made John Howard trim those eyebrows and Joe Hockey get lap-band surgery. It drives soundbites and policy on the run.]
No – your typical press gallery journo reports on which politician is getting screwed by the other side because it can show much tougher it is on ‘economic migrants’ out among the Western Sydney bogan voters while simultaneously wringing their hands with moral outrage over how cruel the government is.
Finally, have a look at some of the other articles this blogger has written to get some of the flavour of where he is coming from.
On “Questions That Must Be Answered”, expect no quarter to be given to Bill Shorten after his testimony on Wednesday.
We now know that the TURC habitually incudes no surprises in its questions, preferring instead to leak them in advance to the bootstrappers, so that the preceding month before they are asked can be taken up with “Questions That Must Be answered” speculation.
The verdict is already in, of course. After Bill has answered his “Questions That Must Be Answered” at the RC, there will still be “Questions That Must Be Answered” leading up to that old stand-by, “Bill Shorten’s Diminishing Credibility As He Awaits Heydon’s Interim Report, To Be Delivered Next Year” (around election time, no doubt).
Having predicted that Shorten will be in trouble, the Gallery will make sure that he is, whether he should be or not, simply because they said he would be.
It’s the journalistic equivalent of printing money to solve a debt crisis. Inflation – by way of ever-expanding speculation and panel show tittering – eventually renders the original story pointless.
Have been doing some family stuff o/s.
Natch I also lurked PB. The disjunct between what was happening around me and what was happening in Oz was enjoyable bizarre.
To follow up on PeeBee’s sterling efforts may I suggest that true Happiness is a functioning scroll wheel?
BB @ 1667
[The article Elder linked to shows the Press Gallery mindset at its worst. The writer actually brags about “The Story” of the day being legitimate.]
Exactly. We have become so inured to this kind of reporting that we actually take the opening paragraph seriously. Remember, this guy is not Hartcher or Paul Kelly or Mark Kenny, who are already working their fingers to the bone keying in analyses and reporting so quickly and under such tight deadlines that they don’t even have time to think about what they are writing – indeed – welcoming having half or more of the story already written by Mark Simpkin or some other spinmeister to save them the effort of finding an angle.
Think ‘The Office’ or a number of other Ricky Gervais creations.
Bushfire Bill
[After Bill has answered his “Questions That Must Be Answered” at the RC, there will still be “Questions That Must Be Answered]
If there was ever any doubt about that and the media lizards’ MO then JG’s marathon presser would dispel it. The press ran out of questions but within hours the lizards started with the JG still had “Questions That Must Be Answered” guff.
poroti
The International Bark Beetle Collective has discovered that it is possible to have too much of a good thing. Last year it was massive wildfires across bark beetle strongholds in Eurasia. This year Canadia has a go.
The regen is no good for the bark beetles because they can usually only overwhelm older trees with their numbers. Still, taking the long view, bark beetle numbers are going up, and up and up.
BW, my suggestion on the China sending back Australian coal to Newcastle story, is that this is how the Chinese remind tinpot banana republicans like Abbott that telling China where to get off is like pissing upwind during a typhoon.
Abbott has been asking for a Chinese slap down and it has duly arrived.
poroti at 1669
Looking at the numbers here:
http://www.theguardian.com/world/datablog/ng-interactive/2015/jun/10/can-same-sex-marriage-pass-the-house-of-representatives-voting-interactive
and elsewhere, what is really striking is how many Liberal (sic) Party members are committed already to the no vote. And what strikes me about that is what it indicates about how representative of the voters in Liberal electorates they are. We know that same sex marriage is not a simple right v left thing because John Key and David Cameron have both made the case that it reinforces conservative social values by strengthening the institution of marriage. So what we are seeing is a membership of the Coalition in Parliament that is simply not representative any longer of the broad views of those who voted for them, as opposed to those who pre-selected them.
This has long been a problem in the ALP and it has taken steps to address it – many would argue that those steps are far to weak. But as the ALP works to ensure that its pre-selected representatives are better able to reflect the feelings and needs of the voters, the Liberals are going in exactly the opposite way. Strange days indeed. And one, for a Labor supporter like myself, makes me smile inside.
Indeed, of the three resident rusted-ons who pop up regularly, it seems only the true blue troll would be comfortable with the direction of their party. For Hapless and ESJ I can’t imagine much comfort, no matter how much they try and make the issue of the current quality of government about the Leader of the Opposition.
What screwed “Get Shorten” was the polls turning.
Remember it might have been tiny but there was momentum to the Liberals the press were expecting the Liberals to the slightly ahead; didn’t happen so they just looked stupid; trying got destroy Shorten with Labor in front.
The Gardian took to placing the worst poll ( News Poll May; I think it was) next to Lenore Taylor puerile article. The rest tried to pretend the polls didn’t happen.
“Get Shorten” week certainly brought the concern trolls out; Poll Bludger over that week makes very enlightening reading.
Boerwar
The Californ-I-A branch the IBBC must be due for a major set back. Keep seeing reports that their drought , is like, the worst eva in the last several hundred years. Should help a few climate change skeptics there reconsider their position as they see a preview of their future.
http://www.smh.com.au/federal-politics/political-news/asia-would-see-us-as-decadent-if-we-embraced-gay-marriage-barnaby-joyce-20150705-gi5btt
I don’t know if Asia would care very much whether we were decadent, but the comment certainly highlights the near certainty that this country is run by idiots.
And that Asia (Three or four million people thinking in unison?) would certainly see that and take advantage of it.
TPOF:
You’re right, tongue in cheek is more apt. And re-reading the post, even the first paragraph could be read as being tongue in cheek.
TPOF
[We know that same sex marriage is not a simple right v left thing because John Key and David Cameron ]
Nor is it just a religious vs secular thing. Muy Catholic countries in Sth America and the likes of Spain have it.
Wiki’s list of countries that have it has some interesting snippets about bit where it has occurred in the past. This was particularly !!! as it was in what must have been a catholic church ( Take that Tony 😆 )
[A same-sex marriage between the two men Pedro Díaz and Muño Vandilaz in the Galician municipality of Rairiz de Veiga in Spain occurred on 16 April 1061. They were married by a priest at a small chapel. The historic documents about the church wedding were found at Monastery of San Salvador de Celanova.]
I would like to see an assessment of what value results from all the money being spent on the whole Sovereign Borders and Offshore Processing nonsense. Can’t someone come up with a different solution that costs less? :cries in frustration:
TPOF
[Secondly, when did you last see a real journalist write something as condemnatory as the following?…]
Katharine Murphy at the Guardian, twice to my recollection, Ross Gittens with his Climate Change belated mea culpa at the SMH, Tingle at the AFR and of course, as to be expected, Mr Denham has it as a theme, Crikey writers run hot and cold on it, many in the Press Gallery bemoaned the standard of reporting during the 2010 election soon after but then repeated the disease for the next few years up til today, even Rupert in the UK famously said “It was the Sun what done it’ whatever.
And Thomas gives trivial examples, personality politics stuff, he doesn’t get down to the nitty gritty as does Mr Denmore and Elder and – I can’t think of anyone else.
Its fluff regurgitating memes.
the media will go all out to get shorten. fairfax does not like him, murdoch will go particularly hard and ABC will follow their lead (the labor left/green faction within the abc doesn’t like him). to my mind, the big question he needs to answer is whether the service fees to employers (which I think are fairly legitimate – unions brokered deals beneficial to employers and employees and provided stability within the workplace) were used to effectively ‘branch stack’ to give AWU and shorten more clout – if the members signed on to the unions through such deals were aware they were members and given the right to vote in union elections then there is no issue. if they were not, then his position is not defensible. he’s going to have perform above par this week or he’ll need to go as leader.
lizzie
Short term
On shore detention. You have control over the process. You can send back just as many that are not refugees as you can from PNG and Nauru.
Long term
Regional solution first step targeting people smugglers. As trafficking is know to open people to exploitation, abuse and death the smugglers should be treated in the region as are drug smugglers. In a lot of cases they are the same people.
The whole people are drowning at sea line is a red herring caused by one boat sinking off the Australian Coast. Our response compared to the many by Europe shows how much of a red herring that line is.
Until we get these emotional primitive brain responses out of the debate the off shore detention (remember I think detention is wrong if its over the medical reasons I think of 90 days) regime will always win the day politically.
This is the challenge for Labor. It has to show how off shore is punitive causes abuse as accountability is much harder to stop such abuse.
Labor also has to show how off shore has failed to stop the drownings by highlighting the drownings are happening elsewhere.
Ditto for the oft repeated claims of Labor is soft on border policy.
Until Labor can show being competent on border policy means you are harder than a kid shouting the tide is coming building a sand fort is.
How Labor does this is of course the vexed question. However it is clear going all the way with the LNP is not a good way for Labor to go. Not for Labor Not for democracy.
I like my humour dry, but I’m not buying it.
It’s a straight enough piece. The premise is that of course media coverage affects politics and policy but you won’t find anyone in the media owning up to it. And that this is completely understandable considering the players as ‘rational actors’.
TTTE isn’t saying the media is faultless, but that their behaviour within the incentives inherent to the system is understandable.
Elder calls bullshit on all this and asks the media players to accept a little personal responsibility and identify the other alternative incentives that are available outside of the game as it is narrowly defined and played. He has no time for apologia of media groupthink.
I have some sympathy for both points of view. Elder is absolutely right that the ‘oh you don’t know how hard it is’ crap is pissant stuff and the coddled poseurs in the media should get shot of perspective. But equally, whilst I would prefer a media that hardened the fuck up and actually did something useful as per Elder, in the real world I fully expect them to behave as TTTE describes even if he is too kind to them.
Either way it is up to media consumers to identify the weaknesses of the media themselves and both pieces are helpful in that in their own way.
[f there was ever any doubt about that and the media lizards’ MO then JG’s marathon presser would dispel it. The press ran out of questions but within hours the lizards started with the JG still had “Questions That Must Be Answered” guff.]
I can still remember Syd Maher, Phil Coorey and Tony Jones on Lateline that night (Coorey and Maher having been at the presser earlier that day) all nodding in agreement that Gillard still had many questions to answer.
She answered them all again to the Gallery. And then again – over a fortnight – to Julie Bishop in QT. And then again to the TURC.
Finally the report came out with weasel words that cleared her, but left just enough wriggle room…
And so they STILL said she had questions to answer, after that!
[Can’t someone come up with a different solution that costs less?]
The real problem is the lack of transparency and accountability.
[I would like to see an assessment of what value results from all the money being spent on the whole Sovereign Borders and Offshore Processing nonsense.]
$1 billion/1 point 2PP or there abouts.
[Can’t someone come up with a different solution that costs less?]
Easy peasy. DO NOT invade Afghanistan , DO NOT invade Iraq , DO NOT bomb Libya into failed state condition , DO NOT back nut jobs in Syria just to try and get rid if Assad. That would be a good start.
Here’s Elder skewering Murphy for the banality [in context] of this sort of Murphyism.
I quote a tiny bit – the end of a Murphy paragraph and the start of an Elder response.
[Murphy:
Now, before you roll your eyes, let me assure you I’m rolling mine too. As spin and pantomime and rank political cynicism goes, this one is off the charts.
Elder:
No it isn’t. It’s entirely consistent with what Abbott was like before the election.
Murphy didn’t roll her eyes when Abbott said that the Gillard government was “a bad government”. She didn’t roll her eyes when Abbott promised to take responsibility.]
Thomas’ line, and that of several others, is that its ‘the media’ wot dunnit, when they individually and collectively are part of that media but do not take that responsibility [Gittens sorta did but only when it was too late] upon themselves.
Thomas was in fact a journo with the AFR
https://theconversation.com/profiles/jason-murphy-108825
On the media
@s3_go: @nine11inreverse http://t.co/91Lb6JYbPU
ratsak
cynical, but realistic.
fess
If anyone complains about these they are being labelled soft and green. And of course Triggs is blackballed.
guytaur
Perhaps Labor could return to a reassessment of Georgiou’s panel recommendations, but approach from a different direction, that is, turn the problem upside down and look again. Labor should reframe it.
This ‘problem’ MUST be solved before climate refugees hit the oceans.
shea @ 1685
I think it may be that we see things differently – like that old woman – young woman drawing or the drawing that shows a couple kissing or a pair of vases depending on the frame of reference your mind throws up first.
lizzie:
I still can’t get out of my mind that cartoon of Triggs splayed out in an alley, Dutton, sleeves rolled up and walking back to the car with Abbott, Brandis and Morrison waiting for him.
Such an accurate visual portrayal of this govt.
Part of the reason I am so angry is that we (the govt) are spending billions to drive people insane and ruin their lives, while back in Oz funds are being withdrawn from women’s refuges and many, many, other socially progressive programs that assist our own people.
It’s crazy.
lizzie
I have no doubt a Royal Commission needs to be set up by Labor when it regains office.
So much cover up so many reports of wrong doing of some kind. Even up to allegations of bribing people smugglers.
Doing that could break the nexus of Labor weak on security of borders mantra.
I hope so. Of course it has to be done on the issues themselves of course not just because of the politics
http://www.smh.com.au/nsw/domestic-violence-centres-full-workers-scared-to-criticise-government-20150704-gi4j58
This is a very serious issue in our State and needs to be attended to.
I found out just how many were living on the streets and in shop doorways when I was working in Glebe. Very sad!