James J in comments relates that the latest Newspoll result has Labor’s two-party lead at 53-47, up from 52-48 a fortnight ago, from primary votes of 40% for the Coalition (steady), 39% for Labor (up two) and 12% for the Greens (down one). However, Bill Shorten’s personal ratings have slumped again, with approval down one to 27% and disapproval up five to 59%, while Tony Abbott’s are unchanged at 33% and 60%. Abbott has also opened up a 39-36 lead as preferred prime minister, after a tied 39-39 result last time.
This is the second Newspoll for The Australian by Galaxy Research, using a combination of automated phone and online polling. It was conducted from Friday to Sunday, with a sample of 1638. Full tables from The Australian here.
UPDATE (Essential Research): Absolutely no change on voting intention in Essential Research this week, which has Labor leading 52-48 from primary votes of 41% for the Coalition, 38% for Labor and 11% for the Greens. The poll also finds 48% expect the current parliament will run its full term, compared with 25% who expect an early election. Further questions find a strong view in favour of renewable energy over coal, and a belief that the government is excessively favouring the latter. Fifty per cent of respondents were of the view that the government should prioritise renewables over coal versus on 6% for the other way around, with 28% opting that both should be treated equally. When asked an equivalent question about the actual position of the government, the respective results were 12%, 49% and 13%. Respondents also came down heavily in favour of gun control, with only 6% deeming current laws too strong and 45% rating them not strong enough, with 40% opting for “about right”.
Play nice, AS.
[So zoomster, what are the real numbers involved? I don’t see anyone in this debate actually making any effort to arrive at concrete numbers. This “repeatedly shown” is simply “repeatedly vaguely suggested”.]
Refugees, asylum seekers and stateless persons in Malaysia 270,000 according to UNHCR at December 2014.
AS
[Nobody is going to spend tens of thousands to get on a leaky fishing boat when they can spend a few hundred to get on a commercial airliner – and that means the business model of people smugglers will be finished.]
They’re not paying for the ride, they’re paying for the likelihood of acceptance.
A much lower percentage of those arriving by plane are accepted compared to those arriving by boat, which is what the people smugglers business model is built on.
@TBA/1299
So how is the economy doing TBA? Coalition Party too weak as a dish water to fix it? All Ords 92 down today, debt implosion, unemployment 6.0%…?
[“TrueBlueIdiot is in typical, shoot-from-the-hip gloating mode again. He can only ever see one side of the ledger:”]
Actually not quite correct, I had to go to The Guardian article to get the truth.
Fairfax… god bless them… somehow missed the amount they were up for on their “winning” article. A cold $1.35 Million in Cash was the number given by The Guardian.
If Fairfax continues to keep “winning” like this they’ll be broke
@It’s Time/1302
So this policy of turning back boats and detention centers is costing the tax payers trillions of dollars, good to know.
DTT @ 1258
I made it clear in the post that you appear to have responded to that I was talking about Immigration and not the Navy that was responsive to the Minister.
cud chewer
AS is the one arguing that we should take as many as we can cope with and then refusing to say what that means.
I’m happy with a rise in the refugee take, preferably with most of them coming from the UNHCR camps.
@ zoom, 1298
Oh, they absolutely were. Do actually read my posts before pretending to understand their content. What was fallacious was your characterisation of my understanding of your policies, not my understanding of your policies. Your policies amount to not caring where asylum seekers die, as long as it’s not on the way to Australia. That that is monstrous is a criticism to which I hold.
How about you come up with a number for how many you seem to believe Australia is capable of taking? I’ve yet to see you do that.
My contention is that that figure is determined based on our political will and hence no fixed number could be named as a matter of course.
I guess that puts you in the majority camp – people willing to wave away policy questions with “oh, that’ll be sorted out”.
14 out of 46 posts now Arrnea.
You are like a broken old vinyl record. No-one is ever going to be convinced by your naive Green-style trolling (I say “style” because I’m not convinced you are a Green or even “of the Left” as Bolt would put it).
If what you wrote had some style, or was occasionally humourous, or said something more than Refugees-Are-The-Only-Topic-Worth-Discussing-In-Australian-Politics-And-I’m-Gonna-Do-That-Until-I-Drive-Everyone-To-Bed, people might take note of what you say.
As you don’t. They won’t. It’s quite simple really.
“Stormbringer” is right. You’re a storm in your own teacup.
[@It’s Time/1302
So this policy of turning back boats and detention centers is costing the tax payers trillions of dollars, good to know.]
What on earth are you talking about?
Zoomster @1273
[No – in the majority of cases – we’re sending them back to Indonesia (where it is safe to do so).]
Actually, depending on where they land they are being locked in Indonesian prisons. Indonesia has no official refugee assessment process and the UNHCR is only funded to process about 500 people a year, the people we are turning back are likely rotting in an Indonesian prison and who knows what is happening to them.
The most frustrating thing about this whole argument is Labor could have dealt with it easily when the first lot of new boats started to arrive under Rudd by processing people in Indonesia and quietly resettling them in Australia. At the time there was about 1500 registered refugees and about 10,000 unregistered. We could have resettled all of them under the humanitarian program quickly and quietly without all the press attention or lives lost at sea.
Oh TBA & Joe’s big win …getting 15% of costs on an ordinary basis ( around 60% of actual costs) means Joe won’t recover the 10% GST he paid, ironic don’t you think?
What is with the left and self selection of our refugee spots?
We’ll fill the 13,500… thank you very much… from the camps at Australia’s leisure, not by self selection via people smuggler.
AS
[Your policies amount to not caring where asylum seekers die, as long as it’s not on the way to Australia.]
Incorrect.
Now, when I characterised what you were saying in this way, you said I was being offensive.
Your characterisation of anyone who disagrees with your particularly silly solution as being monstrous or murderous is just as offensive.
[How about you come up with a number for how many you seem to believe Australia is capable of taking? I’ve yet to see you do that.]
50,000 a year seems about right. Pushes the envelope a little but we can cope with that.
[My contention is that that figure is determined based on our political will and hence no fixed number could be named as a matter of course.]
Yet you have argued in the past that the number should be limited to how many we can process and cope with socially.
So there’s a number there somewhere.
Re TBA @1291: andJoe Hockey is about 650K out of pocket. Not even a pyrhic victory, more like a loss. The only winners, as is so often is the case, are the lawyers.
I don’t know why we have defamation laws. They are irrelevant to the overwhelming majority of citizens. They certainly provide no protection. For the most part, they provide a means for moneyed interests to silence their critics. They also serve to protect the stupid, venal and incompetent among the rich and powerful.
@ WB, 1301
I apologise to you, but I will not apologise to Bill’s self-righteous pontificating on the nature of my posting here.
@ It’s Time, 1302
A number that Australia could easily manage if it had the political will to do so.
@ zoom, 1303
There’s no causation between method of arrival and legitimacy of claim, it’s just a correlation because of the limited options available to asylum seekers. If an AS truly desperate for protection has the choice between a risky, expensive boat trip and a safe, cheap plane trip with the same outcome awaiting them at the end of either trip, they’ll pick the plane.
Still waiting for a number on how many refugees you seem to think we can handle. Without such a number in mind, you have no basis to call my policy unrealistic.
zoomster #1273
[No – in the majority of cases – we’re sending them back to Indonesia (where it is safe to do so).]
Indonesia’s detention center’s aren’t exactly ‘safe’.
http://www.insideindonesia.org/life-and-death-in-immigration-detention-2
@zoomster/1308
“AS is the one arguing that we should take as many as we can cope with and then refusing to say what that means.”
How is this any different to those who come here legally, roughly 200,000 per year come here legally, at the expense of tax payers still (department of immergration).
http://www.abs.gov.au/ausstats/abs@.nsf/mf/3412.0/
Argument defeated.
sceptic,
I just make note that Fairfax posts one sided articles and didn’t include how much money they wasted on the court case, yet went into fine detail about Hockeys costs. Tis interesting don’t you think seeing you’d think they would best know how much money they’ve lost?
Alan Shore
doesn’t match with what I’ve been reading recently, but prison is still not death, which was the other AS’s contention.
@ zoom, 1315
How so? Your policy is to turn away people who are seeking asylum, without regard to what awaits them when they get to wherever you’ve shoved them. I’d say my assessment of it is on the mark – you just don’t like what that implies about you.
Is that just a gut feeling, or do you have something to back that up. We have the capacity to handle more – the question is whether we have the political will.
Something which is determined entirely by how much political will to resettle refugees exists. Consider how many refugees we took in after World War 2 – and with a much smaller population and economy (not to mention a much more homogeneous society) than we have today.
zoid
Yeah, you got me there.
(Much easier than trying to work out what zoid’s post is about…)
AS is the one arguing that we should take as many as we can cope with and then refusing to say what that means.
How about you contribute to the debate and tell us how many people you think this country can take in on a process in Indonesia and if legitimate then fly here, basis. We could in theory take a few million people. And the number of people who could want to be resettled here might never amount to that, even if we were so generous.
missed brackets again
I thought Bill did very well in the interview, although there were still a few aahs that need to go.
As for the AS issue, if he gets rolled on that at the conference it will almost certainly mean another three years of Abbott. It’s as simple as that.
Some here need to make up their minds if they would prefer a shot at government, or a policy that cannot be implemented because the Australian people just won’t vote for it.
TBI, continuing his patent form of idiocy:
[If Fairfax continues to keep “winning” like this they’ll be broke]
I’ll keep it simple:
1. Fairfax has hundreds and undreds of millions of dollars, and they have defamation insurance. They can afford it.
2. Hockey has a few million, and has no insurance. He may be able to afford it, but $700,000 is still a lot of money for a private citizen to pay out to serve his vanity and save his reputation. Next time he should try a right-of-reply article, or goinv on TV and having a footrub interview from Uhlmann or Sales to clear the air. Much, MUCH cheaper.
3. Hockey is paying more money – nearly three times as much – as he was awarded.
4. That is a losing game no matter which way you put it.
Hockey won his damages on the basis of the few people who might drive by a banner outside a newsagency, but not read the article. That was 3 out of 15 counts of alleged defamation. He made a lot of trouble for everyone and a lot of money for lawyers on bith sides by throwing a typical Hockey tantrum.
In the cold light of day, once the euphoria of his “win” has died down, he now has to find $700,000 to pay out.
If you reckon that’s a win, just because it’s less than the Fairfax payout – and they CAN afford it – you only confirm what an utter idiot you really are, and what utter idiots the party you support are for letting Joe Hockey within coo’ee of the national purse.
Any business that invests a million dollars for a $300,000 return is a losing business, no matter which way you look at it.
AS
no, I dislike your dismissal of posters here – not just myself – who I know are genuinely grappling with the issues.
But I’m with BB on this, and much as I’d like to stick around and cater to your acute sense of burning martyrdom, I think I’ll go and play some solitaire.
[@ It’s Time, 1302
Refugees, asylum seekers and stateless persons in Malaysia 270,000 according to UNHCR at December 2014.
A number that Australia could easily manage if it had the political will to do so.]
Perhaps you could research the number of official and unofficial refugees in Malaysia, Indonesia, Jordon, Lebanon, Turkey, Pakistan who would also be eligible under your “fly in” scheme.
OK Zoomster et al
Can you please explain to me the moral and ethical difference in these two scenarios:
Two families one very wealthy and one comfortable but not rich. They each have sons who are indicating they are or may become gay. They live in Iranian Kurdistan
Family 1 who is very wealthy arranges for the son to become a student in Australia where he flies in and lives comfortably for 6 years until he can get a permanent job and thence to residency. His family being very wealthy is able to pay the $50,000 per year for this option.
Family 2: Cannot afford $300,000 for student fees but they can scrape together $20,000 for a people smuggler. As a gay Kurdish boy he can claim refugee status on grounds of ethnicity and sexual preference.
Why do we welcome the very rich boy but not the other.
Fairfax needn’t worry about their loss it’s tax deductible while for Joe his loss is cold hard cash.
Another win like that for Joe & he’ll have to live in his own garage instead of renting it out to his LNP mates.
Zoomster, your not much better in dismissing other posters, especially with your pretending to not understand other posters.
@It’s Time/1329
It’s quiet easy to attack another poster thinking they don’t have the solution, when tuning back boats is never working solution, since the debate about Asylum Seekers is still going after all these years.
@ It’s Time, 1329
For several of these countries you mention, Australia is not the closest Refugee Convention signatory.
Notice how most of the asylum seekers coming to Australia on boats are from Myanmar, Sri Lanka and Afghanistan (with some from Iran)?
Good night
cud chewer
I gave you a number.
I don’t think – as I’ve said before – that taking refugees from Indonesia is a good solution. The UNHCR doesn’t rate refugees in Indonesia very higly on their list when it comes to resettlement, which is why we take so few presently. Unless it’s part of a regional solution, which sees successfully asylum seekers settled in one of a number of countries in our region, not just Australia or New Zealand (and if safety is their primary concern, that shouldn’t be a worry).
I’m trying to get my head around Greens thought process.
Why do we need to take refugees from the region? Why would it matter if we took a refugee from say… a dusty camp in Africa versus Indonesia? Does proximity somehow make the coddles of Greens hearts warm up?
@ dtt, 1330
I would rather let both of them have the option of paying maybe a thousand dollars to get on a commercial airliner to Sydney airport and claim asylum at Customs.
AS
[For several of these countries you mention, Australia is not the closest Refugee Convention signatory.]
So we’re going to send back AS who come here by plane on the basis of which country they’ve come from, now?
Let me guess that Labor is going to build more prisons too?
[I apologise to you, but I will not apologise to Bill’s self-righteous pontificating on the nature of my posting here.]
It’s not self-roghteous pontification, it’s utter boredom.
I haven’t read any of your posts (I read a few the other night and that was enough). I just counted them,asproof that if you get on your hobby horse there’s no shutting you up.
As I advised, try a little levity, some humour here and there, give and inch occasionally, use the language to convince people, not to bludgeon them and you might be appreciated a little more.
The topic of refugees is a dead issue in Australia. Whether you like that or not, it’s a fact.
For Labor to revive it as a counterpoint would be awfully stupid.
If they win government those people on Nauru and on Manus at least have a chance of some kind of decent treatment. If Abbott wins again it’ll be taken as a vindication of his every slogan, crackpot idea and bullying actions against those people.
Labor is not about to die in a ditch and throw the baby out with the bathwater by going against 70% of the Australian people on this. You are dreaming, Arrnea Whatsername.
CC @1325:
[How about you contribute to the debate and tell us how many people you think this country can take in on a process in Indonesia and if legitimate then fly here, basis.]
Australia’s isolation provides a natural brake on the number of people who could trigger our protection obligations at any one time. We could easily take 20,000 to 30,000 refugees per year with a consequent reduction in the skilled migration intake if need be. A proper regional solution would also look at transit pathways, especially the giant hole in the net which is Malaysia. Simple things like assisting Malaysia to improve their customs and boarder controls would do a lot to stem the flow of asylum seekers.
Also, not starting unnecessary and illegal wars would help.
TBA
Last thing. Fairfax are thanking Joe for all that free publicity & allowing them to appear the defenders of transparent democracy. While Joe confirms himself to be a precious idiot.
Those PBers who don’t like Labor’s AS policy ..who ya gunna vote for? ..LNP? ..Greens? ( where will your second pref go?)
Get real ..the AS debate is over!!
[Family 1 who is very wealthy arranges for the son to become a student in Australia where he flies in and lives comfortably for 6 years until he can get a permanent job and thence to residency. His family being very wealthy is able to pay the $50,000 per year for this option. ]
My understanding is that a student visa doesn’t entitle one to employment or permanent residence.
1327
Fairfax can still appeal the 3 counts they lost on can`t they?
I believe they may wish to on precedent grounds, so that they can continue putting their headlines on posters and in tweets without being taken to court.
@ zoom, 1339
Again with the putting words in my mouth. That’s one too many times you’ve done that – welcome to my ignore list.
It’s been said that a media outlet will easily cover the cost of a defamation suit, including damages, with increased circulation and advertising if the defamatory publication is high-profile (which the North Sydney Forum story certainly was).
[For several of these countries you mention, Australia is not the closest Refugee Convention signatory.
Notice how most of the asylum seekers coming to Australia on boats are from Myanmar, Sri Lanka and Afghanistan (with some from Iran)?]
so limit your research to those sources. How many official and unofficial refugees would be eligible for your “fly in” policy?
[ So Bill and Friends are now promising to turn back the boats… ]
No TBA they are not. But i can understand that a dribbling and apparently illiterate moron like yourself would like think so.