The two-party preferred reading on the BludgerTrack poll aggregate has ticked 0.5% in Labor’s favour for the second week in the row, on the back of a solid improvement for them in the latest fortnightly Morgan result, and a smaller shift on the weekly Essential Research numbers. In fact, the outstanding feature of both polls was the best result in years for the Greens, such that both major parties are little changed on the primary vote, and Labor’s two-party preferred improvement is received second-hand as preferences. Labor is back in majority government territory on the seat projection, thanks to single-seat gains in New South Wales, Queensland, Western Australia and Tasmania.
There is also a new set of leadership ratings courtesy of last week’s small-sample Morgan phone poll, which I now see I neglected to link to, but you can read all about here and here. The BludgerTrack tables show how the results have changed since “last week”, but since the poll was conducted last Monday to Wednesday, it might be better understood as a revised reading of the previous result than a current state of play. In particular, if the Labor national conference made any change to Bill Shorten’s position for better or worse, this poll will not have captured it. In any case, the result adds incrementally to the headlong plunges of both leaders on net approval, but doesn’t make much difference to preferred prime minister.
Otherwise:
• Cameron Atfield of Fairfax reports that a preselection challenge against Teresa Gambaro, the LNP member for the federal seat of Brisbane, has been called off after the intervention of Tony Abbott – which would seem to be rather big of him, as Gambaro had been one of his most vocal critics. The putative challenger was Trevor Evans, chief executive of the National Retail Association and chief-of-staff and campaign director to Peter Dutton during 2010, who was said by an LNP source quoted by Atfield to have “had the numbers”. Not only has Evans been persuaded not to run, he will also serve as Gambaro’s campaign manager.
• The winner of a Tasmanian Greens vote to choose a Senate successor to Christine Milne will be announced today, and the Launceston Examiner for one deems that the party’s former state leader, Nick McKim, is “heavily favoured” to emerge the winner from a field of about ten. Milne has not yet set a date for her departure, but in the final week of the last parliamentary sitting she gave what she said was to be her final Senate speech, so presumably it will be soon. The Greens preselection process has been covered in very great detail by local observer Kevin Bonham.
• Two dubious claims of internal polling to relate, if only because I didn’t want the above items to look lonely. Speaking on Sky News earlier this month, Victorian Liberal Party state president Michael Kroger claimed that “current polling” had support for Jacqui Lambie in Tasmania in the low twenties. The CFMEU also claims polling it has conducted finds a “Nick Xenophon-backed candidate” in Christopher Pyne’s Adelaide seat of Sturt would poll 38% of the primary vote, compared with 30.8% for Pyne and 17.4% for Labor.
[The story is getting boring now.]
Sorry to disappoint, but we’ve only just got through the introduction, buddy.
The characters have been introduced and their strengths and flaws have been illustrated.
The real action hasn’t even started yet 🙂
TBA at 691
Did you feel that way about Slipper when he tried to pay back $900?
CE
Abbott gets that if Bronnie goes, his leadership is diminished. The irony is that is also diminished if she stays
In the Goodes case I think it is impossible to differentiate between those people who are acting because of his race and those who are reacting to someone who seems to be acting as if he is “above” the game. People have always booed those they perceive are acting as if they are above/better than the game. There is a mixture of both here I think.
Personally I don’t believe the sporting field is the place to make political statements regardless of how important the issue is.
People, rightly or wrongly, believe they own the game. It’s part of their culture.
John Alexander actually awake and finally gets one right –
“@jmodoh: ICYMI: John Alexander says Adam Goodes is a great Australian, cheers should drown out boos http://t.co/ty8IbTwN5u @SkyNewsAust #thenation”
TBA
Your fellow RW supporters & commentators don’t seem to be tiring of it nor leaving her alone, perhaps they too see the hypocracy when relating it to Slipper. karma I suspect.
Zugzwang yes!
WWP at 632:
Your post contained some typos but, hopefully, its meaning was not affected.
You wrote . . .
[I must confess . . .]
. . . if you must you must, but surely not here . . .
[. . . this week one thing that has become clear to me . . .]
ah, we are to be privileged to receive a piece of your own recent personal enlightenment . .
[. . . is how much political correct acts as a religion, a fundamentalist cult.]
“Political correctness” acts as a religion? Really?
PC as a concept is usually used in arguments when one side of the argument is seeking to persuade the other side that their opinion is social dogma and not based on a rational consideration of all underlying facts, causes and effects.
To the extent an accusation of PC can be made out it is therefore definitionally a winning accusation in the argument.
Of course, since the accusation if proven is a winning accusation, it is readily used by the unscrupulous (and unthinking) to characterise their opponents.
To the extent a claim of PC is not made out the accusation of PC suffers from the very same vice that the accusation of PC intends to visit upon the recipient. That is, the claim of PC is based on dogma and not rational first principle decision-making.
So when you say . . .
[Only they know ‘good’ behaviour, only they are smart enough to understand the causes of all things. Everyone else is stupid and racist and a sheep they bar (sic) … ]
. . . it is YOU who are making a claim of “I win because the other side is PC”. To actually “win” the rational argument you do need to have, like, at least an argument.
Instead of an argument you post, and if this isn’t a non sequitur I have never met one . . .
[. . . all along achieving what I thought was impossible making Bolt look like the reasonable one.]
So, let me get you right, you think Bolt was made to look reasonable because (you claim) the arguments against him were unreasoned (PC)?
How does this “reasonableness” out of “unreasonableness” work?
Wouldn’t the logical response be to say the whole discussion was childish gibberish or do you find your mind so facile it is swayed by the winning oratory irrespective of its content?
And, if you were persuaded by Bolt, who was made to seem reasonable to you, then why . . .
[I watched Bolt last night, made me very angry, very very angry, but he has been empowered by the cult of self-righteous political correctness that is the only ones with the truth, the only ones with intelligence, the only ones that understand the word.]
. . . did you become very (x3) angry (x2)? Surely your facile mind would be happy to find Bolt reasonable, or do you belong to a cult that says everything Bolt says must be condemned, even when you find it reasonable?
DWH
That is why my original comment. Those that are fighting racism can just cheer for their team and not boo for a while.
This is not saying don’t boo the umpire. This is not even saying don’t boo players. This is saying we know this is affecting one player so lets be respectful of the person and not boo him for a while.
Not all that hard in the stakes of fighting racism I would have thought.
[691
TrueBlueAussie]
It’s too late now. Madame Chopper has disgraced herself and all those who stand with her. For Labor, she is a completely cost-free winner. With no investment of their own, Labor have been awarded many hundreds of thousands votes. The next time an LNP coat is found to have lied, to have pilfered or shirked, this episode will come back to life in the popular memory.
All of Abbott’s vainglorious claims have been exposed. He’s weak. He’s a liar. His ranks are corrupt. He cannot be trusted.
Excellent situation.
I’m sure the right wing trolls do hope we all just move along on Chopper. They know as well as the rest of us that come the first sitting day every last Coalition member in the HOR will be faced with a choice. To vote out Bishop, or to stand up and have their names forever linked with support for rorting and bringing the office of Speaker as well as the entire house into disrepute.
They all made such great play when Labor supported Slipper and Thomson and no doubt believe those stances cost Labor even though Thomson was cut from the party and Slipper was convinced to stand aside. They’ll know in their tiny black hearts that to continue to prop up Bishop will be the height of hypocrisy and cost them even more than it cost Labor because the anger is white hot and has been allowed to fester for so long.
I’m not sure Abbott has enough authority left to force them to eat that shit sandwich and smile about it. If he can still hold them together enough to do so the anger he will unleash on himself will be wonderful to behold.
I’ll need more popcorn.
ratsak
Abbott moved a no confidence motion re Slipper. And whilst it was being debated, Windsor Oakeshott and I believe Albo, went to speak to Slipper to convince him to resign before the vote. Will the same happen to Bronnie?
@MrDTJames: This solves everything. #adamgoodes #auspol http://t.co/eQEZ4M7Z1M
When 7 year olds are losing an argument, they call their opponent something along the lines of ‘poo poo head’. Right wingers call their opponents “Politically Correct”.
I found it so entetaining listening to BCassidy on the Project last night. He was trying to understand why Abbott and Co allowed the Bronnie situation to spiral out of control. Too funny
ratsak
[They know as well as the rest of us that come the first sitting day every last Coalition member in the HOR will be faced with a choice.]
The second day I’d say. The first about Don Randall (you remember the sitting Lib HoR guy that Tones can’t be bothered to take time out to go to his funeral).
Victoria,
TBI is just flying a kite. We’ll hear one of Abbott’s tame media hacks saying it soon.
TBI utterings are a good insight into the day’s Liberal talking points.
It’ll become pretty obvious that Choppergate is NOT boring when Parliament resumes (assuming she’s still in the Chair). What splendours await us! I’ll bet that somewhere Peter Slipper will be chuckling, too. Perhaps he should ring Bronnie and tell her that if she’s charged she might even get off. He did!
The Press Gallery loathe her. Labor loathes her. The people loathe her, all in great majority. The Liberal Party loathes her for the damage her self-indulgence is doing to their ability to get their message out (Remember? This was supposed to be Bill Shorten’s darkest hour? LOL!)
It’s gone way past Bronnie now. It involves Abbott and his inability to resolve the Zugzwang he’s put himself into by seeking patronage. One by one they’re regretting ever having met him. They can join a long line of Abbott patrons who share their buyer’s remorse, including, of course, the Australian people.
The “grown ups” were going to be in charge. People with senior ministerial experience in the Howard government were going to get the nation back on track. They’d be doing anohter lap of the footy field, fixing Labor’s debacles. They declared Australia “Open For Business”, and then set about closing down every business they cast their eyes on, except mining (which looks like doing a good job of closing itself down, anyway).
No more dodgy Speakers. They’d put Standing Orders Savant, Bronwyn Bishop in charge. No more debt. They would borrow responsibly, after removing the debt ceiling and sending the Reserve Bank a “tip” of $8 billion. They thought the rivers of gold would run forever.
Their Surplus fetish got it the wrong way around. Prosperity doesn’t arise from Surpluses. Surpluses arise from prosperity. No prosperity. No Surplus. Poor Joe didn’t understand this very basic concept. Either that or he believed his own publicity.
Netflix has come and established itself despite Abbott and Turnbull’s best efforts to cripple the internet. We don’t need to nobble the all-optical NBN because Foxtel is already defeated (they’re virtually giving it away lately, and when the footy codes get their act together, Foxtel won’t even have sport as a teaser). As far as communications are concerned we are striving for mediocrity and suddenly businesses, including Murdoch’s businesses, are suffering. Abbott, the NBN killer, has done his job and it didn’t work. He’s surplus (that word again!) to requirements.
The malignant old Murdoch himself seems to be getting the idea that disguising a newspaper as a school magazine isn’t working as well as it used to. His sons, more dopey than the old man, but more hip to current trends at least, will try to salvage something. They don’t need Abbott either. Good luck with the TEN Network, lads. You’re gonna need it!
The whole country is basically miserable. The NX Prime Minister, Keyes, can see it, even if we can’t. It would be because Joe Hockey has been trash talking the economy for the last 8 or 9 years would it? Making excuses and blaming others for his own complete and utter hamfistedness? Nah… couldn’t be that.
If Labor passed evey single one of Abbott and Hockey’s infamous cuts, all that would happen would be riots in the streets. We’d be even more miserable. That’s what occurred at the SRC, the seminary, the concrete factory and is now occurring nationwide. These guys – Abbott and Hockey – were only ever second-stringers in the Howard ministry. They made themselves unpopular and couldn’t do their jobs.
Joe failed to sell Work Choices and his Tony’s Tradies scheme has fallen flat. Abbott stuffed up Health and, in doing so, insulted a national ikon, Bernie Banton, a few days before he died. Typical reserve grade performance.
And now they run the country?
Sheesh. no wonder the marginal back benchers are poltting. Even Scott Morrision as PM and Turnbull as Treasurer would be better than this lot.
[711
ratsak]
The LNP party-room is populated with cowards. They will do what they’re told to do. They will be in unctuous unity with the petty thief in the gaudy frock and cement hair-do.
There is another way: players could walk for the field and stay in the changing rooms until the booing stops. Repeat if necessary. It would only take a few players from each side to make it stick. Then the spectators would have a choice: they get to boo a charismatic Aborigine or they get to watch football.
They said on the ABC news this morning that Tony Abbott would be in Perth for Don Randall’s funeral. Fairfax is also reporting that he will attend:
[719
Nicholas
You can’t stop people from booing refs and players unless you ban people from sporting events.
There is another way: players could walk for the field and stay in the changing rooms until the booing stops. Repeat if necessary. It would only take a few players from each side to make it stick. Then the spectators would have a choice: they get to boo a charismatic Aborigine or they get to watch football.]
The players need not leave the field. They could simply stop the match. Just refuse to play at all….throw the ball away and wait. Player solidarity would soon quieten a mob.
[“Then the spectators would have a choice: they get to boo a charismatic Aborigine or they get to watch football.”]
All alternatively don’t show up at all and boycott the games.
Then Adam Goodes won’t be able to afford his new Porsche to park in his garage at his multimillion dollar home and go crying to mum cos the fans don’t like him acting like a knobhead.
Poor Adam… he’s such a victim… what with his fast cars, big house and pool.. why has the whiteman does this to him?
We Want Paul
[I watched Bolt last night, made me very angry, very very angry, but he has been empowered by the cult of self-righteous political correctness that is the only ones with the truth, the only ones with intelligence, the only ones that understand the word.]
I take a different view. Whats ‘politically correct’ in modern Australia is the recognition of Indigenous people as ANZACs (they were wrongly excluded in the past, here are some pictures of them), up and coming parliamentarian, good sportsmen and women etc.
When an indigenous person steps outside the roles the white society decide are the appropriate ways to be a blackfella, they are politically incorrect, and fair game.
Then they get booed, vilified, and the political correctness police, like Bolt, pounce. Autonomous assertion of indigenous identity is not permitted by these types – they claim the right to decide for Goodes what is the right way to be Aboriginal.
IF that ain’t political correctness, I dont know what is.
[They said on the ABC news this morning that Tony Abbott would be in Perth for Don Randall’s funeral. Fairfax is also reporting that he will attend. ]
Probably going to make sure he’s dead.
BC
Yesterday the Press were saying Tones was still doing Pynes book launch.
I wonder what other visit on Perth Tones will arrange to justify the use of the VIP Jet and allowances.
Ah memories . A quote from Tony Abbott 2012 presser where he put the boot into Slipper and called for him to step aside.
[The Speaker is the guardian of parliamentary standards. The Speakership is one of the most important offices in the Parliament………]
I am still trying to get over why on Earth 7.30 had Bolt on last night, as some kind of authority on racism.
Oh, I see…
[ I think it’s high time people leave Bronnie alone. ]
If she wanted to be “left alone” over this issue, she would resign the speakers position.
She appears to be digging in, with Abbott now lending a hand with another shovel. The more he backs her, the more this issue ties into his leadership. He’s making himself more and more an integral part of the joke, and that joke has gone a lot further than being simply a fashionable “leftist” meme.
Brilliant strategy by Captain Chaos wot?? 🙂
TrueBlueAussie@691
You’re dreaming.
abbott’s words back when below – same applies now – with the *Bonus* of abbott sentencing himself and government to a political death of a thousand cuts.
Popcorn!
[ The Speakership is one of the most important offices in the Parliament. The Speaker is there to uphold the integrity of the Parliament …
It’s also very important that the Prime Minister act to ensure the integrity of the Parliament.
The Speaker is only in that office because the Prime Minister used her numbers late last year to install him. The Prime Minister, to uphold the integrity of the Parliament, needs now to require the Speaker to step down until these matters are resolved. It’s also incumbent upon the Australian Federal Police to swiftly investigate the potentially criminal allegations that have been made against the Speaker.
I can’t underestimate the seriousness of this.
The Speaker is required to maintain parliamentary standards and yet there are now these extremely serious allegations against the Speaker himself.
So in order to maintain the respect and the reputation of the Parliament, in order to preserve the integrity of the Government and our institutions, it is very important that the Prime Minister act swiftly to require the Speaker to step aside and it’s very important that the Australian Federal Police quickly investigate these matters so that they can be resolved as soon as is humanly possible.]
[I think it’s high time people leave Bronnie alone. ]
Hear hear ! Preferably left alone way up the back bench.
@themetresgained: “The ritual booing of Goodes clearly evolved from a series of occasions where he confronted racial issues” @nyunggai http://t.co/iSY4LvPgSS
[715
victoria
I found it so entertaining listening to BCassidy on the Project last night. He was trying to understand why Abbott and Co allowed the Bronnie situation to spiral out of control. Too funny]
This episode may turn out to be another inflection point in the short life of the Abbott Government. Because it exposes their character flaws, their lack of judgment, their moral emptiness, the LNP are now clearly unfit for purpose. They have had their second and third and fourth chances to show they have what it takes to govern. Indubitably, they have shown they do not have the grunt. They have forfeited their authority in the pursuit of the trivial.
Vic,
Slipper went because obviously the numbers weren’t going to be there for him. My memory isn’t 100% on it, but I think Albo was also involved letting him know Labor couldn’t pay the price to keep him either.
So the question on Bishop comes down to the same question. Are the Libs and Nats prepared to keep paying the price to keep Bronnie’s snout in the trough? Abbott being the fool he is obviously thinks the cost of cutting her is greater than keeping her. I suspect his party are coming to a very different conclusion and probably contemplating a 2 for 1 deal.
If we get to it there’s a fair chance that Abbott will be told in no uncertain terms that either she goes, or they both go. The chances of this government actually surviving such a egregious up yours to the whole country by trying to tough it out with Bishop still in place must be next to zip.
We’ll obviously know more when the next round of polling comes out and if there’s no movement I could be wrong. But this feels so like the Sir Prince Duke debacle with the added spice of actual rorting of taxpayers money. This is the sort of fiasco that even the most disengaged voters not just notice, but get furious about.
This government and this Prime Minister are in no position to go FU to those people and hope to ride it out. If he tries to, Abbott’s very likely to find himself thrown off the bus and a new driver installed.
This is an excellent article and expression of how things are and should be.
http://www.abc.net.au/news/2015-07-31/afl-boss-mclachlan-calls-on-fans-to-show-leadership-over-goodes/6662566
The other aspect of the whole Bishop saga is the selling of the economic narrative is lost.
This means that it is likely Labor will get to frame the election campaign on the economy.
This is the period governments usually show their mettle on economics after two budgets and trumping their success
I’ve just been breezing quickly through the msm, Choppergate is still going as strong as ever, the public are only getting angrier. If Abbott is foolish enough to allow Bronny to take up the chair upon the resumption of parliament, it will only rub salt into the gaping wound & highlight daily the hypocracy of the situation. What a tangled web he has woven.
I’m wondering if people have yet picked up the significance of Ms O’Dwyer’s call for the Department of Finance investigation into Mrs Bishop’s activities to be made public.
It had been widely assumed that the investigation would be a whitewash. But it’s looking too late for that. And if the senior public servants involved fancy not being shown the door on day one of a new government, it’s now very much in their personal interests to play things absolutely straight. Even if the report isn’t ultimately made public, from now on they have to assume that it might be.
My guess is that the government, and Mr Abbott, know that Mrs Bishop has to go, but that she is insisting on being blasted out. They are too loyal or gutless, take your pick, to do it themselves, and so they have sent, via Ms O’Dwyer, a none-too-subtle message to the public servants that they would actually be quite happy to see the back of Mrs Bishop; and to Mrs Bishop that she would be unwise to rely on being protected from a police investigation.
[
. . . did you become very (x3) angry (x2)? Surely your facile mind would be happy to find Bolt reasonable, or do you belong to a cult that says everything Bolt says must be condemned, even when you find it reasonable?]
You make a number of excellent points. I have argued for and against all manner of things in this issue during the week. I asked a genuine question that only diog had a go at. I didn’t think I was up to expressing my final position and didn’t try.
To me the biggest risk and biggest failure is the forcing of the issue into a with or against mentality. So for example if you like booing at a game, and don’t consider yourself racist, you were challenged this week. I know a number of Eagles members who came out of the game feeling insulted and challenged without having participated in booing.
By the end of the week they and I, if you listen to many here must eschew booing or support bolt. There are no inbetweens no alternates no nauance. As bush said you are either with us or against us. How is bush’s with us or against us thing going for the world.
At the start of the week if you did think the cultural dance was great, but that focusing it on the crowd and having something that looks like a spear throw at the end was a little bit provocative, now have to align with it being absolutely above reproach – and presumably entirely appropriate to aim at umpires during play – or unacceptable.
At the start of the week you could have been a regular booer without any racial motivation who thought Adam’s response to the racist comments of the girl were completely correct even noble, now you have to accept you are a totally racist idiot sheep or bolts explanation that you were right to boo him because he wrongly destroyed the whole life of a young girl.
At the beginning of the week it was totally unthinkable that bolt would be given a national platform on our ABC to defend all booers and launch a nasty attack on goodes, but that is exactly what happened last night.
I accept 290% that there was an issue that needed to be addressed with and for Adam. I accept the AFL should have done more sooner. I don’t think there have been any winners from this week. I think we are in a worse place than this time last week.
Where were all you guys when Warrick Capper was being booed onfield?
Anyways talk of stopping the game because 1 player who nobody likes is getting booed(not because of his race, otherwise other indigenous players would get booed) will just ramp the crowd up even more.
Might see mass boycotts of the games with Adam Goodes.. then whose gonna pay little Adams million dollar contracts?
The more Adam plays victim and spills bile and plays the racism victim card… the more booing he will get. He needs to stop acting like a knobhead, stop playing victim and the booing will stop.
[722
TrueBlueAussie
Poor Adam… he’s such a victim…]
Goodes is not a victim here. He will come through with greater respect and public affirmation. He is a great champion in every way. Those, such as you, who look to make cheap gains at the expense of Goodes and at the expense of clean sport will be the losers.
pedant
[ Even if the report isn’t ultimately made public]
I don’t think that this report can not be made public.
Is July the Winter holiday break for Liberal Tactics HQ? I mean, what on earth can these people be thinking ( they’re certainly not doing anything), Choppergate is spiralling totally out of control.
[article and expression of how things are and should be.
]
If only the afl had said this 10 weeks ago!
[ So in order to maintain the respect and the reputation of the Parliament, in order to preserve the integrity of the Government and our institutions, it is very important that the Prime Minister act swiftly to require the Speaker to step aside and it’s very important that the Australian Federal Police quickly investigate these matters so that they can be resolved as soon as is humanly possible. ]
You know, i can see a situation coming where Tony Burke gets up to speak on this Bronnie situation on Aug 10th and he gets so completely and utterly busted for plagiarism.
I’m sure that the Libs will point it out with gusto and pursue it with passion if that occurs. 🙂
TBA
Do you have to try to be a nasty piece of work or does it come naturually?
CE
[Choppergate is spiralling totally out of control.]
Minus 2 blades on a 4 rotor set.
[I don’t think there have been any winners from this week. I think we are in a worse place than this time last week.]
Very good post WWP and the final comment was spot on.
MTBW
[Do you have to try to be a nasty piece of work or does it come naturually?]
Classic troll.
Charlie Edwards
Spot the difference between Mordor papers and Fairfax. 6 Capital city Mordor papers have no articles re Choppergate in their top five popular articles. Fairfax 4 capital city papers have 2 with Chopper as No.1 and one at No.3 .
[ Choppergate is spiralling totally out of control. ]
BronnieHawk Down in Canberra.