The latest fortnightly face-to-face plus SMS poll from Roy Morgan records movement to the Coalition, who are up 2.5% on the primary vote to 41.5%, with Labor down 1.5% to 34.5% and the Greens down 0.5% to 13.5%. This leaves Labor’s two-party lead at 51-49 on both previous election and respondent-allocated measures, respectively compared with 53-47 and 53.5-46.5 last time. Note that only the second of the two weekend polling periods took place after Bill Shorten’s appearances at the trade union royal commission.
Meanwhile, polls conducted for the Launceston Examiner by ReachTEL showed the Liberals holding on to leads in the northern Tasmanian marginals of Bass and Lyons, both of which were won from Labor in 2013. As Kevin Bonham interprets the apparently confusing presentation of the results from the print edition, the numbers translate into a 51-49 lead for Liberal member Andrew Nikolic in Bass, and a 53.2-47.8 lead for Eric Hutchison in Lyons, respectively indicate a 3% swing to Labor and a 2% swing to the Liberals. The polls were conducted on Thursday evening from samples of slightly below 600 apiece.
UPDATE (Essential Research): The latest fortnightly rolling average result from Essential Research strengthens the impression of Bill Shorten taking a knock, though more from its monthly personal ratings than voting intention. The latter have Labor losing a point to the Greens, who are on 38% and 11% respectively, with the Coalition steady on 41% and two-party preferred unchanged at 52-48 in favour of Labor. Shorten is down five on approval to 27% and up seven on disapproval to 52%, compared with what were already his worst ever results. Tony Abbott is down two on approval to 37% and up three on disapproval to 53%, erasing a slight improvement in last month’s result, but he now has a clear 37-30 lead as preferred prime minister, out from 38-33 last time.
There has also been a reversal in opinion as to who is likely to win the next election since the question was last asked at the height of the Coalition’s troubles in February, at which time 49% favoured Labor and 23% the Coalition. Now the Coalition holds a lead of 37% to 32%. Other questions relate to constitutional recognition of Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islanders (61% to 16% in favour), climate change (56% say it’s happening as a result of human activity and 31% say it’s not, respectively up two and steady since March).
Also, the Seven Network last night had results from a ReachTEL poll, which I guess formed part of the questionnaire in their last federal poll, showing 33% want an election this year, 24% want it early next year, and 43% want in on schedule in the second half of next year. That would seem to suggest a slight majority in favour of an early election.
[1259
sceptic
IMF calling for Hair Cut…
The International Monetary Fund has warned that Greece will require far more generous debt relief than is currently on offer from its creditors, as MPs in Athens prepare for a crucial vote on Wednesday on a new bailout plan. An IMF report leaked to Reuters shows that Greece’s public debt is likely to peak at 200% of its national income within the next two years, with the risk that the actual outcome could be even worse]
This debt could be reduced by around 2/3 if Greece were to leave the Euro, reflate and return to growth.
Puff, the Magic Dragon.@1285
If I understand correctly, used fuel rods are too valuable to be regarded as waste. They are re-processed to recover the fuel in them so the waste would come from that process.
And it would not be uranium or plutonium as both are valuable as fuels.
To go down this path, Australia would enter into the processing of uranium to make fuel rods and the re-processing of spent rods.
This is a big step into the nuclear fuel cycle and requires a lot of investment.
[1300
Millennial
silmaj #1282
The original exploration permit was approved by labor.]
Who cares!
Joyce and Hunt hold the cards now and they have played them in favour of mining – in favour of the creation of another stranded asset, another millstone around our necks.
Just watching The Business: the Australian steel industry is about to start closing blast furnaces, which means the end of Australian steel making.
This is because the car industry has been allowed to die by the government, because it’s too “protected”.
So what about steel? If the government mandated 40% of all steel used on Australian government infrastructure projects had to be Australian steel, that would do the trick.
The government’s response: the steel industry would be too “protected” then, so the answer is “No”.
Ideology gone mad.
You wouldn’t mind so much if this crappy lot was doing SOMETHING to help burgeoning industries get a foothold.
But no, they’re letting them close down too, and in some cases actively nobbling them so they’ll be forced to close down: solar, wind, being two examples from just this week.
Pretty soon all we’ll have is holes in the ground that we extract dirt from and sell it to other countries to add value to it.
Coal IS king, after all.
I know, lets store the nuclear waste in whichever state has the highest number of Federal Liberal Senators.
Obviously a few levels of radio-activity cannot lower their IQ any more.
Let’s see.
WA = 6
NT = 1 CLP = 6*
SA = 5
VIc = 3
Tas = 4
NSW = 4
Qld = 4
ACT = 1 = 6*
*As the ACT and NT have two senate spots instead of 12, then their number needs to be increased by six to make this fair.
To break the impasse lets see how many Nats Senators there are.
Vic = 1
NSW = 2
Qld = 2
That doesn’t help.
Alright, amongst the states with 6 Lib or Lib & Nat Senators has the most useless Liberal senator, one who should never have been voted in even if all the voters had been on a three day blinder and were short of hair of the dog?
Western Australia, come on down with (drum toll)
Senator the Hon Mathias Cormann, our Finance Minister.
You get the nuclear waste, with six senators and one of them the man who has not stopped Joe Hockey from screwing up our economy.
Sorry Bilbo, but you have got Gina’s Rock Poetry, so you are compensated.
BB @ 1304
I cannot think of any measure on which this is not the worst government in my lifetime and possibly the worst since Federation. They are a parody of ‘Yes! Minister’. Sadly, though, they are not a TV program.
TPOF@1306
They are not merely presiding over the de-industrialisation of
Australia, they are actively promoting it.
They are a bunch of saboteurs.
I call it treason.
[Yep Jones says the brawl has only began. Unless of course, Abbott and Baird stop the project from proceeding]
the market will stop it proceeding – to it’s full planned extent anyway. coal investment and use is in decline, and international targets from Paris will mean most of this stuff stays in the ground. I find it funny/sad that Hunt uses taxpayers funds to pay farmers to build ‘soil carbon’ in the upper 30cm, so as to allow digging up and burning of 100m of fossil carbon. burning one tonne of coal will require about 300-350 sq m of land to have a 1% increase in soil carbon for perpetuity – i.e. for every tonne you need to find another 300-350 sq m of land or an extra 1% of soil carbon. It is impossible to do. we need to both reduce fossil fuel emissions AND build soil carbon and that is what the ETS was doing. Direct action is spending/wasting taxpayers money at a rate of about $30 per second and will do so from now until 2020.
It is tantamount to treason, aided and abetted by a treacherous media.
ABC and Fairfax are little better than Newscorpse – they’re all basically in the propaganda laundering business, some more subtly than others.
[Sadly, though, they are not a TV program.]
I respectfully disagee.
A TV program is EXACTLY what they are… a Reality TV program.
It has all the thrills and spills and accoutrements of a Reality TV show: the promos c/o the media, the cliff hangers, the bad guys, the good guys, the phoney drama and the “must see” episodes.
It even has it own Reality TV spin-off: The Killing Season, complete with re-enactments, suspense and all the rest.
Until youse all realize that the very same people who make Reality TV shows work alongside, and with, political commentators, and influence the way they prepare and present scripts and the way they observe reality – all sound bites, grabs and drama – you can’t see how thoroughly we have been conned by a media that is basically unable to do its job by presenting the truth, so it just makes it up… perfect Reality TV: cheap, nasty, tribal and (at least at present) good enough viewing to keep the punters interested, sort-of.
That is, until a REAL Reality TV show comes along – cooking, renovating, singing, dancing (they are all interchangeable, as they all have the same script, just different sets) – and then they surf channels like Midget Farrelly.
I used to think the punters were subtly sucked in by the media’s techniques, but now I’m not so sure. I’m starting to believe they actually like the idea of someone else – a face on a TV screen, an eminence grise like Laurie Oakes perhaps – doing their thinking for them. Saves all that time which can then be used to put a bet on, or watch the footy (or usually both, simultaneously), or just download some porn.
[I cannot think of any measure on which this is not the worst government in my lifetime and possibly the worst since Federation. They are a parody of ‘Yes! Minister’. Sadly, though, they are not a TV program.]
my parents are in their late 80s and early 90s and they say the same thing. sadly, they also point out that shorten is one of the least inspiring people labor has trotted out since caldwell.
Calwell. Pedant moi?
Seriously this whole “OMG Shorten is so useless” mantra from some green fanboys here is getting real old. It’s just like TBA, I started to just look at user name and skip the whole post because it’s the same thing over and over again.
Whether it is the war on terror or the war on the socialists, Bombardier Bronny is no shrinking violet.
With her fellow Liberal/National helicopter pilots, she has just returned from a sortie that would make the Ride of the Valkyries in Apocalypse Now look like the Flight of the Geriatric Bumblebee.
Bronny got wind of a cache of nine-irons stashed at the left-leaning Clifton Springs Golf Club which, she had on good authority, specialised in providing a service to left-handed players. Bronny now plans to use the nine-irons to good effect at the next session of Question Time.
Look out lefties – Bronny is just about to show you she is a better swinger than even Tiger Woods.
You have heard of Maggie Thatcher, the Iron Maiden, and Johnny Howard, the Man of Steel. Now, sing along with Bronny the Iron Gran, as she intones her version of the old Black Sabbath dirge, “Iron Man”.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=5c5xZFUq04w
I am Iron Gran!
Back from Clifton Springs
With a bag of irons an’ things
Easy to referee
When swinging ‘em in parlee
Tanya and Electric Bill
Outta the House will chase those dills
I’ll use the driver
Send ‘em on their way so fair
I loved the Man of Steel
With lefties Maggie knew how to deal
Yeah all of us three
Show concern for the country
Nobody wants him
He’s just par for the course
Bill can vent his spleen
Outside with those bloody Greens
Now the time is here
For Iron Gran to spread fear
No Opposition is my pledge
When I insert my trusty wedge
Tried to get him
Ambush at the TURC
But Bill was too lively
For those lawyer berks
Heavy irons of lead
Fills my victims full of dread
The lefties outta the House
Iron Gran drives again!
On the whole, what went down worse over there today?
Bill’s carbon tax leak, or Bronnie’s $5,000 chopper flight?
Which story has had the most coverage/gained the most traction?
New thread.